He shook his head as if shaking off drops of rain. “Very well. If that is what is required. There are some lads out on the street watching my horse. Shall I stable it here, or take it along?”

After it was agreed he ought to stable it, he went to make the arrangements. Rory and I carried the basket and leather bag up to the room.

Rory said, “They mean to leave me here so you won’t be alone, Cat, but I know how to handle Vai better than the others do. If you don’t mind, I’ll go with them.”

“Maybe if we had handled him less and kicked him more, he might not so easily fall back into his unpleasant old habits.”

“I don’t know,” mused Rory, “for I am sure he stopped himself from saying at least eleven cutting and cruel things just now. That he sat there and let them dictate to him shows he is listening, however little it may seem to someone who does not know him.”

“How do you know people so well, Rory?”

He smiled. “People are easy to know. Human-people are emotional and hierarchical. Feathered-people are inquisitive and acquisitive.”

I rested my head in my hands. “What are our kind of people?”

“I just enjoy being here.” He patted my shoulder. “As for you, Cat, you are always struggling with all the different parts of you. You have your mother’s loyalty and strength, and your stepfather’s bold curiosity and love of stories. You have our sire’s instincts, which is why you like to hunt and fight and be petted, but it’s also why Vai can melt you with kisses when you really ought to be pushing him back a step so he can stop and think. I expect that in the mage House, the more he sensed you were uncomfortable and displeased with a situation he was increasingly attracted by—being heir—the more he exerted himself to please you in other ways.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right!” He kissed my forehead.

Left alone, I apologized to the cacica as I lifted the skull out of the basket and made an offering of the last of the ale, when she ought to have been offered the first. The leather bag disgorged my wonderful riding clothes and boots, a sewing kit Vai had obviously obtained knowing I would want it, and my toiletries. The sight of these items wearied me beyond measure because they forced me to contemplate a life without Andevai. I lay down on the bed and promptly dozed off. Voices frayed in my dreams, only to dissolve into a remarkably erotic dream that woke me sweating.