It took them most of an hour to reach the Steward's landing, and by the time they got there, the grey light coming through the crack in the wall had begun to turn pale.
He hadn't moved. He was sitting on the top step with his knees drawn up and his grey coat wrapped around them, and the small lantern stood on the stone beside him, next to the tray of bread and water that Rose's replacement had carried across the courtyard at midnight. His face was more lined than it had been in the throne room, and his hair was almost white now.
He looked up as they came round the last turn, and his eyes went over all of them, the Knight and the assassin and the martial artist and the mage, and then the tiny pink-and-white rabbit sitting on Nathan's shoulder. They stayed there longest.
"You climbed faster than I did," he said. "The first time, it took me three nights."
"You had nobody to throw the guardians off the stairs for you," Nathan said.
"No," the Steward said. "I didn't have anybody."
