"What happened?" Ippolit asked, before he could restrain himself. One thing he had learned from experience was, while people often said that all questions were welcome, in practice, they very rarely meant it. "Did the hornets attack you?"

A stupid question, he knew, even as he asked it. Hornets stung. It was part of what made them hornets. It was how you lived, when you were a small thing in a world full of belligerent large things, with no camouflage to speak of.

"Them?" Rakitin glanced back at the guards.

The decision was made before he was aware there was a choice.

"They can be trusted."