you’re dreaming about Vai.” I ran a finger across an arch decorated with four phases of the moon, then paused at a sketch of a wooden bench with a slatted back sitting in front of a brick wall adorned with falls of the flowering vine I had seen in Tanit’s bower. “What is this?”
“I don’t know. I just sketch what I dream.”
“The Jovesday trolls,” I murmured. “Could you lie down at night with a specific thing in mind to dream about?”
“I’ve tried. I can’t. I am not dreaming my own dreams. I am walking through the dreams of someone who is already dreaming.”
“A dragon.”
“Yet I still haven’t seen a single plump deer, much less one running exceedingly slowly.”
My smile at her jest twisted into a considering frown. “Keer must know where Chartji’s aunt lives. Chartji’s aunt knows Kofi. There’s the link. I have a plan. Well, as long as Keer doesn’t eat me for not coming back when I said I would. We have to go to the law offices, in the harbor district.”
“There’s a statement to send stark fear through my bones.”
“My being eaten?”
“No. You’re not plump enough to tempt them. I meant, going outside the city walls.”
“Where do you think I’ve been living? Haven’t you explored the rest of Expedition?”
“Of course not! Everyone says it’s much too dangerous!”
“I’ve staggered drunk through the streets without being molested and felt ever so much safer than I did in Adurnam! Anyhow, I think it’s possible Vai is hiding in troll town. Tomorrow morning I’ll go to the law offices. I want anyone watching me to see I’m not living under the general’s protection. I could get a room there, too. Could you live with me there?”
Her eyes flared, then tightened as she looked away. “No. I am required to begin learning Taino and also to take lessons in the complicated court etiquette I will be marrying into.”
“Then I stay with you here. If he will not believe me, then he is not worth suffering over.”
She embraced me, staring into my eyes as if she could pierce the veils that masked me. “Cat, when Hallows’ Night comes, are you going to try to sacrifice yourself in order to save me?”
“What makes you think I could?” I whispered.
“Because I won’t allow it! I read Uncle Daniel’s journals. If you have to answer questions with questions, then when you were in the spirit world without me, you must have been forced to become a servant of the night court. You must promise me you won’t sacrifice yourself. Promise me!”
I wanted to say, “ Alas, he will not let me,” but my lips seemed to freeze together, knit by ice.
“Sit down, Cat.”
I sat.
“That was an interesting reaction,” she said, chafing my hands.
After a bit, I could speak. “When do you go to Taino country?”
“It’s complicated, because the wedding is a series of ceremonies that takes place over many days. It all culminates with a five-day areito that begins on October thirtieth.”
“I have to be with you when you go to the Taino. Promise me you won’t leave me behind.”
“I won’t, dearest. I was hoping you would offer. I don’t want to be alone.”
“You won’t be because I won’t leave you. Now, I feel the need to stab something. Does this city have a fencing academy?”
“I was attending one before we went to Sharagua. It’s run by a branch of the Barahal clan.”
“Excellent! We have the entire afternoon before supper. We shall go enroll. I’ll let you pay my tuition since I have no money.”
We came home sore and laughing with just enough time to wash and change for dinner. I had to hope the illustrious of Expedition knew something about powerful fire mages and behiques and were willing to talk. By gaslight, servants bustled behind the windows of the dining room where a table laden for twelve was set out. The chamber’s walls were painted with scenes of flowering vines in whose branches nestled half-hidden birds like so many avian eavesdroppers.
The general had assembled a collection of philosophically inclined minds whose ability to lapse into the most abstruse tangents defied my ability to sift through the thickets of natural history, practical science, and political theory to figure out who was a supporter of Camjiata and who was just there to enjoy the conversation and feast on a splendid meal. For the meal was indeed splendid, with platters of whitefish stewed with chilies hot enough to make my nose run, chicken marinated in rum and garlic and ginger, and mounds of sweet potatoes sliced and grilled with yet more rum.
An older maku professora in residence at the university engaged in a lively debate with a toweringly young and prosperous merchant who had been born into one of the city’s most prestigious founding families. He betrayed his noble origins with the ostentatiousness of his clothes and the presumptuous way he addressed everyone. Both young merchant and older general claimed Keita lineage, so they could be in some way cousins.
“Yee are a maku, Professora Alhamrai,” young Maester Keita was saying in a tone so bombastic that it reminded me of an overstuffed chair in whose pillows you drown. “So it is no mystery that yee shall not fully understand the principles of government here in Expedition.”
I liked the bland smile the professora offered in response. “It is true I investigate the nature of the physical world rather than the body politic. Scientific principles teach us that friction creates heat. If a majority of the populace of Expedition has become fractious due to their perception they are being governed poorly, then is it not likely they shall catch fire?”
“Most people have no ability to moderate their emotions. ’Tis why they are unable to govern themselves and need their betters to govern on their behalf. What do you think, Maestressa Barahal?” The young Keita turned his attention on Bee with a smile so condescending it set my blood to boiling.
Bee simpered winningly up at him. “I think you shall be the first one shot when the radicals assault the old city.”
Forks and spoons stilled. Glasses thumped, set on the table. Conversations withered. All eyes turned to Bee as she blinked as into the noonday sun with the look that fooled everyone but me.
“For that jacket is certainly very fine. Any young man would be eager to wear it. I suppose most must be too poor and lazy to gain such resplendent garb by any means but foul ones.”
The general coughed into a hand as the rest of the table shared a polite and mildly bewildered laugh. The servants brought platters of fruit, but I was too full to do more than stare longingly at a plate of papaya whose slices had been meticulously arranged in the shape of a fish.
Professora Habibah ibnah Alhamrai was seated to my right. She addressed me in the Latin spoken in southern Europa. Judging by her coloring and curly black hair as well as her name, she was a native of the Levant. “You are come but lately to the general’s household, Maestressa.”
“I do not belong to the general’s household. I am here only as companion to my cousin.”
“Ah. You are not one of the general’s partisans or servants.”
“One may have other reasons for sitting at this table or sleeping in this house,” I said. “I do not serve the general nor have I ever.”
Yet her frank assessment embarrassed me. “You retain some skepticism about the general’s motives?”
“Can there be any skepticism where the general is concerned? Is he not exactly what he claims to be?”
“A worthwhile question. If I may change the subject, I am told you are the daughter of Daniel Hassi Barahal. I met him once.”
I leaned in too swiftly, drawing notice for my lurch. “Please, tell me about him! For you know, he and my mother died when I was six.”
Before she could answer, the general asked her opinion about the efficacy of cold magic in the Antilles. “For I am surprised,” he said, “to find there is a general belief here in Expedition that fire banes are weak creatures of little utility.”
“So they are,” proclaimed the young merchant. “Good for parlor tricks, lighting a path at night in the countryside, and acting as auxiliaries to the municipal firefighting force. These stories of how they call down storms and shatter iron are the credulous fantasies of the gullible natives of Europa, who have been treated for so long to such tales that they have come to believe them.”
