"Mm." He didn't ask what had distracted me and went back to his notes.
From him, it was a small mercy. Usually, he wouldn't let it rest until I told him what was on my mind.
I returned to the book and forced my eyes to remain on the page. I'd actually gotten through two full pages and added a fifth question to my list when a knock sounded on the door.
His assistant put his head in. "Mail is here, Shaman." He crossed over to the desk and put the stack down. Then, almost as an afterthought, he held one envelope out to me. "This one is for you, Kailin."
My stomach dropped and lifted at once.
My mail usually arrived during lunch, delivered along with the officers' mail because that was where I was living now. It had never arrived together with the shaman's mail.
The envelope was made from the same thick ivory parchment that all of Alar's letters came in. I couldn't read it without Codric's help, but lunch was coming up, and we would have it together, as always, in our apartment.
Alar's letters were reaching me faster now. He'd explained the method in an earlier letter, and it was quite ingenious of him to come up with it. He was using a Catonian clerk who worked in Tarina, dictating the ciphered letters to him. Tarina was close enough to the border that correspondence took days to reach the Citadel instead of weeks.
He was going to a lot of trouble to get his letters to me faster, and that was its own kind of love letter, the effort underneath the words.
He'd explained that he couldn't simply telephone me because calls were monitored on both sides of the line. When he'dcalled the palace from Saphir's office before leaving for Catonia, from what was supposedly a secure line, his mother had still given him evasive answers because she had known about the surveillance.
Besides, I had no access to a telephone other than the one on Saphir's desk, and I didn't feel entitled to ask to use it for personal matters.
Secretly, I was glad.
Letters, I could bear. His voice, I could not.
Alar's voice would have been salt poured straight into my bleeding wounds, and everything I was holding shut would just burst from me. The guilt and the missing him and the lie of omission I told him in every cheerful line I sent back. If I'd heard his voice, heard him say my name and that he loved me, I would have probably confessed all of it on the spot and ruined everything he was working for. The ink kept me safe. The ink let me be what he needed me to be.
Saphir took the stack, aligned the spines on one side, put it back on the desk, and stood up. "I know you're anxious to read your letter, and it's nearly time for lunch. You can go."
I didn't argue. I thanked him, gathered my list and my book, put them on the shelf where I kept everything I was working on, tucked the letter in my pocket, and headed out.
Thankfully, Ravel wasn't there to escort me because Saphir had dismissed me earlier than usual.
He would be mad that I hadn't waited for him, but I'd deal with that later. Right now I was anxious for Codric to read the letter to me. Well, to all of us. Alar was careful not to write anything overly intimate that wasn't suitable for the others' consumption.
By the time I got to our apartment, Codric and Shovia were already seated at the table, and Morek was in the kitchen, improving on the delivered lunch as usual.
"I've got a letter." I pulled the envelope from my pocket and waved it at the others. "It arrived with Saphir's mail for some reason. It's from Alar."
Shovia rolled her eyes. "Like it could be from anyone else. That envelope alone probably cost like a new pair of boots. Your parents and grandmother use plainer stock."
I put the letter in front of Codric. "Do you want to do it now or after we eat?"
Under normal circumstances, Codric's answer would have been eat first and do everything else later, but he was just as anxious for news from Alar as I was.
"Wait for me!" Morek called from the kitchen.
"No rush." Codric picked it up, broke the seal, and pulled out two folded pages. "It's a long one. It will take time to decipher."
He got up and took the letter with him, which he had never done before. Usually he left it on the dining table when he went to get his notepad.
Had Alar sent something just for him?
46
KAILIN
Some letters you yearn for, and others you would rather never receive. I wish they would come in color-coded envelopes, indicating what to expect inside.
