Cold Steel - Page 136/260

I caught her hand. “Bee, do you really wish you could stop dreaming?”

“Of course I do! What has it brought me except trouble?”

“Is that why you wanted to see the headmaster?”

“The most pressing reason, yes. But it was a foolish question, wasn’t it? Even if there were a way for me to stop dreaming, no one would ever believe me if I said I had stopped. So I may as well keep my gift and learn to use it for our purposes, not theirs. Why should we be theirs to command? We belong to ourselves!”

At the hostel we shared a supper of thin gruel with a turnip for garnish. I offered a bit of turnip to the skull, then dug in. The appearance of the skull merely made our hosts think us visitors with arcane powers, for severed heads had a peculiar mystery and importance among those of Celtic lineage.

We hadn’t the extra coin to pay for a tallow candle, and without Vai we had no cold fire, so we retired to our tiny room at twilight. Bee and I sat cross-legged on the bed, facing each other with knees touching and heads bent together. Rory stretched out beside us clad in trousers and shirt. Bee wore a practical night shift, and fortunately the women of White Bow House had gifted me with a pretty night shift decorated with lace, although this was the first night I had worn it. I was fretful, worrying about Vai. Did mage Houses have some secret means by which to imprison rebellious sons? Iron shackles and iron bars could not contain the most powerful of their kind. What could?

Bee twined her fingers through mine. “I miss Mama and Hanan and even Papa and wretched little Astraea. I miss the quiet life we had in Falle Square. Can you even believe I’m saying that? When I was there, all I could dream about was having a wealthy and handsome prince rescue me from the dreary poverty of our lives. Now a quiet life doesn’t seem so ill-favored.”

“It wasn’t as quiet as you remember. Aunt and Uncle were always scrambling to make ends meet. Not to mention the constant trouble they were in for buying and selling information. I expect they found the life more wearying and anxious than quiet, whatever it may have seemed to us. They kept us very sheltered, Bee. As I am discovering!”

“I wish I could have spoken to the hatchlings. I feel I am their midwife. All this time dragons have lived among us and yet we have never known.”

“I could have told you,” muttered Rory. “I expect the only reason the dragon didn’t eat you is that you taste sour, not at all to his liking. But who ever listens to me? Besides Vai, I mean.”

“Andevai listens to you?” Bee said with a snorting chuckle.

A board creaked in the passage. Fingers tapped lightly on the door. Rory rolled off the bed with unseemly haste, and slipped out. I heard the husband’s murmur, and they padded away.

“Does he do this everywhere he goes and every place he stays?” I asked.

“Yes, he’s incorrigible. But you know, Cat, he’s right. Andevai does listen to him in a way you and I don’t. Simpering Astarte, they’re actually rather sweet together, just as a man and his wife’s brother should be. Rory makes Andevai likable.”

“Vai’s not likable with me?”

She laughed. “Watching you soothe his ruffled feathers amuses me, considering if it were anyone else you would cut him to pieces with your tongue.”

“I tell him what I think!”

She squeezed my hand. “Yes, dearest, and he adores you for it. Still, I expect Andevai particularly likes Rory because he has discovered Rory can tell when you are fertile and when you are not. A useful sort of person to have around, don’t you think? Given that you don’t want to get pregnant yet but wish to enjoy sexual congress.”

“Blessed Tanit! Now that you mention it, Vai has conversed upon that subject more than once since he and Rory met. I ought to have suspected. Anyway, Rory has the knack of flattering people in exactly the right way, so that it’s true but not condescending.”

“Yes. It’s like he’s hunting for the kill, only the kill in this case is winning people over to like him. He always seems to leave them in better spirits than when he arrived. Don’t you think that is a rare gift, the ability to make people happy?” She sighed.

“Haven’t you been happy as a radical? Sleeping with the infamously handsome Brennan Du?”

She released my hands. “Yes, as for adventure and the admiration of men swept off their feet by my brilliant rhetorical abilities, I would say that the last nine months have been eminently satisfactory.”

“Goodness, Bee! Were there other men?”

A smack of sound against the windowpane startled me; someone was throwing pebbles at our room. I got off the bed and peered down to the street. With clouds overhead, no moon or starlight limned the street, and although the houses on this lane had night lamps burning on their porches, not a single flame now illuminated the dark. I recognized the shadowy form from the drape of his winter coat over his shoulders. Alarm leaped like a deer bolting from the scent of wolves.