The guest room is slightly cramped and sparsely furnished, bearing only a cot and small chest for personal effects, but Anli doesn't seem to mind.  She thanks Sergeant Wick once again before he steps out to leave her to her thoughts, and after getting undressed and storing her belongings in a neat pile, she lays back on the bed and listens to the rain.<br/><br/>The shock and torrent of grief from earlier give way to a dull, vague emptiness, leaving Anli mentally fatigued yet unable to sleep.  For an inestimable amount of time she lies on the uncomfortable cot, turning over onto one side or the other, fidgeting with the light fabric of her shift, pushing a strand of hair out of her face.  Her mind wanders, exploring memories and possibilities, and realizes she couldn't remember the last words she exchanged with Varen.  Did she ever really let him know how grateful she was?  She recalled him promising once, half in jest, that if she ever started giving the young men the time of day and got married, he would walk her down the aisle.  That was now a promise that could never be kept, a strand of fate that had been cut short like so many others.<br/><br/>Anli turns onto her back and catches a glimpse of the rafters as they are briefly illuminated by distant lightning.  It was typically times like these, in the small hours of the night when she felt alone and weak, that the voice in her head -- the Whisperer, she calls it in her private thoughts -- came to her, but tonight it remains remarkably silent.  After a while, her thoughts fade seamlessly into a dreamless sleep.<br/><br/>The next morning, after dressing and sharing breakfast with the men of the Watch, Anli follows Private Bustol out to Varen's house, staying close to him and being mindful of her coin-purse as they weave through the crowded streets.  The faint smell of parchment and pipe smoke within the old house's interior becomes a bit more pronounced as the two of them enter the study, and Anli walks along slowly, taking in her old home as she remembered it for possibly the last time.  It came as little surprise that her late guardian left his book collection to her; she would often spend long evenings after supper in her room, immersed in some bit of literature or another.  She browses the titles briefly -- mostly treatises on history or culture, with a few novels and folk tale collections in the mix, some she has already read, some she hasn't.<br/><br/><strong>"So ... how did you find him?"</strong>Anli says to Bustol, as she picks up a small, unfamiliar book bound in red leather.  Turning it over in her hands and finding no apparent title or author, she opens it curiously.