"I understand." His hand injury had required quite a fancy bandage the last time she had seen him. It wasn't hard to tell that would have been quite a handicap on him even without the increase of institute creatures from the night before. "At least it looks like you'll have better luck tonight, given the nice recovery."

Ilia hesitated a moment, taking another bite of her sandwich to stall for time. Talking with Anise about her excursion last night had not produced the result she had expected. She didn't want to distress anyone else, but lying didn't seem like the right route either.

Swallowing, Ilia decided to just be honest. Claude was older than Anise. He could probably handle her news objectively. "Oh, I did a lot of legwork yesterday. Made it to that basement. Getting that sword and shield was a piece of cake!"

That last statement was said with a little more enthusiasm than necessary, but she wanted Claude to understand that she hadn't been in any danger. Well, technically she had been in relatively grave danger twice, but she and the kids had come out relatively unscathed thanks to their experience. There was no need for him to worry needlessly about what had already come to pass after all.