"Can we wait a bit before deciding? A few days? For me to grieve my girlfriend?" Who died because of you, she doesn't say.

"We have longer than that anyway. The negotiation of rules for the contest for Lordship is tomorrow, and the war itself will take time."

She covers her face with both hands and rubs her temples with her index fingers. "Do we need to stay here while we wait or can we take a short vacation in JB?"

"We can be anywhere."

"Good. Now I need some sleep."

He leaves her be instead of doing the familiar-guarding-the-practitioner thing. Either he has somewhere he'd rather be or it sank in that she considers it harm to be around him.

And she can sleep. And hopefully make a miraculous recovery by the next day. Maybe.

She remembers Bob and spends a bit contemplating it and its obvious magicness before falling asleep.

Bob is, if not understanding, at least inoffensive. It does nothing at all to stop Sadde sleeping.

Oh good, this day can finally end, it feels like it's been going on for like eight months by now.

She’ll wake up to, well, a hospital room. It’s like every other. Except the repeated questions to dodge about how exactly she got injured; those are pretty her-specific. 

She has years of experience dodging that, and these people aren't even practitioners or her father.

They also don’t threaten anything worse than writing down “patient declined to answer.”

Checking out would be, not exactly advisable, but she’s not going to implode. At least not medically.

Oh good. Out Sadde is, and today is a boy day.

Does Johannes mind overmuch if Sadde asks to stay over at his place for a bit while Sadde licks his wounds? And can Johannes procure a dog house?

Not at all, and definitely. Sadde can stay as long as he needs.

He does ask where Sadde is planning on going after Toronto, but tries not to imply there’s any hurry. 

Sadde hasn't decided yet and needs to process. He does want to go to Montreal to at least say hi to the Lord there and see how money's going, but after that he really doesn't know.

When can Johannes teleport them?

As soon as they’re together and out of sight...which come to think of it was probably already a safe assumption...okay, now. 

“How are you holding up?” he asks. 

"Probably about as well as I realistically could. Not very."

“It’ll get easier. Maybe not better. But easier. You could try, concentrate on having a plan and doing things, that might help?”

"I... will. At some point. Probably. I just—" He shuts his eyes and presses the heels of his hands into them. "Need time."

“Yeah. I’m sorry.”

He shrugs uncomfortably and lowers his hands, breathing out slowly. "Can we talk?" He glances at Conquest, then adds, "Privately?"

"You do realize we're partners now, like it or not."

"And very much not personal friends," Johannes argues. "If it helps, you'd probably enjoy checking out what I've done with my demesne more than being here, especially the area a few blocks northeast."

"Fine." Conquest manages to take the implication about an enormous demesne in stride, and stalks off.

And when he's gone: "I need to apologise. I—I've been thinking about some stuff that I've done and..."

“None of what Conquest did was your fault. You do know that, right?”

"Yeah, it's—it's not about that. It's from before that."