I had counted four.
Three on his left hand by Sunday night. A fourth on his right by Thursday morning—a thin auburn band with a vine on it that leaned, very slightly, toward any plant in the room. He hadn't hidden them. Master didn't hide things from me, as a rule; he simply didn't mention them, and waited to see whether I would.
I didn't.
I noticed everything else, as I always did. That Lady Rachel had started wearing gloves to breakfast. That Her Highness had started wearing them too, and that the two of them had spent an entire meal not looking at each other's hands with tremendous dignity. That Lady Seraphina had come back from the East with her ears pink and stayed pink for two days. That Lady Rose had arrived at Vakrt on Thursday with soil under her fingernails and hummed through an entire budget meeting, and nobody on the board had dared ask why.
I noticed, and I wrote none of it down, and I was happy for them.
