CHAPTER THIRTY

Despite his headache, Mikael felt hopeful, unusual before one of his dreams. The carriage rolled on through the darkness, arriving shortly in the heart of the Old Town. The driver reined in the horses and let them down before the door of the tavern. Cerradine jumped out, leaving Mikael to help Deborah. As soon as Mikael stepped inside, he spotted Synen serving that boisterous group of young Anvarrid men again. Synen caught Mikael’s eyes and gestured with one thumb toward the kitchen.

Mikael caught up with Cerradine, who was looking about the common room of the tavern with an angry expression on his face. “Kitchen,” Mikael said, and led the colonel and Deborah that way.

When they walked through the doors into the brightly lit kitchen, Mikael almost laughed at Miss Anjir’s disheveled appearance. She was swaddled in a golden brocade house robe with a groom’s overcoat atop that. She had embroidered house slippers on her feet and wore Mikael’s gloves. Her hair, although it looked to have been braided properly this time, had an old dried leaf in it. She looked misplaced again, as if someone had forgotten a young girl in one of the tavern’s guest rooms, like a piece of lost luggage. Filip Messine stood protectively nearby, looking extremely relieved to see them.

“Shironne, are you insane?” the colonel asked.

“Sir, I brought her here,” Messine began.

“At her behest,” the colonel snapped, crossing to tower over her. “You climbed down a tree, Shironne. You could have broken your neck. What were you thinking?”

She blushed but lifted her chin. “Mr. Lee is going to dream, so I had to get away. I’d heard Melanna climb down that tree, sir, so I knew it could be done.”

“Melanna is eight,” he said. “You’re not a little girl . . .”

“Jon,” Deborah interrupted, setting one hand on his arm. “Stop. It’s done. Let it go.”

He turned a glare on her but quickly controlled it. “Messine, we can take care of her from here. If you would get back to the house and let them know that she’s in safe hands.”

“I’ll do so, sir,” Messine said. It took a moment for Miss Anjir to extricate herself from Messine’s coat, leaving her in that ridiculous house robe. Once he had his coat, Messine slipped out the tavern’s back door, likely grateful to be out of Cerradine’s reach.

“Miss Anjir,” Deborah said, sitting across from her, “how did you know that Mr. Lee is going to have a dream tonight?”

“I didn’t recognize it before,” Shironne said, “but I do now. Now that I’ve met him, I mean. He’s so tense that his head hurts. It’s like a hum in the back of my mind.”

Deborah cast a significant glance at Cerradine, regarding him with raised brows. “Isn’t that interesting?”

Cerradine shook his head. “Shironne, you can pick that out all the way from the palace?”

“Well, now that I know what’s him and what’s not him, it’s simple.”

Mikael licked his lips, unsure what to make of that. He could barely recognize an oncoming dream himself. How could she?

Synen bustled into the kitchen then, his eyes widening at the sight of the crowd. “What’s happening here, lad? Another one of those nights? And you’ve brought an audience?”

Mikael sighed, not knowing at all where to begin. “Actually, yes. We need a room.”

Synen’s wife walked in, took one look at Mikael and her husband, wiped her hands on her apron, and headed back out to the common room, shaking her head.

Deborah took charge of the situation. “In addition to the room, we’ll need a private sitting area, for myself and the young lady to have a chat. Do we have time for that, Mikael?”

He sometimes miscalculated the timing of one of his dreams, but usually that happened with the old dreams, the ones that repeated. New dreams were clearer, possibly because they were linked to the present—or the future—not the past. “I’m pretty sure I’ve got time to lie down and get comfortable.”

Synen looked dubious about that pronouncement but left to arrange a room.

Mikael cast a concerned glance at Shironne, hoping Deborah wouldn’t be too hard on her. Deborah would have a thousand questions. Probably more. Shironne bit her lower lip and nodded—a sign to him that she was willing to go along with Deborah, he decided.

The kitchen door swung open again, narrowly missing Deborah this time. Mikael glanced up, hoping Synen had found a room for him, but instead, Merival strode through the door. He froze as she approached him, a smile on her lips. “Mikael,” she said in a teasing voice, “have you come back to see me?”

Words tumbled out of his mouth before he had a chance to think them through. “No, I’m not here to see you.”

Her smile faded, making him wonder whether she’d been teasing him or not.

His face must be blazing scarlet. “I have other business here tonight.”

“Let’s go see if he’s found a room for you.” Cerradine placed a firm hand on Mikael’s arm and dragged him from the kitchen before Merival could ask anything else. Mikael went quite willingly.

Fortunately, Synen directed them up to the second floor. The last few rooms on the hall remained unsold, so Synen unlocked one, gesturing for the two of them to precede him inside.

“If he starts screaming,” Synen said to the colonel from the doorway, “put a pillow over his face. Shuts him right up.”

Cerradine raised his eyebrows and turned back to Mikael after Synen disappeared. “I see you come here often.”

“Often enough,” Mikael admitted. “Synen is willing to put up with a lot. Mostly he just locks me up until Kai comes to drag me back to the fortress.”

“Well, I hope there won’t be any screaming tonight.”

Cerradine walked around the room, sizing it up. He ran a finger over a wooden chest at the foot of the bed as if checking for dust and eyed the bed cautiously. Mikael suspected that during his years living among the Lucases, the colonel had developed the same distaste for vermin most members of the Six Families shared.

Mikael sat on the neatly made bed, unconcerned about the tavern’s cleanliness. He wished the dream would come, but they always happened in their own time. He took off his jacket and boots, lay down, and waited for Cerradine to interrogate him about the waitress downstairs.

Cerradine settled into a chair set under the white-curtained window. “I’m glad to see that young men still do stupid things.”

Mikael closed his eyes, pretending not to hear Cerradine’s quiet laughter.

•   •   •

Shironne held a hand over her mouth to keep from laughing aloud at Mikael’s poorly hidden panic. The girl in the kitchen must be the Merival who’d sat on Mikael’s lap, although he remembered nothing of that event.

Someone else walked into the kitchen just then, and the doctor went to talk with them. Merival took advantage of the doctor’s distraction to introduce herself to Shironne as if she owned the tavern. “And you are?”

Shironne knew better than to give her name. She was supposed to be home, locked in her room, and she knew from Mikael’s perception of her that she looked ridiculous in her current attire. She needed to get that leaf out of her hair.

“Are you his betrothed?” Merival prompted.

Shironne choked down a cough. “I don’t . . .”

“Excuse me,” the doctor said sternly to Merival, reflecting annoyance over the waitress’ familiarity. “I need to take this young lady up to a private parlor or sitting room. Does this tavern have such a place?”

Shironne was glad she’d been spared the need to answer Merival’s questions.

Clearly recognizing authority, the waitress resumed the role of servant. “Yes, ma’am. I can take you up to one if they’re not all let.”

“Dear,” the doctor said, addressing Shironne now, “why don’t you come along with me?” She took Shironne’s gloved hand and led her across the kitchen in the wake of Merival’s rose-oil perfume.