“Keep your elbows in!" Sturmhond berated Mal. "Stop flapping them like some kind of chicken."
Mal let out a disturbingly convincing cluck.
Tamar raised a brow. "Your friend seems to be enjoying himself."
I shrugged. "Mal's always been like that. You could drop him in a camp full of Fjerdan assassins, and he'd come out carried on their shoulders. He just blooms wherever he's planted."
"And you?"
"I'm more of a weed," I said drily.
Tamar grinned. In combat, she was cold and silent fire, but when she wasn't fighting, her smiles came easily. "I like weeds," said said, pushing herself off from the railing and gathering her scattered lengths of rope. "They're survivors.”