It was an entirely professional response, Morwenna noted with a pang of doleful pride in her protégé. The sort of calm, reasonable tones she had schooled the younger woman in during their years of working together and something she had always encouraged in all her staff, for all that some of them listened to her.

Elinor had listened. Morwenna would have expected nothing less though it pained to her think that the younger woman would probably never listen to her again: the worst part was that she couldn’t truly blame her for that.

“Please do whatever you feel you must,” she replied, finally feeling well enough to reach for her walking stick and push herself to her feet. She didn’t wobble, didn’t fall, and clung on tightly with the hand not attached to a bleeding wound, instead tucking that inside her robes. “It’s terribly unfair of me I know but I shall put myself in your hands.”

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MJ knows my soul rings to the rune of this iconic hat