the most gracious reception hall couch.
“He cannot help what he is!” Luce’s gaze flashed at me from beneath lowered lashes.
“True words,” I agreed. “You’re blushing. I want you to go home, Luce.” She drew in breath for a retort. “I need your help! Go home and get everything ready. Vai’s tool chest. His clothes chests neatly packed, all my things put in. In the morning fetch the winter coats I’m having made on Tailors’ Row.” I glanced up at Kofi, who had come over to stand beside me. “We might have to leave in a hurry.”
“So yee might,” he agreed. “I shall be going out to speak to the president of the Assembly and some other folk about the situation.” He pinched Luce’s cheek with the familiarity of an older brother. “That man is trouble, gal. Mind me words.”
“Sweet trouble,” retorted Luce. “I’s no fool.”
“I doubt me that,” retorted Kofi in the tone of a man who has seen a girl grow up from a toddling scamp. “Do as Cat ask. Don’ forget to pack Vai’s mirror and razor. And extra soap.”
“I know Vai is vain but surely that is a bit much,” I said.
Luce giggled. “I never knew a man could spend so much time in front of a mirror.”
Kofi frowned reprovingly at us. “’Tisn’t only vanity. ’Tis a shield.”
I exchanged a mirthful glance with Luce, but something in Kofi’s expression killed any desire I had to laugh. “Wearing fashionable clothes is a shield? From what?”
“Gal, in some ways I reckon yee understand that man well enough, but in another wise yee don’ really understand him at all.”
Indignation spiked right up into my head, but then I realized Kofi was showing me respect by speaking so plainly. “I suppose not. He was so awful to me when we first met that it took a long time for me to realize it wasn’t me he disliked. That most of the things he did, he did to protect himself from the way the other mages treated him so contemptuously. I think he assumed I would treat him the same way. All right, then. Luce, don’t neglect any items a man of Vai’s high-strung temperament might need. I must say, you’re a man of hidden depth, Kofi.”
He chuckled. “I know how to get a man talking. Vai was a man who was looking for a friend. I shall walk yee back to Aunty’s on my way, Luce. And don’ be sneaking back here tonight, for Cat and Rory must share a room.”
As they made to go, Rory broke away from the elders to take his leave of Luce. He drew her into the shadows to whisper in her ear so softly that even I had trouble distinguishing words. Then she kissed him in a way that made me suspect the cursed tomcat had kissed her more than once at the batey match, despite my having told him not to do any such thing.
I had no chance to scold him, for we were swept off to eat the evening meal with the entire family in attendance, some thirty people, including elders, adult cousins, all the children, more distant relations who lived and worked in the household, and two lads up from the country to work until they had earned enough to go home and marry.
“Now what do we do, Cat?” Rory asked later when we had retired to a tiny room and its two cots. As I hung a lit lantern from a hook, he dragged a cot over against mine and sprawled out across both. “I don’t want to go on the ocean. It scares me.”
“Move over! You’re hogging all the space.”
“I am not a hog!”
“Of course you’re not a hog, Rory,” I said soothingly, before I pounced for the kill. “But don’t make me call you a lecherous seducer. Didn’t I tell you not to touch Luce? She’s too young and very innocent.”
“Not as innocent as you think she is!” He sat up, crossing his arms as he frowned. “I am not like that unpleasant fire mage, James Drake. I would never pet any person without their full and willing consent—”
My throat tightened. “How do you know about my relationship with James Drake?”
“I lived with General Camjiata and his staff for three days before you came to retrieve me. Remember?”
“Did James Drake
“Goodness, Cat. Your skin is all blotchy.” He patted my flushed cheek. “And warm!”
“I see what you’re doing. You’re changing the subject. Luce is too young for you.”
“Both you and Luce are old enough to breed.” He sniffed several times. “You’re not pregnant. In fact, you’re fertile right now. It’s very convenient for me that human women are only fertile part of the time. That makes it easy for me to—”
“Rory! This is not a subject you and I are going to discuss.”
“You started the discussion.” He ran a hand along his chin and lips like a cat about to start licking its paw in a self-congratulatory fashion. Yet just as quickly, his smirk faded. “As your brother, I ought to warn you. James Drake is a dangerous man.”
“I can handle James Drake. It’s our sire I’m worried about. What are his weaknesses? How can I defeat him?”
“You can’t defeat him. We’re bound to him because we are his children.”
A tap shifted the door. I grabbed the hilt of my sword.
“Cat?” It was Kofi.
I let him in. Kofi’s plain jacket and trousers in the practical Expedition style and his powerful build marked him as a hardworking laborer, but the crisp confidence in his tone revealed him as a successful radical, a member of the new provisional Assembly in Expedition.
“This is a rare commotion, Cat. Now that we Expeditioners have the chance to rule we own selves, we don’ like to feel the Taino can tell us what to do. But yee running have made the situation worse. Yee shall have to sail immediately for Europa.”
“I haven’t money to pay for our passage.”
“So Kayleigh told me. Expedition owe yee a favor for saving us from the Taino invasion. I shall escort yee to West Quay at dawn. There yee shall board a Phoenician ship called the
“Thank you.” My legs gave way as an avalanche of relief crashed over me.
“Don’ thank me. Commissioner Sanogo arranged it.” He sighed. “I admit I had hoped yee and Vai might settle in Expedition. There is plenty for him to do here. And I reckon the wardens of Expedition should like to hire a gal with the peculiar talents yee possess.”
“I would like to try that sort of work.”
“Warden’s work ’twould suit yee, for I reckon yee’s not suited for a quiet life.”
“I can live a quiet life!”
Kofi laughed. “Yee should last a month, no more, before yee got restless and found some trouble to get into. I reckon Vai love yee for it, and for the knack yee have of getting out of it. If anyone can fetch him back from the spirit world, yee’s the one to do it.”
We talked a little longer about the logistics of our departure. After Kofi left, Rory and I settled on the cots. I pinched out the wick but could not sleep for fretting about Bee.
“Are you trying not to cry?” Rory whispered.
I sniffled. “I didn’t mean to get into trouble before Bee came back tomorrow. What if I never see her again?”
“If it will help calm you, I can comb your hair, or lick your hands and face.”
“It’s very comforting, I’ll have you know!”
I managed a choked laugh. He tucked his back up against mine and began to sing the oddest crooning lullaby in words I could not understand. The melody wound like a nest around my heart, shielding me from the ills of the world.
I slept heavily and woke before dawn, determined to succeed. Luce arrived with the chests. We walked in a trundle of carts through the predawn gloom toward the harbor. Rory pushed a cart among the other men. I walked in the center to be less conspicuous. Luce held my hand. The menfolk bantered in a half-awake, early-morning way. I could not rein in my thoughts, which galloped from the impossibility of rescuing Vai out of the jaws of the Master of the Wild Hunt to the pain of being sundered from my dearest Bee. It was easier not to think at all.
West Quay was the farthest west of the wharves in the main harbor, mostly used by Phoenician ships, and
