I started to walk away, but Olivette saw me, and it was impossible to act as if I had not heard her bellow.
“Anna? Anna!” She frantically waved to catch my attention.
“Hello,” I greeted her, and approached them. “So good to see you both again.” And then all words fled when I saw what Olivette wore buckled around her waist—a leather weapon belt with two sheathed daggers. The twin to the one my father had gifted to me, years ago.
Nura noticed my stare and said, “It’s tradition. Oli likes to walk our streets with her weapons before the new moon rises.”
“It’s for good luck,” Olivette added.
“It’s . . . a very nice belt,” I stammered. “Where did you get it?”
“My father made it for me,” Olivette replied. “If you like it, I can see if he can make one for you.”
The sad fact was my own belt was at my mother’s, tucked away in one of my trunks. Phelan would unfortunately recognize it; I remembered how he had studied my hips, the way my daggers had shone at the dinner table in Hereswith.
“Oh, no,” I said. “But thank you for the offer.”
“Would you like to join us?” Nura asked.
“I probably shouldn’t. I was walking Phelan’s streets, to reacquaint myself before tonight.”
“They’re your streets now, too,” Olivette said. “And where is Phelan?”
“He already had his walk this morning. I would have accompanied him, but I was still sleeping.”
“Ah, yes, we only just woke ourselves,” Olivette confessed with a disarming smile. “New moons are the only morning Nura will let me sleep in so late.”
I returned the smile. “Yes, well, I only had until nine until Phelan woke me for sword lessons.”
“He’s very anxious about tonight,” Nura said, exchanging a concerned glance with Olivette.
“Is there a reason why he should be?” I asked.
“Did he tell you about his first new moon here? How he was wounded?” said Olivette.
“He briefly mentioned it.”
“I think that’s why, although he refuses to tell us what, exactly, wounded him so badly.”
“And we don’t feel it right to press him about it,” Nura added. “But it worries us. It’s been a year since a warden was killed on the new moon in this part of the city, but it does happen occasionally.”
I chewed on my lip a moment, wondering. Phelan had mentioned his near death to me the first night I had shared dinner with him, when he had striven to win me over, but he had not further regaled me with details. It seemed everyone was anxious to know what had happened: Nura, Olivette, the duke. Me.
“Don’t worry,” I reassured them. “I’ll guard his back tonight.”
Olivette appeared relieved, but Nura appeared a bit doubtful.
“Good luck tonight, Anna,” Olivette said.
“Same to you.” I waved farewell to them.
I hurried back to Phelan’s town house, the temperature dropping with the sun. A shiver nipped at my bones as I closed the front door behind me. Mrs. Stirling was in the kitchen, preparing dinner. The fragrant aromas embraced me in the corridor, and for a staggering moment, I was back home in Hereswith, and Imonie was cooking and setting the fine porcelain on the table. A place for me and a place for my father.
I laid my palm over the pain in my chest. I was learning how certain things were threats to the stone half of my heart. They were like swinging hammers, eager to form a crack within me, and I was struggling to know how to filter them into my life. Things such as memories of home, Deacon’s smile, Nura’s and Olivette’s friendship. The way I sometimes caught Phelan looking at me.
I forced the memories haunting me into dust, until my homesickness was nothing more than a tiny trace, and I headed to the library. But Phelan wasn’t there. I cast an inquisitive net of magic throughout the house, but I failed to sense his presence. He was gone, and I sat at his desk to read through the book of nightmares, only to discover the old tome was absent. He must have been summoned to fetch a last-minute dream, I thought, and leaned my head back in the chair, closing my eyes.
Just for a moment, I told myself, and drifted off to sleep.
I woke to the sound of Phelan speaking my name for the second time that day.
“Miss Neven?”
I jerked awake, rubbing a crick in my neck. He stood before me holding the book of nightmares, top hat perched slightly crooked on his head. His face was flushed from cool air, and the cut on his cheek had scabbed at last. Only a thread of sunset filtered through the library window; the rest of the room fell to shadows.
“Dinner is ready,” he said, gently setting the book on the desk.
“I’m sorry,” I croaked, my voice clogged from sleep.
“For what?”
I indicated the book of nightmares. “For being away. I should have accompanied you to fetch the dream.”
“You didn’t miss much,” he said, removing his hat and tossing it onto the desk. “A recurrent nightmare, and one that is more bizarre than it is frightening.”
I continued to rub the stiff muscles of my neck as I followed him into the dining room. Mrs. Stirling had set a feast of steaming platters on the table.
I took my seat first, and then Phelan sat across from me. There were only two places set at the table, for me and for him, and when Mrs. Stirling bustled into the dining room with a pitcher of chilled cider, I asked, “Are you eating with us tonight, Mrs. Stirling?”
“Oh no, my dear,” she replied, filling our goblets. “Deacon and I return home early on these nights.”
The nightmares wouldn’t bloom until the clock struck nine, but I felt the anxious energy in the housekeeper as she set down the pitcher and smoothed the wrinkles from her apron. She was eager to be home with her shutters and doors locked against the night.
“Is there anything else I can provide for you, Mr. Vesper? Deacon and I have tended to all the windows, as well as the back door.”
“No, Mrs. Stirling. You have outdone yourself, per usual. Thank you.”
She curtsied and gathered Deacon and her cloak. “Good fortune to both of you tonight,” she said. “I hope it is an early and effortless night.”
“Don’t worry, Mrs. Stirling,” I said. “I’ll take good care of Mr. Vesper.”
I felt Phelan’s gaze on me, but I resisted meeting it, smiling at Mrs. Stirling and Deacon instead.
“Good, very good,” she murmured, scratching her eyebrow. “Don’t worry about the plates after you eat. Just leave them on the table. I’ll clean them in the morning.”
And she was gone, Deacon in her shadow.
I returned to my meal, eating in companionable silence with Phelan.
It took me a moment to rouse my courage, but I finally did. “Are you going to tell me what wounded you moons ago?”
“I’ve thought many times on this,” he said. “How to tell you of that night. But I can’t find the words, Miss Neven.”
“Oh.” I was disappointed with his response, but I hid my feelings and finished my dinner. Silence frosted the table between us.
“I want to prepare you, but I’m uncertain as to what we can expect tonight, Miss Neven,” Phelan said, breaking the quiet. “I apologize that I can’t tell you more. Because of that . . . stay close to me tonight.”