He laughed and reached up with his free hand to rub his ear before he took back the bottle. Thalion thought keeping her arm hostage was a lot like picking up an alley cat; although he'd never had a cat bite his ear before. Taking the bottle, he set it on the sand beside him for a moment and let her go. He often wondered how exactly a circus performer (and how she loathed to have him describe her former lifestyle that way) became such a cutthroat at such a young age. Many men did not think of Orchid as young, but he wasn't a human. When he was twenty four, he was a brat trying to survive a tragedy. Nothing close to a self-sufficient thief in the desert.
The long-lived races often looked down their noses at human beings. Thalion, on the other hand, admired them. Not that he would ever tell Orchid that. There were things couldn't discuss with someone who would sell the coins off his dead corpse, if it came to it.
"I doubt I can get you to do any better tonight," Thalion said to her. It was as close to saying "yes" as he would get. He picked up the bottle and drank from it. "Though you might want to change your policy when we walk West. We'll have to get close to Astarii to access the paths to Kveldsigr; I heard the country's beauty is failing."
There would also be a great deal of climbing to enter Kveldsigr. But he wouldn't think of bringing her along, if she couldn't manage herself.