Terrano straightened up. “What do you mean, couldn’t see?”
“He saw a lot of fog. He couldn’t see the buildings the rest of us were looking at.”
“Interesting. Do you think it’s because he’s the Lord of the Tower?”
“It crossed my mind, yes. But the only other fieflord I could reasonably ask to cross into the border zone is Tiamaris—and I won’t see what he sees, or doesn’t see.”
“I’m done with dinner.” Terrano pushed his chair back and stood.
“I do not think that’s a good idea, dear,” Helen said.
“It’s information, right? It might be useful. At the moment we can use anything useful we can get our hands on.”
“I don’t think you should go alone.”
“Helen, I’m never alone anymore. I’ve got nothing to contribute to the current discussion—mostly because I don’t care—and I’m bored. Would you rather I try to alleviate my boredom here?”
“Yes, actually,” Helen replied in a more severe tone.
“Don’t give me that look,” Kaylin told Terrano. “I’m with Helen on this one.”
A wake-up call came via Helen in the middle of a night that was looking good for sleep. There were two soon-to-be mothers that Kaylin was keeping an eye on through the midwives’ guild, but neither was expecting in the immediate future, and the foundling hall had been silent, the children avoiding the sometimes life-threatening injuries that required her immediate attention. Marrin’s cub fascinated the kids in the foundling hall, and they variously positioned themselves as older sisters, older brothers or pseudo-parents.
Kaylin imagined that some of the kids were jealous or afraid—but Marrin was a Leontine, and her cub, Leontine as well, wasn’t quite as threatening to human children as a human baby would have been. On the other hand, the foundlings tended to treat the cub as a new pet. Kaylin found this more mortifying than Marrin did.
“If a mortal infant arrives on my steps—a human infant, I mean—they tend to treat the baby the same way: as a pet.”
Fair enough. Regardless, midwives and foundlings were sorted. The only thing that stood between Kaylin and sleep was the question of Hawks patrolling the fief of Tiamaris—but Marcus was in charge of the duty roster and the Hawklord was no doubt in charge of the diplomatic hassles. While it might affect her work going forward, it wasn’t her problem.
Something, however, was, and it woke her in two stages.
She sat up in bed, instantly aware that something was wrong. No nightmare—and she still had plenty of those—drove her from sleep; she wasn’t sweating, her hands weren’t bunched in fists around the blanket, and she hadn’t instinctively grabbed the dagger that rested under her pillow.
But something was wrong. “Helen, light, please?”
The effective visual equivalent of open shutters happened almost immediately.
“What’s wrong, dear?”
Since Helen could more or less hear everything Kaylin was thinking, she knew Kaylin didn’t have an immediate answer to that question. It was an invitation to think, to assess.
“Ah, no. The cohort is awake.”
“They’re always awake. The Barrani don’t need to sleep.”
Hope, who generally slept somewhere in the vicinity of Kaylin’s face—often on the single pillow her bed possessed—was now sitting, alert, as if waiting for her to get ready.
“My apologies. It was more of an analogy than a technical description. Mandoran is on his way now.”
“On his way here?”
“Yes, dear. I think Allaron is going to join him.”
Kaylin attempted to figure out what had caused her to wake so suddenly and completely.
Nightshade.
Nightshade?
