It was so easy talking to his bird form that I found myself telling him about my brothers, about Finlei wanting to explore the world, and Sendo writing poems about the sea. About Baba and Keton, and my dream to become the best tailor in A’landi.
It made the time fly, and it helped me stay awake. When sunrise came, Edan flew off my shoulder and onto Rook’s back. And as the first rays of sun shone upon us, I was no longer traveling with a bird.
“Tired?” was Edan’s first word to me.
I shook my head.
He smiled, seeing the flowers tucked behind my ear; then he cleared his throat. “You accepted them.”
“Was I not supposed to?”
“A man who wishes to court a woman brings her flowers.”
I blushed. “You were a hawk. Besides, there’s no such tradition in A’landi.”
“I’m not from A’landi,” he reminded me. He cleared his throat again. “But I once served in a land where it was customary to make one’s intentions known to the object of one’s affections. I like the idea very much. And,” he said, leaning closer, “if a woman accepts a man’s flowers, it means she’s willing to be courted by him.”
A rush of warmth heated my face. “But…how could you court me?” I blurted, wanting to take the words back as soon as they came out of my mouth. “What about your oath?”
Edan looked vulnerable for once. “You told me to make up my mind, so I have,” he said softly. “It is an illusion to assume we choose whom we love. I cannot change how I feel about you. I would move the sun and the moon if it meant being with you. As for my oath…I cannot promise to break it, but I would do everything in my power to make you happy, Maia. That Icanpromise.”
His words stirred a want inside me. I longed to kiss him and tell him all that I felt, but I bit my tongue.
He reached for my hand. “Do you not want me to court you? Simply say the word and I’ll stop.”
Iwantedhim to, more than anything. Yet something held me back. I withdrew my hand and made a show of picking a snarl out of Opal’s mane so I didn’t have to look at Edan. “Where do we go now?”
Edan’s hands fell to his side. “South. To Lake Paduan.”
“That’s where we’ll find the blood of stars?”
“Indeed,” he said quietly. “It will be the hardest of the three to acquire.”
I ignored the swirls of dread curdling in my stomach. “I take it that’s a hint to start on the carpet.”
I had two bundles of yarn that Edan had bought in the Samarand Passage. The colors were poorly dyed—a washed-out blue and a dull coppery red. I began knotting the base for a rug to the dimensions Edan specified. The rest, I’d leave to my scissors.
“Why didn’t we stay on Rainmaker’s Peak?” I asked as we rode through a flat stretch of forest. “Surely the top of a mountain is the closest we’ll come to the stars.”
“You haven’t studied the Book of Songs, have you?” chided Edan gently. “In one of the odes, the Great Eulogy to Li’nan, it’s written that ‘the stars are brightest in the dark, and the dark is in the forgotten.’ We must go to the Forgotten Isles of Lapzur in Lake Paduan. The Ghost Fingers.”
“Where the god of thieves shot the stars to make them bleed,” I said. “I know the myth.”
“The myth doesn’t tell you everything.”
“Andyouknow everything?”
“No.” He spread his palms. “But I’ve had many more years to study and learn than you. A knowledge of A’landi’s classical poetry would enrich your craft, Maia. And I think you’d appreciate its beauty, even better than I.” He tilted his head, lost in thought. “I’ll pass you my books once we reach the Autumn Palace. I only hope the servants brought them all.”
The Autumn Palace. It felt so far from here, both in distance and time. The red sun was less than a month away now, and I still had much work to do on Lady Sarnai’s three dresses. What reception could we look forward to when we returned?
I was the imperial tailor, he the Lord Enchanter. Edan would be busy advising the emperor…and I’d be pretending to be a boy again. Even if we didn’t have his oath to worry about, how could we be together?
Edan didn’t say anything further, which made me nervous. The silence between us was charged, like waiting for lightning to strike. Every extra beat grew heavier, so that being near him was like brushing against fire. It was only so long before I couldn’t take it anymore.
“Sendo used to scare me with stories about the Ghost Fingers,” I said with a shudder. I hadn’t believed in ghosts when I was a child, but the last few months had changed much. “He said that Lake Paduan was once home to a great civilization, an ancient city of treasure beyond our imagination. Legends of it spread, and men grew greedy. But they could never cross the water—storms and dangerous conditions would force their boats to turn around.
“Then one day, a ship made the crossing. It was the first to trespass on the islands for hundreds of years, so the city welcomed the men as a sign from the gods. They posed as traders, but they were really barbarians who had used magic to reach the city. At night they killed everyone. The residents became ghosts; the lake rose, flooding the city until only what we know as the Forgotten Isles remained, and the barbarians were cursed to be demons, rich with treasure but never able to leave.”
