“I like that whiskey stuff?!” said Rory, sitting up.
Kehinde eyed him as if trying to decide whether his insouciance was an act that disguised a razor-sharp mind and will, or if he was exactly as he seemed. “The name is a code to show you are part of our organization.”
“Wait,” I said. “Why Bran Cof?? Where do you mean to send us?”
“There is an academy in Adurnam. Its headmaster will shelter you.”
Bee slanted a glance at me, and I scratched my left ear, and Rory stood to stretch with an exaggerated yawn, because he understood we were speaking with gestures, warning each other and him. Bee and I had attended the academy for over two years. We knew the headmaster well. We had trusted him. When Bee had stayed behind in Adurnam after her parents and family fled on a ship bound for Gadir, she had gone to him for shelter. And he had turned her over to the custody of Amadou Barry, whose home had been a gilded cage that dazzled Bee until the legate made his insulting proposal, offering to make Bee his mistress. But Kehinde and Brennan didn’t need to know any of that.
I took a step back to leave the stage to Bee. With her black curls, rosy lips, and big brown eyes, she looked entirely adorable and innocent and trusting. “It is so generous of you to take an interest in us. But you know the risks we face. The factions hunting us. Why help us?”
Kehinde extended a hand, and to my shock Bee handed her the knife. The professor used the tip to investigate the ranks of sliced parsnips. “It is quite remarkable how evenly they are each sliced, as if each cut were measured beforehand by something other than your eye. Unless you find an isolated barbaric village, perhaps in the wilds of Brigantia”-she glanced at Brennan-“you must see you have entered the conflict whether you wish to or not. If it is true your dreams reflect a cryptic vision of the future-and I assure you I will need evidence-then you will never be let alone. Never. I am no different than anyone. I can think of ways to employ your gift to benefit the cause I cherish. But I will only ever approach you as a partner, and you will be free to leave our association at any time. It is your decision.” She set down the knife.
“What about your alliance with the general?” I asked.
Brennan smiled wryly. “Harsh conditions make for odd bedfellows. Our organization has its own reasons for considering an alliance with the general.”
I nodded. “That makes sense. He’s a soldier. You’re only radicals. He must be better able to fend off princes and mages than you are.”
“You will have to decide whether swords and rifles, or words and ideas, are more likely to win the day,” said Kehinde.
“I’m all for swords and rifles,” I said.
“Do not discount the power of words and ideas,” she said with a smile I dearly wished I could trust. “Their touch seems soft at first, but you’ll find it can be lasting.”
“Well, then,” said Bee. “We’ll take you up on your offer. We’ll leave right away.”
Rory collected the two bags as I pulled on my riding jacket, coat, and gloves.
“I’ll arrange for someone to escort you across the city who knows the backstreets to keep you out of sight of the militia,” said Brennan. “And may I ask, what is in the bags?”
My father’s journals, our sewing baskets, some clothes and diverse small necessities. What coin we had was sewn into Bee’s gown, with a few coins tucked into my sleeve. He had such a charming smile, but I hardened my heart against confiding even such innocuous information.
“Our things,” I said.
Kehinde rose. “I’ll come to the academy when it is safe for you to return. It would be best to go out the front so it looks as if you came for an appointment and left. If you’ll excuse me, I must prepare for my negotiations with the general.” She shook hands with Bee and me.
“Rory,” I said.
He stared at me with those golden, innocent eyes. “What am I supposed to do?”
“Shake hands. It’s the custom, among radicals.”
He set down the bags and shook hands with Kehinde. She left.
With a lazy grin, Rory gripped Brennan’s hand a bit too hard and a bit too long. I felt a shift in the temper of the air as Brennan took his measure, like coiling up rope in readiness to snap it out.
Bee said, “Rory, stop that.”
With a put-upon sigh, he let go, leaving Brennan to shake our hands.
He leaned toward me-too close, for I flushed-and murmured, “Is he really your brother?”
After all, I just could not resist. I daringly drifted close enough for my lips to brush the tips of his hair as I whispered, “What confuses you is he’s really a saber-toothed cat who followed me home from the spirit world.”
I expected him to laugh, but instead he pulled back and gave first a very searching look at Rory and then, less comfortably, a long and intent look at me.
“Well,” he said, ambivalently, and with his forehead creased thoughtfully, he went out.
“That was naughty.” Bee shut the door so we could have privacy. “Are you smitten?”
“Men like that don’t look at girls like me.”
“I think he likes the professora. It’s almost tempting, isn’t it, to join the cause just to fight near him. Or it would be, if we didn’t now know they are in league with the headmaster! Who handed me over to Amadou Barry. Who is a Roman legate. And the Romans are allied with the mage Houses against Camjiata. Who has come to this house to negotiate with the radicals. It doesn’t even make sense!”
Rory circled back to the stove. “Are we going back out into that awful cold? I’m starving.”
“So am I,” I said, “but we’ve got to go.”
“Camjiata knows something about walking the dreams of dragons,” mused Bee. “Maybe we should ally ourselves with him.”
“An alliance with him comes with a price.”
“I think he says what he means,” said Rory, “and means what he says.”
“Yes, and so does any lunatic.” Bee stirred the parsnip slices with the knife. “Alas, all I see right now in my future is dismemberment.”
I crossed to embrace her. “I’ll never let the Wild Hunt take you, Bee. Never!”
She sniffled, and put down the knife to hug me. “I love you, too, Cat.”
I released her. “There is another choice. I don’t know where my mother came from, so there’s no use seeking her kin. But Rory and I have a common sire. Someone Tara and Daniel encountered when they were part of the First Baltic Ice Expedition. The expedition was lost, and the survivors were only found months later. It’s certain that’s when she got pregnant. My sire must be a creature of the spirit world. How else could he impregnate both a human woman from this world and a saber-toothed cat from the spirit world?”
Bee grimaced. “I don’t like the way this conversation is going.”
I smirked. “Oh, come now, Bee. Nothing we saw in anatomy class ever made you blush.”
“That’s not what I meant, although now that you mention it, how could that be managed? Gracious Melqart, Cat. What an unseemly shade of red you’ve turned!”
“I’m going to pour a handful of salt in your porridge for a month, you monster. Don’t distract me. The coachman and footman who conveyed Andevai and me from Adurnam to Four Moons House were not…human. The footman was an eru. She addressed me as Cousin before I ever had any idea that Daniel Hassi Barahal was not the male who sired me. I have kinfolk in the spirit world. My kin are obliged to aid me. Isn’t that right, Rory?”
For an instant, his upper lip began to curl back, and I thought he was going to snarl. He spoke instead. “As I am bound, so must those bound to me as kin come to my aid. That is the law.”
“Cat, you think you can call your sire once you are in the spirit world.” Bee’s smile had a frightening effect on me: a tingling rush through my body that made me boldly wish to engage in a reckless act. Perhaps being exhausted and feeling cornered made us more reckless than usual. “If he is anything like Rory, he can cross back into this world in the shape of a man. That would bring a new piece into the conflict no one expects. How do we get to the spirit world?”
“When my blood was shed on a crossing stone, I crossed from this world into the spirit world. Once in the spirit world, I crossed back through a different gate. The hunters of Andevai’s village crossed likewise, so I was told. How would you get back, Rory, if you wanted to go?”
“My existence was very boring before you came, Cat. I lazed about, hunted a bit, sunned myself, ate, slept,
