She spotted him sitting near the railing a few feet away. He was kneeling with his hands clasped in his lap, gazing downward with an expression of intense concentration.
Is he praying?
She climbed to her feet. He looked up at her, nodded once, and said, “Please forgive me for not bringing you tea.”
“It’s not your job,” she said, mostly to kick her earlier thoughts in the teeth. Was that something in his hands? “What have you got there?”
“I believe it is some kind of swallow,” said Shane gravely.
Marguerite was not expecting that answer. She peered down.
Yes, indeed, the man had a small bird clinging to his fingers. It had a forked tail and looked at her with lacquer-bright eyes.
“All right,” said Marguerite, “I’ll bite. Why are you holding a swallow?”
“It flew right to me,” said Shane. “I believe the mist confused it. It is not apparently injured.”
Marguerite couldn’t help but laugh. With the bird clinging in his hand and the pale, indirect light, he looked more like a marble sculpture than a man. An allegorical representation of Strength, perhaps. Or, given the bird, Compassion. Although Marguerite had seen plenty of allegorical
representations of the latter, most of them female, none of which left the viewer wanting to tear the statue’s clothes off and see just how much passion there was in Compassion.
Down, girl. You don’t know anything about him. He could have a sweetheart back in Archon’s Glory for all you know.
“How long have you been sitting there with a bird?” she asked.
“Only a moment.” He turned his hand, but the swallow showed no interest in moving.
“It’s avoiding a river devil,” said the captain of the barge.
Both Marguerite and Shane turned to look at her. The old woman stumped across the deck toward them, her hands shoved deeply into her pockets.
“A river devil?” asked Shane.
The captain nodded. “It’s a river swallow,” she said. “They go back and forth picking off insects.
And the devils pick them off.” She pulled one gnarled hand out of her pocket and pointed. “Watch.”
Marguerite peered into the mist. Another bird was flying along the water’s surface, making long, repetitive arcs that made the fog tremble. She couldn’t see anything that resembled a devil, though.
She was just about to ask what she was looking for when the surface of the water broke and something large and flat leaped up after the bird. She had an impression of blunt wings, a pale underside, and an open, lipless mouth, before the devil struck the water again and vanished beneath the surface.
The flying swallow was gone. The one on Shane’s hand was perfectly still.
“Did it…？” Marguerite asked.
“Oh, aye.” The captain nodded to her. “They mostly eat little bitty fish, but they’ll take a bird if they can.”
“Are they dangerous to people?” asked Shane. She could understand the question—the thing had been at least five feet across, maybe more.
“Nah. They leave us alone, we leave them alone.” She turned to go, then paused. “If you catch one in your net, you got to throw it back, though. It’s bad luck otherwise. And iffen one dies in your net, you got to make an offering to the river gods.”
“Are they sacred to the gods, then?”
The captain frowned at him. “No, but they belong to ’em. Like a mule belongs to its owner. You kill somebody’s mule, you got to make it right with them.”
Shane nodded understanding of this fine theological difference, and the captain went back to her perch near the back. Marguerite felt a twitch of amusement. That was more words than she’d ever heard the woman speak willingly. Indeed, she hired this barge specifically because the captain spoke so little and was entirely resistant to gossip.
And I consider that a virtue in her, and not in Shane. What a hypocrite I am. I should simply be glad that he will not gossip to anyone else about our mission.
“You still seem to have a bird,” she said.
“So I have noticed.” He gazed at the bird with an air of resignation. “I cannot begrudge it the sanctuary, but my hand is becoming cramped.”
“Can I get you anything? A perch, perhaps?”
Shane considered this. “I would not object to tea,” he said finally. “If I may impose on you.”
“Ah yes, a truly monstrous imposition, tea. But I’ll allow it.” She went to the small galley in back of the raft and returned a few moments later with two steaming cups.
The fingers that touched hers felt like ice. Marguerite wondered if the bird was getting cold as well.
Apparently the bird felt the same way, or perhaps when his hands shifted, it decided it was time to leave. It leapt up in a flutter of wings and was gone into the mist in a heartbeat. Marguerite let out a startled laugh. Shane gazed after it, then dropped his head. She would have sworn that he smiled.
He signed a benediction in the air after the bird, then washed his hands in the river and finally took a sip of tea. “Thank you.”
“Glad to help.” She cocked her head, studying him. “Are you a knight?”
Shane stilled. “Why do you ask?”
“Curiosity. You move like one.”
“How so?”
“You kneel and get up again too easily.”
Shane frowned. “I don’t follow?”
She smiled. “The only people who spend as much time on their knees as knights are whores and holy men. You’re not the latter, though I admit I’m merely guessing with the other one.”
He blinked at her. The tips of his ears went suddenly, blazingly scarlet. Marguerite did not know whether to feel guilty or charmed.
“I. Uh.” He cleared his throat. “Yes. Technically. I was knighted as part of my training with the…
as part of my training.”
He might as well have held up a sign saying ‘Please Do Not Ask About The Dreaming God.’
Marguerite had no intention of doing so. “It’s not a bad thing,” she said. “I was just curious. Should I be calling you Sir Shane?”
He sighed deeply, and Marguerite wondered how she’d ever thought that he was expressionless.
“It would be Sir Shane of Templemarch. And I’d really rather you didn’t.”
“Then I won’t.” And now, my finely honed conversational senses are telling me to change the subject. She scanned the water, but saw no sign of the river devil. “You know, I’ve gone up and down this stretch nearly a dozen times, and I’ve never seen a river devil before. I didn’t know they were so large.”
“I had never even heard of them.” He stretched his fingers, shaking out the stiffness. “It is unsettling to think that there are such large creatures passing beneath us.”
Marguerite chuckled. “We’ll soon be at the Court of Smoke. Fewer rays, but a great deal more
going on beneath the surface.”
Shane sighed. “I will look forward to being off the boat,” he confessed, “but I am concerned about the rest.”
“You and me both,” said Marguerite with a sigh. “You and me both.”
TWELVE
THEIR FINAL STOP before the court was a small town at the river’s edge. It was divided into two distinct districts, one full of expensive-looking inns and shops, set well back from the water, and one built on and around a network of docks. They disembarked and made their way to an inn on the edge of the wealthy district, where Marguerite bespoke a private dining room.