No matter how I phrased it, the words sounded too needful—as though I somehow didn’t realize Thom had troubles of his own to deal with on his travels, and with him so far from the city, there was nothing in particular he could even do for me. It was just my luck to find someone at last in whom I felt comfortable confiding, only to see him leave Thremedon almost immediately after we’d been introduced. If it hadn’t been so sad, it would have made an excellent joke. Dear Thom, my current missive read, I really would appreciate your advice … But that was too abrupt, I thought, without any mention of his health, or Rook’s health, or how they were both holding up after their unexpected and nearly fatal adventure. I crumpled the eleventh page swiftly and tossed it into the corner with the rest of them, then pinched my brow too hard with my clumsy fingers. Since we were friends, I tried to reason with myself, a simple task like this one really shouldn’t have been so difficult. He overthought things himself, to some extent—one of the many points of personality on which we came together—but he did manage to write letters despite it, asking for help or simply wishing to hear my opinion on matters both important and trivial.
