Cold Fire (Spiritwalker 2)

“Actually, he was quite levelheaded in dealing with my puking on the sea voyage.”

“That would certainly endear a man to an impressionable young female.” But I thought of how solicitously Vai had taken care of me.

She chuckled. “Why, Cat, you’re blushing.”

I turned the page: batey players keeping the ball in the air, faces creased with concentration; the masts of ships in the harbor; baskets of fish on the jetty, pargo and cachicata by the look of them. “I wasn’t puking, if that’s what you’re asking. But after Drake dumped me on the jetty and Vai found me, I got sick. He saw the bite mark. The landlady brought in a behique that very night. The man proclaimed me clean, so they let me stay. Vai took care of me, for nothing in return.”

“Nothing?” Her eyebrows arched.

“He comes from a village where women can be taken against their will by the mages. He refuses to act that way himself. You have no idea how people fawn over that man. I had no idea he could be so charming and thoughtful.”

“Your husband? The cold mage? Thoughtful? Charming??”

“What other husband do I have?”

“Kena’ani women are according to ancient custom able to acquire two husbands if it is for the good of the family trade. Maybe you found a charming, thoughtful one to go with the obnoxious, self-important one, like a matched set of opposites.”

I trapped her with a smirk. “Like Prince Caonabo and his brother?”

“I shall bury the blade in your skull, just above your right eye.”

“That’s what I love about you. Your precision.” I turned the page, and my heart hammered as if caught in a carpentry yard among busy laborers.

Bee leaned to look. “That’s from one of my dreams. Two trolls walking along. I like how their crests are each raised to a different height, as if one is indifferent and the other amused. See here there are two boots. So there is a man walking with them, only their bodies obscure his. I imagine that the man is the one talking, only we can’t see his face. Trolls are so interesting. They speak perfectly well, but their own language is all whistles and clicks. There is a course at the university here where people try to learn it, but I heard no person can use it properly.”

My mouth parted, as if to receive a kiss. “It’s Vai, with the Jovesday trolls. Kofi said Vai would have to leave Expedition.”

“Who is Kofi?”

I placed my finger on a small portrait of a young man with a mop of locks and jagged scars on his cheeks, pushing a cart heaped with baskets of fruit. “This is Kofi. Vai’s friend.”

“The arrogant cold mage has friends?”

I pinched her arm.

“Ouch! I meant, friends who are common laborers.”

“There’s a great deal the general doesn’t know about Vai. Kofi is going to marry Vai’s sister. Strange to think you’re dreaming about Vai.” I ran a finger across an arch decorated with four phases of the moon, then paused at a sketch of a wooden bench with a slatted back sitting in front of a brick wall adorned with falls of the flowering vine I had seen in Tanit’s bower. “What is this?”

“I don’t know. I just sketch what I dream.”

“The Jovesday trolls,” I murmured. “Could you lie down at night with a specific thing in mind to dream about?”

“I’ve tried. I can’t. I am not dreaming my own dreams. I am walking through the dreams of someone who is already dreaming.”

“A dragon.”

“Yet I still haven’t seen a single plump deer, much less one running exceedingly slowly.”

My smile at her jest twisted into a considering frown. “Keer must know where Chartji’s aunt lives. Chartji’s aunt knows Kofi. There’s the link. I have a plan. Well, as long as Keer doesn’t eat me for not coming back when I said I would. We have to go to the law offices, in the harbor district.”

“There’s a statement to send stark fear through my bones.”

“My being eaten?”

“No. You’re not plump enough to tempt them. I meant, going outside the city walls.”

“Where do you think I’ve been living? Haven’t you explored the rest of Expedition?”