Deirdre’s entourage throw their heads back. Hang onto one another, weak with wine and laughter. Back on duty, guardsmen line the periphery, spines straight and eyes sharp.
“I’m overwhelmed, I think. It’s too big. Too much to pull off between the two of us."
“Perhaps we need help.”
“From? Who can we trust with something like this?”
“Sadrie or Cordelia would be my strong suggestions.”
I can’t stifle my groan. “I won’t involve them in this. Not just yet.”
“You trust them, right?”
I frown, studying the many lanterns hanging from the Waymark’s gnarled branches. “Cordelia more than Sadrie. But push comes to shove? Yes.” The lanterns bob in the chill breeze, their flames guttering inside glass housings. “They’re both also highly capable, full of potential, and… blameless. I’d like to keep it that way as long as possible.”
Maida gives a testy grunt. Plucks at her cloak’s silver clasp. “So you have a problem with the problem and a problem with the solution. Does that about summarize your predicament?”
I shrug, scowling. Watch while Brigit swaps her flute for a piccolo.
The high, clear notes pierce the bitter night. She smiles at Ana and Maeve over the mouthpiece, leading the small band in a merry jig.
We stand a long time watching the dancing and the sparks bursting in clouds above the bonfires.
A familiar, throaty squawk comes from overhead.
“Ah!” cries Maida, face turned skyward as my raven swoops.
I whistle for her to land. With a great clatteringwhoosh,she alights on Maida’s outstretched arm.
Bibi clicks and bobs her head at me. A length of red ribbon dangles from her beak.
“Is that for me?” I laugh, taking the ribbon and scratching her fluffy beard feathers.
“Good bird, Bibi.” My friend strokes her glossy back.
“Good bird!” Bibi replies, doing her silly dance on Maida’s arm, to my friend’s delight.
“Are your finches still coming?”
“Never miss a day,” I grumble. The birds’ continued presence on my balcony has gone from baffling to frustrating to maddening. “Actually, I think there’s more now.”
Over two dozen of them queue up on the railing day in and day out, waiting for me to open my balcony curtains every morning. All they do is stare, tilting their little heads this way and that, black eyes fixed on me.
“Still no insights, I take it?”
“The goddess remains infuriatingly silent.” My shoulders drop. “It’s humbling, to say the least.”
She waits, knowing there’s more.
“It’s been fouryears, Maida. When will my Second Sight awaken?”
With a softkraa-kraa, Bibi flutters from Maida’s arm to the ground. She bonks my lower leg with her head as if to offer comfort. Despite my frustration, I can’t help smiling.
“It’s not your job to make sense of it,” Maida points out. “‘Mistakes are never’—”
“—‘concealed within the subtle perfection of her plans,’” I finish the platitude, taken directly from a volume of the Hidden Codices secreted away in the vast library inside the Sanctum of the True Goddess. “Iknow, Maida.”
“Then act like it. Trust the goddess,” she sniffs. Then relents, peering at me with something like sympathy. “Do we need to take you to Nehel? I could petition the prioress to arrange an audience at Heliotrope House.”
