I do this fer ye - fer true friendship means 'elpin' anooth'r. Despoite discomfor', despoite fear. I loove ye loike a sist'r and I am o' 'appy 'o aid ye in this.
Touch of a brigand's callused, work-hardened hand upon hers. Tension spills out of the girl's muscles and knuckles. Everyone — everyone — second-guessed Gloria's intentions, ideas, or strategies, never thought of them as much more than destructive or impulsive. But never Ailova. Ailova, even if she'd doubted, had never given life to the sentiment: she'd always believed, perpetually trusted. Gloria's face, Sun-blackened and thick, breaks wide with a smile. The trust warms her like a fire in the pit of her stomach.
"I'd be nobody without you."
The wine is poured. Korressa sprinkles a dash of the curious mixture into its surface. The drink grows thick and spotty.
And with the brigand's and seamstress' eyes upon her, the Northerner drinks.
This would be done. Tonight, this would be done, and she'd leave nothing to the unreliability of fortune. As soon as Korressa returns the sliver of wood, Gloria turns it back to the woman in her thick hand and forcefully presses it against the Northerner's wrist, grinding the moldering bit of bark against the skin, her stare snarling take it, take it, and her breath coming out in short, staccato blasts through her gritted teeth. "We surrender nothing to chance," the seamstress retorts, her accent flooded with impatience. "You hold this wood. I did not bring it for — for mere decoration. Do you understand me?
"It lets us keep ourselves. Our thoughts, our minds, our — our awareness. Your mixture's sole purpose is that we dream simultaneously. The wood—" by whatever uncanny imbuing or power in its age-befouled grain, "—keeps us whole. Ourselves. When you wake in the other world, you wait for us, Korressa. You wait."
Vile nausea twists in the middle of her stomach. Fear. Discomfort. Unknowing. Would this succeed?
She steps back away from the Northerner, retrieves her tankard of wine, and raises it to Ailova.
"When we know she sleeps, we drink together. In for a penny," she says, stealing a phrase she's heard tossed about the avenues.
So they wait.