Chapter 24: Where the heart is really attached, I know very well how little one can be pleased with the attention of any body else.

“What do you mean, we can’t come in?”

This is why Aures despises the mainland. Well, London, to be exact. Parisians have substance, decorum. They understand matters of the heart sometimes cannot adhere to the mundanity of municipal duty.

“There’s a bit of a situation, Miss,” the portly, and rather dense, man at the door says.

Aures rolls her eyes, her frayed temper getting the better of her. She’s quite ready to chew up and spit out this poor excuse for a human, when she feels a warm hand on her arm.

Lilliana’s soft, dark gaze gives her pause, and she takes a step back, letting her kinder friend deal with the obstruent idiot.

“Sir, please,” Lilliana uses her sweetest voice, hobbling forward on her crutch. “The source of the commotion upstairs is my friend’s brother. We’re from Alderney and have just been through an air-raid. We only wish to retrieve him from the building and calm him down.”