He thought of Verandil, letting the hot water hold him as he let his head float on the water.
It was the same thing. Distant, but no real feeling of direction. Verandil was probably in the Village That Chooses Its Own, and Kell couldn’t point in his direction any more than he could for Helfyra.
He focused on her again. Stately, elegant, simply dressed, rabbit pendant. Liked to cast tiny star illusions on things, like Timtim’s spiraling horn. Ditched him with Saeldian in this tiny cottage with only one bed. That same feeling of distance met his senses, though much more faintly than Verandil’s.
Wherever she was, she wasn’there,in Hearthaven’s Repose. She’d left the domain. But that meant she left as soon as she’d dumped Saeldian and Kell in the lovers’ cottage. Why?
The sense of Helfyra shrank suddenly, and Kell felt like he was squinting at a faint star just before it vanished.
Vanished?
The steam rising from the bathtub didn’t curl into an answer. He’d never tested the trick, but he knew from trying that no amount of sitting, remembering, or searching would let him know where Verandil was—or Terandis either—before he’d crossed into the Feywild.
Kell sat up in a slosh of bathwater and tried to turn around to stare at something directly behind him.
Who was that?
The others he had seen on the island would hardly even be smudges. He hadn’t talked to them or heard their voices. But that presence was too strong to be a smudge, if only a little, and that didn’t make sense.
Someone Kell had met before was here, and he had no idea who it was. No one from the village. Not Helfyra, who was in that directionless place that meant she wasn’t in the domain.
So who was that? Someone he had spoken to, someone whose name he knew. Not Jubilee. He’d known her long enough for her to give a stronger impression, and besides, she was still over there, talking to Lorzok. Not Ilondrel, who had so much power that hefelt like he already knew her. She had the same incredible presence he had felt emanating from the Brewmistress and from Osalor, the power that came from being anchored in a realm that existed because of you. Kell had started knowing Ilondrel from the moment he’d stepped into her realm.
She’d spoken only a few words to him directly, but he could point in her direction much more confidently than he should be able to. That could be because of her dominion over this realm or the intensity of the ceremony of telling her why they had come here.
So who was the presence he sensed was resting across the lake?
It didn’t matter. Kell couldn’t get out of the bath, sail across the lake, and knock on doors in search of an acquaintance who shouldn’t be here. And he knew what he was doing, chasing after all these little mysteries.
Saeldian stood exactly beside the nearest wall. If the wall hadn’t been there, he could have touched them. They were so close he could sense them moving.
He settled back into the hot water and exhaled. He had just a little time to relax before he had to go back to the armed politeness he needed to deal with Saeldian. But they were right there, and Kell couldn’t stop knowing they were right there, moving…to keep warm?
He stayed still, felt the awareness of Saeldian moving, and understood—they were rocking from one foot to the other at the speed best for soothing children.
Kell couldn’t feel what people were feeling. He only knew where they were.
“Fuck.”
He stood up and grabbed a linen towel from the hook. He draped a felted wool robe around his shoulders and made sure the door closed loud enough to hear before he went around to the back of the cottage, the cold air swirling around his wet ankles.
Saeldian had enough time to stand in that upright, aloof way before Kell made it around the corner. Kell ignored it. He grabbed Saeldian’s wrist and pulled them close enough to catch in his arms.
“What are you—”
“Cry, you ass.”
They struggled. “No. I’m selfish.”
“I know. Nowcry.”
Saeldian trembled and tensed, and their breath came in awful, tattered gasps. “No.”
“You’re selfish,” Kell said. “People accuse others of that because they feel betrayed by what they expect other people to do. Sometimes that’s true. Sometimes people’s expectations are unfair.”
Saeldian listened between frayed breaths.
“But when people say they’re selfish, it’s either because they don’t care, and it doesn’t hurt them…or they do care, and it does. Why do you care, Saeldian?”
