It was very late by then, both moons were west, down over the sea. She couldn’t see the harbour—Solinghi’s was too far inland—but she knew it was there, with the Sea Maid bobbing at anchor in the night breeze. There were people in the streets even now, she could see shadowy forms pass in the lane below, and she heard occasional shouts from the direction of the tavern quarter, but nothing more now than the ordinary noises of a city without a curfew, prone to be awake and loud at night.
She wondered how near to dawn it was, how long she would have to stay awake if she wanted to see the sunrise. She thought she might wait for it. This was not a night for sleep; or not for her, Alais amended, glancing back at Catriana. She remembered the other time the two of them had shared a room. Her own room at home.
She was a long way from home. She wondered what her mother had thought, receiving Rovigo’s letter of carefully phrased almost-explanation sent by courier across Astibar from the port of Ardin town as they sailed north to Senzio. She wondered, but in another way she knew: the trust shared between her parents was one of the sustaining, defining elements of her own world.
She looked up at the sky. The night was still dark, the stars overhead even more bright now that the moons were setting; it probably lacked several hours yet till dawn. She heard a woman’s laughter below and realized with an odd sensation that that was the one sound she’d not heard earlier that night amid the tumult in the streets. In a curious, quite unexpected way, the woman’s breathless sound, and then a man’s murmur following close upon it served to reassure her: in the midst of all else, whatever might come, certain things would still continue as they always had.
There was a footstep on the wood of the stairway outside. Alais leaned backwards on the window-ledge, belatedly realizing she could probably be seen from below.
‘Who is it?’ she called, though softly, so as not to disturb Catriana.
‘Only me,’ Devin said, coming up to stand on the landing outside the room. She looked at him. His clothing was muddy, as if he’d tumbled or rolled somewhere, but his voice was calm. It was too dark to properly see his eyes. ‘Why are you awake?’ he asked.
She gestured, not sure what to say. ‘Too many things at once, I suppose. I’m not used to this.’
She saw his teeth as he smiled. ‘None of us are,’ he said. ‘Believe me. But I don’t think anything else will happen tonight. We are all going to bed.’
‘My father came in a while ago. He said it seemed to have quieted down.’
Devin nodded. ‘For now. The Governor was slain in the castle. Catriana did kill the Barbadian. There was chaos up there, and somebody seems to have shot the Tracker. I think that was what saved us.’
Alais swallowed. ‘My father didn’t tell me about that.’
‘He probably didn’t want to disturb your night. I’ll be sorry now if I have.’ He glanced past her towards the other bed. ‘How is she?’
‘She’s all right, really. Asleep.’ She registered the quick concern in his voice. But Catriana had earned that concern, that caring, tonight and before tonight, in ways Alais could scarcely even encompass within her mind.
‘And how are you?’ Devin asked, in a different tone, turning back to her. And there was something in that altered, deeper voice that made it difficult for her to breathe.
‘I’m fine too, honestly.’
‘I know you are,’ he said. ‘Actually, you are a great deal more than that, Alais.’
He hesitated for a moment, seeming suddenly awkward. She didn’t understand that, until he leaned slowly forward to kiss her full upon the lips. For the second time, if you counted the one in the crowded room downstairs, but this was really quite amazingly unlike the first. For one thing, he didn’t hurry, and for another, they were alone and it was very dark. She felt one of his hands come up, brushing along the front of her robe before coming to rest in her hair.
He drew back unsteadily. Alais opened her eyes. He looked blurred and softened, where he stood on the landing. Footsteps went past in the lane below, slowly now, not running as before. The two of them were silent, looking at each other. Devin cleared his throat. He said, ‘It is . . . there are still two or three hours to morning. You should try to sleep, Alais. There will be a . . . a great deal happening in the days to come.’
She smiled. He hesitated another moment, then turned to walk along the outer landing towards the room he shared with Alessan and Erlein.
She remained sitting where she was for some time longer, looking up at the brightness of the stars, letting her racing heart gradually slow. She replayed in her mind the ragged, very young uncertainty and wonder in his voice in those last words. Alais smiled again to herself in the darkness. To someone schooled by a life of observation, that voice had revealed a great deal. And it had been simply touching her that had done this to him. Which was, if one lingered to think about it and relive the moment of that kiss, a most astonishing thing.
She was still
