Despite his efforts to eat like he normally would, Crow found it difficult to stomach his breakfast, so he ate more delicately than usual. He was still clinging to the hope that no one would notice he was acting differently, since Cedric didn’t know him well enough to be familiar with his habits and Penelope had been out late with him and would have known he didn’t get much sleep the night before. However, that hope was quickly dashed when he felt the knight press her leg against his beneath the table.

He knew she was probably doing so as a means to try and comfort him, but instead the gesture only served to confirm that she had noticed something was wrong with him. He knew her well enough to expect that meant she was going to question him about it as soon as she had the chance. His eyes flicked to Cedric across the table, as he was suddenly glad the nobleman was sitting with him. He didn’t feel like talking about the reason why he was acting differently, and as long as the other man was there, Penelope couldn’t bring up the subject.

Unfortunately, the wall that Cedric unknowingly provided didn’t last long. As the noble announced that he needed to go to his guard post, Crow cursed inwardly. For a moment, he toyed with the idea of saying that he needed to go to his lesson, so he would have an excuse to leave too, but he knew it would look strange if he left a half-finished plate of food behind. He hadn’t had much motivation to eat, so he’d been working on his breakfast too slowly to outpace the others.

Now alone with Penelope, he glanced at her furtively. As he’d expected, she wasted no time in asking him if he was alright. The viceroy shifted uneasily in his seat. He didn’t want to talk about his nightmare, but he also didn’t want to lie to her—especially when it hadn’t been that long ago that his lies had nearly gotten her killed by Jaxon. While he doubted there could be any serious repercussions to keeping a dream secret, he didn’t want to bring up past hurts by telling her that he was fine when he clearly wasn’t.

“Yes and no,” Crow answered her after a pause, absently poking at the food on his plate. “To be honest, I’d rather not talk about it… but you don’t need to worry.” He looked up from the table to meet her gaze sincerely. “It’s nothing important. I’ll be fine.” It was a truthful enough response in his opinion. It [i]had[/i] just been a bad dream. Nothing was wrong with him aside from the fact that he’d gotten a little shaken up by it. He didn’t want her to overreact and think that it was worse than it really was.

Beneath the table, he reached for her hand and gave it a quick squeeze, hoping the gesture would be enough to show her that he was alright and convince her not to press him to tell her more.