Letters
My dearest Wren,
I am writing this as you sleep in your chair beside the fire. When is the last time you have slept? I suspect it has been some time if you have fallen asleep in my presence.
I have come across several items of note in your brother’s journal. But I have also discovered rather intimately his love for you.
You did not tell me what you discerned from the journal beyond the Wall and the tunnels, so I thought I could dictate his messages to you in case you could not make sense of them. I have done so on the following page.
Before you read his words, I thought I could lift your spirits with a story about the first and only time I fell asleep around Finn.
We were fourteen years of age. I was studying in the library, and Finn was pretending to study next to me.
I had worked late into the night, as I often do, and as such I fell asleep atop the tome I was reading.
When I awoke, it was to a chorus of giggles from a few maids who were cleaning the castle library.
I demanded to know why they were laughing.
They informed me that Finn had stolen his mother’s rouge and eye kohl.
He’d covered my face in paint. Since then, I’ve made it a point to lock Finn out of any room I am studying in late at night.
There. Now that you are surely laughing, you may go on and read the next page. And whenever your heart feels heavy, you can think of my embarrassment and find joy in it.
Yours,
Castien