Matilda held her daughter tighter and didn't respond.
Jake crossed the courtyard and positioned himself between Kunther and the Linnam women without announcing that he was doing it. Just moved until his body was in the way of the direct line between his ninth brother and the girl Kunther had come here to take.
Kunther looked at him with the patient attention of someone willing to explain something to a person who didn't understand the situation yet.
"Move," he said.
It sounded almost gently, the way you spoke to someone who had wandered into the road without noticing traffic.
"This doesn't involve you, Jake. You've been in Roakan for what—a month? You don't understand how things work here yet. You don't understand how I work."
He tilted his head. "I'm not going to hurt you over this. You're new. You don't know better."
"Those guards," Jake said.
"Obstacles," Kunther said.
"They put their hands on their weapons when I came through the gate. That was their choice."
