“We’re not bonded,” said Nev. “I’m just taking care of her. Papa, these are two of the Monsean delegates, Giddon and Hava. Have you heard the news of the Monsean delegates?”
“Yes, of course. I’m so sorry about your queen,” Davvi said to them, with immediate and sincere feeling. “Have you eaten?” he asked next.
He ushered them to a tiny table in a corner of the tiny, dark room, not asking why they’d come, bringing them bowls of a soup of meat and potatoes and thick, delicious slices of buttered bread. Then he stared happily at his daughter while she tried to explain the odd circumstance of their arrival. The silbercows’ stories, Quona Varana’s worries for her safety, her companions’ needs. “They have snooping to do,” she said. “We’ll have to organize a boat. There’s more to tell, but I’ll wait for Mama and Grandpa to get home.”
Davvi waved this away almost with impatience, as if the Monseans’ needs were beside the point. He was so happy. It amazed him that his daughter should have flown home in an airship. He seemed to attribute it to the importance of the Monsean guests, then was concerned at Nev’s suggestion that Hava and Giddon sleep in the barn. He was the opposite of his daughter, his feelings always apparent, his doubts expressed with jumping eyebrows and cries of alarm.
When Nev stood and offered to show them to the barn, Giddon let her and Hava step out of the house ahead of him.
“Excuse me, sir,” he said quietly to Davvi.
“Yes?”
Giddon was feeling as if he’d slid out of his own body and was watching a large, bearded actor talk mechanically to a kind man. He understood where the strangeness was coming from. He had a question, and he was terrified of the answer. It would be better if he didn’t ask it.
It burst out.
“If silbercows see a person drowning,” he said. “Do they let them drown?”
Davvi’s face moved with sympathy. “Silbercows are known for trying to save the lives of drowning humans. I don’t believe they would ever just watch a human drown.”
“Then—if they do save a human, where do they take them?”
“Wherever they can,” said Davvi. “Land, a ship, an airship. There are many happy stories. Sad ones too, I’m afraid, for sometimes the water’s too cold. Why do you ask?”
“I’m just curious,” said Giddon.
* * *
—
The barn was not what he’d expected. No beds of straw, no chilly drafts through ill-fitting shutters. Instead, he stepped into a long, cavernous, tall-ceilinged space with smells and flickering lanterns that reminded him of the horse stables of his childhood in the Middluns. Under the incurious gaze of one of the tallest cows Giddon had ever seen, Nev directed him to a corner of the barn where four small rooms had been built, clearly for the comfort of travelers.
Giddon’s room was barely big enough for its furniture, and dark. He suspected he wouldn’t see any glass in Torla’s Neck until he reached the Cavenda house. But the room was clean, and warm from the heat of the brazier Nev lit for him. The bed was comfortable, his blankets soft.
Lying down, Giddon watched the light his brazier threw against the even boards of the ceiling, listened to the rustle of the chickens whose coop was on the other side of the barn. He felt that his heart was being pulled apart.
What if the silbercows had been showing him the story of Bitterblue’s rescue?
But how could that be, when she’d never turned up anywhere alive?
Bitterblue? he ventured, afraid of the thing he wanted more than anything. What do I do? How do I find out? And how will I survive, if it’s not true?
Chapter Thirty-one
Lovisa woke to the sound of crashing waves, her body colder, her muscles achier than they’d ever been before.
She sat up, knocking sand out of the fur of her coat, then squinting at the glare of a bonfire that shot its flames into the sky. They’d followed the light of this bonfire last night, climbing up and down hills, keeping it in view. When they’d finally arrived, they’d found the beach already crowded with sleepers, huddled together in blankets. Beyond the fire, carts had been scattered across the sand, horses whickering softly, people moving among them. Lovisa hadn’t wanted to walk onto the beach, once she’d seen its inhabitants.
But the Queen of Monsea had made a guess that a city beach like this one was populated by the continent’s poorer travelers and other ragtag citizens at night, and that two girls at loose ends would go unnoticed and unharmed, as long as enough of the others on the beach were women too.
“We’ll make a better plan tomorrow,” she’d said, leading Lovisa to the fire. Well, now the sky was streaked with pink; it was morning. Lovisa hoped the queen would wake soon, with some ideas about that plan.
* * *
—
The Queen of Monsea kept sleeping, despite all the clamor around them of wind and water, protesting horses, the shouts of waking people. Lovisa finally gave her shoulder a heartless shove.
The queen pushed herself up sleepily, awkwardly. As she glanced around, her face to the light, Lovisa became aware of a new problem. The queen’s light brown skin and pale gray eyes were going to arouse curiosity. No one would mistake her as Keepish.
“Where are you two from?” said a voice.
Lovisa kept her expression flat as she turned to assess the speaker. It was a Keepish-looking woman who sat alone on a stump before the fire, apparently tending it, for as she waited for their response, she lifted a log from a stack at her side, leaned forward, and threw it onto the flames.
Lovisa had never dealt with a woman like this before, rough and blunt, steel-colored hair jabbing its way out of her hat. She was wearing neither coat nor gloves as she handled the coarse, splintery wood. Her fingers looked like hard stubs.
“Where are you from?” Lovisa said, surprised by the hoarseness of her throat and her own ragged voice.
“I asked you first,” said the woman, with an icy smile.
“And I need a sense of whether I can trust you before I answer.”
The woman threw her head back and laughed. “Bold words for someone so little. Are you girls in trouble?”
“Why are you asking?”
The woman chuckled again. “Because I’m inclined to help girls in trouble. Of course, I can only help you to the extent you’re willing to trust me. You’ll have to decide that for yourselves.”
Lovisa glanced at Bitterblue. The queen was gazing up at the city rising above the water, its hills, towers, and spires touched by the sun’s glow.
“Beautiful,” Bitterblue said. Then she pulled off one of her many gold rings—Lovisa couldn’t remember seeing those rings on her fingers before, but she knew the Lienid tradition—and held it in the palm of her hand. “Do you know of a place where I could get a warm bath?” she asked the woman.