“I stopped after a couple of chapters. It didn’t appeal to me.”

“What? How could a recounting of such a significant event not appeal to you? Especially when it’s based on firsthand accounts?”

“What the author’s ancestor wrote about the service fair may have been true for the aristos who had come to Kaeleer, but it wasn’t true for everyone. It was dusty and dirty and there wasn’t always enough water. And everyone was so scared of being sent back to Terreille.”

“That might have been true for the dregs coming in, but not for the people who were an asset to the Blood in Kaeleer.”

Jillian jerked to a stop and stared at Dillon.

٭Jillian?٭ Khary sounded confused.

“My sister and I are not the dregs of anything, Lord Dillon,” she said in a low voice that edged toward a growl. “We were desperate, yes, but we weren’t drudges or dregs.”

“I never said you were.”

“You just did. Nurian and I came to Kaeleer during the last service fair. Prince Yaslana showed up on the last day and offered Nurian a contract. I was there, Dillon. I wasn’t much older than Titian is now, but I remember what it looked like and felt like. It wasn’t about a better opportunity; getting a contract that would allow us to stay here was about survival.” She shook the book in his face. “So don’t you dare dismiss what I think about this account of what you call history just because I don’t agree with you.”

Dillon looked stunned. “You were there? How old are you?”

Too old, Jillian thought. And not old enough. “Eyriens are one of the long-lived races.”

“Yes, of course, but . . .”

She’d been so flattered by Dillon’s attention that she hadn’t seen the truth, hadn’t fully appreciated what Prince Sadi had tried to tell her. She’d been caught up in her first romance, but Dillon was looking for an adult relationship.

٭Jillian? You are sad? Why are you sad?٭

Was this another lesson, that the male who expressed concern for her feelings was the Sceltie and not the man who had said he loved her?

Had Dillon ever said he loved her?

“There’s a coffee shop right over there,” she said. “Why don’t we get a cup of coffee and talk?”

Anger and something else she felt she should recognize filled Dillon’s eyes for a moment before he donned a social mask.

“Yes, let’s talk,” he agreed.

When they reached the coffee shop, Jillian folded her wings and crouched so that she and Khary were closer to the same height. ٭Can you tell time?٭ she asked on a psychic thread.

A hesitation. ٭Daemon is teaching us, but clocks are hard.٭

Jillian called in a ten-minute hourglass timer and used Craft to float it at eye level for Khary. ٭When all the sand runs into the bottom part, ten minutes has passed. You turn it over and let it run again. Ten plus ten equals twenty minutes. I need to talk to Dillon alone. Twenty minutes, Khary. Then you and I will go to the library.٭ And then I’ll go home and feel sad about the first boy I loved.

٭I am your escort! I am supposed to stay with you.٭

٭We’ll be in the coffee shop, a public place, in view of other people. Please, Khary.٭

He wasn’t happy, but he said, ٭I will wait.٭

When the last grain of sand fell a second time, he’d either be in the coffee shop with her or raise such a fuss he’d have every Warlord in Riada running to the shop, ready for battle. Yesterday that would have annoyed her. Today it gave her comfort.

Not many customers at this time of day, which was good. She didn’t want to be overheard. She was headed for a table farthest from the door when Dillon grabbed her arm in a grip that hurt and pulled her through the shop and out the back door.

“I know another place to talk,” he said.

“No. Let me go.”

The look he gave her was close to hatred—or desperation. “I don’t think so.”

Before she could pull away, he launched them on the Opal Wind and she clung to him. The Webs of power the Blood used for travel stretched through the Darkness. If he shoved her off the Web, she might not find another one, might fall through the Darkness and keep falling until her body died or her mind broke.

٭Khary! Khary, help!٭ The Sceltie wouldn’t be able to hear her while she was riding the Winds, but maybe, because he was kindred, some whisper would reach him.

* * *

* * *

He finally had a chance to turn his life around, and she was going to ruin it.

Terrence had tried to tell him that Jillian looking old enough for a handfast didn’t mean she was old enough to have a lover in the fullest sense. But how could she be too young and still so old she’d been at that last service fair?

She intended to end this romance. He’d seen that truth in her eyes. It was too late for him to focus his attention on another girl in the village, so he had to make this work, at least for a little while longer. Once he showed Yaslana that he wasn’t a cad or disposable entertainment, he could admit that Jillian was a pleasant girl, which she was, but he now understood the significant difference in their ages and felt that stepping back was the honorable thing to do.

But he needed Jillian to remain enamored with him a little while longer.

* * *

* * *

٭Yas! Yas!٭

About to launch himself skyward to meet Daemon at the Keep, Lucivar hesitated when Khary called him on a psychic thread. The Sceltie sounded upset and angry, never a good sign. ٭Where are you?٭

٭Coffee shop.٭

٭Wait there.٭

There was more than one coffee shop in Riada, but only one Sceltie currently down in the village. The kindred’s psychic scents felt different from humans’. He wouldn’t have any trouble finding Khary.

He forced himself to take a moment to consider. Then he called on a spear thread, ٭Rothvar! Meet me in the village. There’s trouble.٭ Breaking the link before his second-in-command could reply, he spread his wings and flew down to Riada with reckless speed.

He didn’t have to look hard to find the right place. The large ball of witchlight floating in the street near a shop was one clue. The number of Warlords converging on the shop was another.

The other men cleared a path for him as he backwinged to land near the shop.

“Lord Khary, report,” he said, choking back temper and worry to avoid scaring a young male who was, essentially, an escort still learning his duties.

٭Jillian wanted to talk to Dillon alone,٭ Khary said. ٭She told me to wait. She told me how long. But she’s gone, Yas. I can’t find her!٭