Chane lifted the canvas curtain’s edge with a fingertip, and a streetlamp outside lit his pale features. Wynn studied his clean, long profile.
She’d always liked it, from the first night they’d met back in Bela at the shabby guild annex she was trying to help establish. Standing there in the dim light, he looked like the young nobleman she’d first taken him for, before she knew ... what he really was. But he wasn’t the only one who now filled her thoughts.
Wynn was still stunned by the ache that stabbed her inside when she’d seen Osha. All else had flushed from her mind. She thought only of his companionship in the long journey into the Pock Peaks in search of the orb. More had happened after that.
Days after Magiere and Leesil’s wedding, when they’d all reached Bela, the capital of Belaski, Osha had to leave early from the inn. One of the an’Cróan’s living ships, a Päirvänean, lay in wait up the coast to take him home. She’d followed him to Bela’s bustling docks, not yet ready to lose him—though another part of her reason was to give him a journal she’d written of certain events to pass on to Brot’an.
All along the journey out of the Pock Peaks, Magiere had warned Wynn about any intimacy with an an’Cróan. It was a warning that had once been given too late to Magiere concerning Leesil, who was a half-blood.
An’Cróan bonded for life, and some were unable to survive the loss of a mate.
Even when Osha said good-bye, turning up the busy waterfront through the crowd to head north out of the city, the way he’d looked at Wynn made her ache. He didn’t want to leave her, and she hadn’t been ready to let him go. Any warning was forgotten as she ran after him.
Wynn had shouted for him, though he hadn’t heard her until she’d almost caught up. When he did stop and turn, she threw herself at him, grabbing for his shoulders to pull herself up.
“Do not forget me,” she’d whispered as his arms closed around her.
Wynn lifted her head, clumsily thrusting her mouth against Osha’s. Then she’d turned and run, fearing to even look back. Until last night, that day on the docks had been the last time she’d seen him.
Chane was not the only one who had followed her across the world, and Chane was not the only one who had stood as her guardian.
Chane turned from the window, gazing down at her.
“Thank you,” he said.
“For what?”
“For coming back to us. For not staying with them.”
Wynn felt like she might burn to cinders inside and come apart.
“Chane, what did you think I was going to—”
Shade growled, and Wynn jerked around. The dog kept growling at the wall just to the left of the bed.
A dark-sleeved arm emerged out of the wall’s old planks.
“Wynn!” Chane rasped.
Ore-Locks rushed around the bed as a shoulder and the skirt of a robe followed the arm. Chane was right above Wynn, but he didn’t step around her or try to pull her back.
Amid Wynn’s fright, she noticed that neither of them appeared alarmed—only intense. Then the full outline of the dark robe was inside the dim room, and it wasn’t black.
The light of her cold-lamp crystal on the bedside table clearly showed a deep, midnight blue. One narrow hand reached up to pull back the cowl.
Premin Hawes looked down at Wynn with two sparkling hazel eyes in a face almost elfin in its narrowness of chin. She stood there, looking about at the others. A canvas pack hung over one of her shoulders, a wrapped parcel under that same arm, and in her other hand ...
At the sight of the sun-crystal staff, Wynn almost stopped breathing.
“Would it not have been easier to use the door?” Chane asked dryly.
“Footsteps upon the stairs or a knock might be heard,” Hawes answered. “I have no wish to be noticed here.”
She set the parcel and pack on the bed and held out the staff.
Wynn was still sitting on the floor, wondering what had just happened.
“I thought you might like these possessions returned,” the premin said.
Wynn recovered enough to scramble up and grab the staff. She still couldn’t catch her breath for a thank-you, though she’d have done anything to express her gratitude.
“The book you asked me to bring is in the pack,” Hawes said, “though I read passable Sumanese.”
Wynn wouldn’t let go of the staff and fumbled to open her pack with one hand. And then she stopped, taking stock of the contents.
Aside from an old lexicon or dictionary of Sumanese, there was her journal—the one she’d encrypted with notes from all of the others she’d burned. However, in the message she’d sent to Hawes, she’d risked giving detailed instructions regarding both her location and needs for a reference on the oldest Sumanese dialects. Given Hawes’s choice of guild order, it did not surprise Wynn that the premin knew some Sumanese. Languages were part of all sages’ schooling, though primarily that of cathologers. But many of the recovered secrets of metaology had come out of the Suman Empire.
“Nikolas had no trouble getting the message to you?” Wynn asked.
Hawes raised one eyebrow. “Master a’Seatt delivered it.”
“A’Seatt?” Chane hissed.
Wynn was taken aback, as well, and as if reading her reaction, Premin Hawes let out a slow breath.
“It might clarify much to tell each other everything,” the premin said, “if we are to be of assistance to one another.”
Wynn had already concluded that, but there was something else in the premin’s response. Hawes hadn’t just offered assistance; she expected something in return. What Wynn needed was beyond price, and she’d learned not to trust gifts. Perhaps it would be best to make the premin go first.
“Agreed,” Wynn said, and rushed on. “Why are those wagons coming into the guild every night? What are they bringing?”
Hawes was quiet, though Wynn couldn’t tell if this was caused by indecision, reluctance, or something else. The premin’s expression, or lack of it, offered nothing.
“Supplies for an expedition,” Hawes suddenly answered.
“Expedition? To where?”
“To the castle where you found the ancient texts. According to your report, you retrieved only a small fraction of what is there.”
Before Wynn uttered a word, Chane beat her to it.
“They must not!” he rasped. “Did they not read of what is trapped beneath that castle? Premin, you have to—”
“Making a plan is still far from executing it,” Hawes cut in.
“Then why do they already amass supplies?” Chane countered.
Hawes remained fixed on Wynn as she answered. “Assembling a group with even a slim chance to reach that place—should your accounting of the route be detailed enough—will take time. Even should they have a chance to succeed, the effort and what might be gained may prove pointless ... or unnecessary, in comparison to immediate concerns.”
Wynn didn’t like the way Hawes studied her.
“I have answered your question,” the premin said. “Do you have something to share with me?”
Wynn looked at Chane. He nodded and pulled the old scroll case from inside his shirt.
She reached into the pocket of her robe and pulled out a wrinkled sheet of paper as they both settled upon the floor. Chane pulled the lid off the case and unrolled the ancient leather scroll with its blacked-out surface.
An alliance with Hawes would be all or nothing, and they’d just chosen all. The premin crouched, frowning in puzzlement at both paper and scroll.
“This is what we’ve translated so far,” Wynn explained, spinning the wrinkled paper around so that the premin could read it.