Chartji stepped forward, offering the bowl of water.
He doffed his hat and drank it all in one gulp. “And now we have business to do and no time to wait.”
“Did you come looking for me?” asked Bee. I could not tell if she was terrified, or exhilarated, or making ready to punch him in the face, but she had her sketchbook open to a page where she had at some point in the last few months drawn a picture of him standing exactly where he was now, in front of the closed door in the entryway of these law offices. “Did she tell you how to find me? Your wife, I mean? The one who walked the dreams of dragons?”
“Yes. It was the final thing Helene said to me before they killed her. She told me that the eldest daughter of the Hassi Barahal clan would learn to walk the dreams of dragons. Find her, she said, because you will need her, as you have needed me.” He lifted a hand in the classic orator’s gesture used by the Romans in their ancient empire. It was simply impossible not to stare at him if he wanted you to do so, as he did now. “Helene said that the eldest Hassi Barahal daughter would lead me to Tara Bell’s child.”
“B-but I’m Tara Bell’s child,” I choked out, for I felt my heart had lodged in my throat.
“Of course you are. You could be no one else but who you are. So must we all be, even Helene, who knew that the gift of dreaming would be the curse that brought death to her.”
I alone heard Bee whisper, “Death??” as she went pale.
He had gone on. “Even at the end, the gift compelled her to speak. Those were the very last words I ever heard her say. She said, ‘Where the hand of fortune branches, Tara Bell’s child must choose, and the road of war will be washed by the tide.’”
I was not too stunned by these portentous words to miss the way Kehinde glanced at Brennan, or the way he gave a shrug in reply as his gaze flicked toward Bee.
“A fanciful turn of phrase,” said Kehinde to the general, “but as I have a pragmatical turn of mind, can you tell me what you think it means?”
A longcase clock standing beside the coat rack ticked with each swing of its pendulum. A carriage rattled past outside. Camjiata watched until we were all looking at him and waiting for him to speak. He smiled softly, as if our compliance amused him.
“Why, the depths of the words are easily sounded. She meant that Tara Bell’s child will choose a path that will change the course of the war.”
The gazes of seven humans and three trolls left his face and fixed on me.
“Which means you, Catherine Bell Barahal. Because that child is you.”
2
I am not a young woman who craves attention. Unlike my beloved cousin Beatrice, who is my dearest and most trusted friend in all the world, I make no effort to bring myself to the notice of all and sundry in the most forceful and spectacular way imaginable. I have the sort of character that prefers the shadows where it can bide quietly or, as Bee might say, sneak about without being caught.
So I did not at all like to find myself with every pair of eyes—except of course for my own since that would have been impossible—staring at me. Words usually come easily to me. But I had seen carnage on the streets. I had been awake all night. I really just wanted to close my eyes and sleep.
Instead, I stood for a moment as mute and seared as if I had been struck by lightning. Then I got angry.
“You may believe that because I am Tara Bell’s child that I mean something to you and your schemes and plans. But I came with my cousin to these law offices to get help with our own private legal matters. Not to aid an escaped criminal!”
The door rattled softly at his back. He stepped away as it opened a crack. The woman dressed as a man squeezed in. As everyone relaxed, the general chuckled. His amusement made the air change quality as if holding its breath before the sun—or a storm—breaks through.
“Some call me a criminal, while others call me the Liberator,” he said in the rich Iberian lilt he had not lost despite thirteen years confined on an island prison. “Like you, I came to these law offices on an entirely different matter. I truly did not expect to meet you here, Catherine.” He nodded to acknowledge Bee. “Nor did I expect to meet your cousin, the young woman who walks the path of dreams. Not so soon, and not in Adurnam. And yet, why not here? Why not now? That we meet here and now merely reminds me that destiny directs our paths. We cannot escape what we are.”
“That may be, but we can escape those who try to imprison us.”
“Have I said anything that makes you think I am trying to make you my prisoner?”
