She rubbed harder, scrubbing with her sleeve. She began to panic. Why wouldn’t the ice melt?
“Lady Rae? Is something wrong?”
Taelin whirled. “I thought I told you to have all the panes replaced!”
A former squatter named Vera, nearly Taelin’s age—whose youth had been rasped off against sidewalks and back alleys—put a worn, ruddy hand emphatically against her concave chest. “I did.”
“Then what do you call that?” shouted Taelin, thrusting her finger at the glass.
Vera shook her head, utterly confused.
Vera liked to remind everyone that she had been a landlord and had once taken good care of her properties. Taelin now doubted that was true and regretted having given charge of the church’s restoration over to her.
“I want that red glass changed out,” said Taelin. “Today!” Then she hefted her shovel and opened the door, squinting against the sudden brightness of the snow.
There had been no knock which was why, when she stepped out onto the powder-laden step, the man standing there startled her.
Thankfully, he gave no indication that he had heard her yelling. He wore a long black coat of felted wool that fell to his ankles and his smooth head, dappled like an eggshell, framed a warm face that smiled through a soft white beard.
“Good morning,” he said brightly. “My name is Alani.”
Vera poked her head out, interrupting. “Pardon me, Lady Rae.” Vera’s tone didn’t indicate that she wanted to be pardoned. “But there ain’t no fucking red glass to change out!” Then she disappeared and slammed the door, leaving Taelin outside.
* * *
“THOUGHT she was exotic, did you?” Sena smirked. “It’s all right. I’m not jealous.”
“Why are we talking about this?” asked Caliph. His neck was hot from the conversation.
“Oh, be serious. That priestess costume she wears? That’s just for show—”
“Just for show?” Caliph started laughing. “Well she’s a damn good fake then. She bought that horrible ruin with her own money.”
“Not her money.”
“Whatever. It’s her money now. Daddy’s name isn’t on the account at Crullington. Maybe I just handed a trade bar to a theologaster but—”
Sena’s smirk faded away. “Maybe you did.”
“Maybe I did. It doesn’t matter. It’s political.”
The night of her arrival had blown over. His desperate search, the way she had avoided him: the argument had already come and gone. Another stone tipping the pan toward something he didn’t want to think about.
The thermal crank’s fan had kicked in. He sat across from her in the east parlor watching the hot breeze tug her oiled ringlets. When she leaned forward in the chair, legs braced in an elegant K, shoulder extending so that her fingers could deposit an unfinished cup on the coffee table, Caliph coughed.
An angelus bell sounding from Temple Hill cleared his thoughts, reminding him of the time. “You’re sure you want to come with?”
“I’m all packed.” Sena looked up from her position, stretched between cup and chair. The filigree in her skin went chromium with the dawn. Caliph remembered phrases: crystallized guanine in the dermis. She had once called the markings her iridocyte idiom. Words he had been forced to look up.
“Caliph?”
“Sorry. I’m … tired.” He stood up and stretched. “You’re absolutely sure you want to come?”
“You already asked that.”
He rubbed his temples. “I know. It’s just that this trip might not be perfectly safe. This speech I have to give…”
“Important one. I know.”
“You could say that.”
“There’s a lot riding on this trip, Caliph.” The way she said it made it sound more like a warning than an acknowledgment.
“All right. But we have to leave by twelve.”
“My ships are ready.”
“Ships?”
She sat back. “I’m taking the Odalisque and the Iatromisia.”
“I see. So we’re taking three … three airships,” he spread his pinkie, ring and middle finger like an array of weapons, “when we only need one? Why do we … I mean, why do you want to do that?”
She stood up, walked over to him and draped her hands around his head. Despite a cup of loring tea, the scent of her breath remained almost perfectly neutral. “Caliph, you’re bringing the Pandragonian priestess. I haven’t asked you why.”
It felt like she had punched him. “How did you know that?”
She breathed—which he knew was a presentment—and closed her eyes. When her lids slid shut she looked almost exactly as he remembered her from college. But when her lashes unzipped, like black vinyl, they revealing glistening alien pools.
“Trust me,” she said.
But he couldn’t.
“You know I brought you something,” she said. “But you were so upset the other night, I didn’t give it to you.”
“Oh? Was it a birthday present?”
She nodded and her fingers produced a wooden carving that resembled his collection of tiny figurines in the high tower’s display case—except that this one’s workmanship was not as elegant. It was a man with a young girl on his shoulders.
“Thank you.” It was nice of her to remember his fondness for those wooden figurines but she apparently lacked understanding. He was not a collector. The set in the high tower was not an array of pieces purchased from upscale shops. He kept them because of the person who …
Caliph’s heart skipped. He turned the thing over and saw the familiar words carved into the piece’s base.
“For Caliph.” The same that marked each of his other figurines.
He felt elation and confusion at the same time as he pictured how Cameron’s hands must have aged, how whittling a hunk of wood must have grown more difficult with the years—
“You saw him? You went to Nifol?” Caliph interrupted his own thoughts.
Sena nodded.
The dream man had left Stonehold just before the war, heading for the warm south. But this carving pulled him back across the miles. Caliph stroked the wood lovingly with his thumb. Upon closer inspection, the carving seemed to be of Caliph himself. He noticed how Cameron’s knife had picked out the smile of the girl on his shoulders with particular care.
Sena had told him nothing about her trip. Ten months of mystery. The casket-shaped boxes unloaded from the Odalisque had carried books. They were stacked three deep, creating blockages in all the hallways adjacent to the library.
Well, now he knew one more thing.
Seneschal Vicunt knocked on the parlor door. Caliph recognized the two-stroke tap, light-handed and expressly unobtrusive. He slipped the wooden carving into the pocket of his long coat. Sena withdrew her arms from around his neck and walked slowly back to the glass coffee table where she retrieved her cup.
“Pardon me,” said the seneschal as Caliph opened the door. “There’s a diplomatic package here, addressed to the lady of the castle. It’s from the Grand Arbiter that’s been holding rallies in Gas End.”
Caliph glanced over his shoulder to where Sena stood, blowing across her cup, watching him.
“It’s a bit heavy.” Vicunt’s voice communicated strain.
Caliph opened the door and directed him to bring it in.
The seneschal placed it on one end of the coffee table. It was a square wooden box, roughly two feet on a side and eight inches deep. The label bore the diplomatic seal and was clearly addressed to Sena.
A strange aroma surrounded it. It smelled of ointments and spice.
Caliph lifted a butter knife and offered it to Sena, gesturing for her to break the seal.
She sipped her tea and did not respond.