“It must be next door, or a little farther back,” Kell said.
It wasn’t. The custodians of Hearthaven’s Repose never missed a trick. Ilondrel knew. They all knew.
“There’s only one cabin,” Saeldian said. “Jubilee and Lorzok each had one, side by side.”
“Maybe it’s behind this one?” Kell set off down the path toward the back of the cabin. Saeldian sighed and followed, but only garden met them on the other side. A very pretty garden for a very small cottage. Saeldian peered in the window and beheld the softly glowing fire and the foot of—
“One bed.”
“Are you serious?”
“Look for yourself.”
Kell turned back the way they came and opened the cottage door. “Hells.”
Only one bed. Of course. Bards had a song about Serenity and Bastion with that old gag. But it wasn’t funny when it was happening to them, and Kell sounded so dismayed when he saw it.
That should be a relief. “Jubilee’s cottage isn’t far.”
“There’s no path. You’ll wreck the hedges. The bed’s nice and big, at least,” Kell said. “And it’s not like we haven’t used the couple pose when we were running a game before.”
“That was before.” Saeldian dropped their pack next to the door and pulled on the drawer at the foot of the wide bed suspended between four tall posts. Blankets rested inside. Saeldian grabbed them all and laid them on top of a coverlet dye-painted with flowers.
“You’ll bake if you put all of those on the bed.”
“Shut up and help me roll this.”
“Fine.” Kell took an end and rolled the blankets into a bumper, then helped them slide the rolled bundle of blankets to the middle, marking the border between the two sides. “Do you want to go to bed?”
Saeldian paused.
“I just meant, do you want to get out of your armor—no.” Kellswiped a hand over his face. “Gods, I sound like an unshaven boy. How do we—”
“Oh, relax,” Saeldian grumbled. “There’s a bath. I want to use it. I bet you do too.”
Kell stood there with his mouth open for a moment. Saeldian heard themself.
“Not together. One at a time.”
They held out their palm and smacked their fist into it. Kell echoed the move and said, “On three. One, two—”
Saeldian shot their index and middle fingers out. Kell kept his hand in a fist.
“You first,” Saeldian said. “I’ll be back in half an hour.”
They went out into the cold before Kell could protest.
Kell let thehot water melt his bones, but he kept a corner of his mind trained on finding. Lorzok and Jubilee were that way—together, in fact. If Kell had to guess, in the same room, maybe seated in the cozy rocking chairs perched on a rug before the fire, a companionable distance between them. Saeldian was on the other side of that wall, probably leaning against it.Looking at the sky? Trying to make sense of the stars?
Perhaps. Ilondrel was farther than shouting distance, but not farther than the island that held the casket with the man inside, lying eerily, perfectly at rest. Every lock of his walnut-wood hair lay in careful waves spread over an ivory pillow, his shimmering silken robes draped as if someone had adjusted a fold, stood back to judge the effect, and then leaned in to gently tweak it.
A beautiful man with his hands at his breast, the haft of a spear tucked into the crook of his elbow, a finely etched shield covering his knees. The man Kell was certain Ilondrel loved, and mourned even after he’d been laid to rest, looking as if he were only sleeping.
Helfyra…was not nearby.
He stretched his senses, but they didn’t resolve in a direction, only a distance—but how far, he couldn’t say.
A distance. What kind of a measure was that?
