He felt her hand lightly on his shoulder, and looked up. The sadness that never quite left her face was plain in her eyes. A single tear slid slowly down her cheek, and she did not trouble to wipe it away. He reached up, and brushed it away with gentle fingers.

“I miss him,” she said simply. “I miss him every day. If it weren’t for what I felt when he—left—it would be unbearable. At least—I know he must be happy. I have that. They don’t even have that much comfort.”

“I’m glad I got Dirk to go home for that reason, too,” Skif replied quietly. “Kris was something special to him—more than a friend, more than anyone else could ever be, I think. When he finally let himself grieve, he needed his family around him . . . .”

He took both of her hands in his own and they sat in silence for long moments, mourning their loss.

“Well,” he coughed a little, “I wish you had the leisure to wait on this until you were entirely well again.”

“I know. So do I,” Talia sighed. “But as soon as I can use my feet again, I have to return to duty; in fact, Selenay wrote me herself yesterday that if it weren’t so damnably painful for me to move, she’d have me on duty now.”

“I know, too. Well, it can’t be helped. Listen—I have got to tell you what that tribe is like—” Skif launched into a series of affectionate descriptions of the various members of Dirk’s family, and had the pleasure of seeing some of the sorrow leave her eyes.

“So that’s the last of them,” he concluded. Then he noticed a basket of sewing beside her—and none of the garments were her own! “What’s all this?” he asked, holding up an enormous shirt with both sleeves pulling out.

Talia blushed a charming crimson. “I can’t go anywhere except this couch or my bed. I’m tired of reading, I can’t handle my harp very long without hurting myself, and I can’t stand having nothing to do. I suppose it goes back to my farmgirl days, when I wasn’t even allowed to read without having a task in my hands. So since my embroidery is bad enough to make a cat laugh, I made Elspeth hunt out all of Dirk’s clothing, and I’ve been mending it. I can’t keep him from looking rumpled, but at least I can keep him from looking like a rag-bag!”

Before Skif could tease her further, the sound of a familiar footstep—taking the tower stairs three at a time—caused her to direct all her attention to the open door, her visitor momentarily forgotten.