With a sigh, I leaned against her shoulder. Bee was significantly shorter than I was, but she was sturdy and determined, easily strong enough to hold me up when I needed support. “It’s no wonder I mumble such words in my sleep. When I wake up, I remember that my sire threw Vai into his magical coach and drove off with him into the spirit world.”

Bee pressed her fingers to my knee, staring at me with brows drawn down as if she could bend the world to her will through her glower, and sometimes I was sure she could. “I know you’re worried because your sire is the Master of the Wild Hunt, because he is a powerful magical denizen of the spirit world, and because not even the most powerful cold mage can stand against him. But even though all that is true, it doesn’t mean you and I can’t defeat him and rescue Andevai.”

“I always feel so heartened when you explain things in exactly that cheering way, Bee.”

“Do you doubt that we can?” she demanded in the belligerent manner I loved.

“I don’t doubt that we must, for certainly no one else can! Anyhow, I’m not going to lie here and cry about it. We will figure out what to do because we have to.”

I rose. In the dim and rather stuffy little room, a cloth-covered screen folded out to divide the space into two halves. Vai’s younger sister had slept on the other side of the screen, but she had recently married a local man and moved into his family’s compound. Two wooden chests held Vai’s clothes and other necessaries. His carpentry tools resided in a smaller chest he had built specially to house them. A covered basket held my few possessions, for I had arrived in Expedition with nothing except the clothes on my back, my sword, and my locket. Through the open window floated the sounds of the household waking from their afternoon naps.

A length of brightly printed fabric that depicted green fans was draped over the screen. Tied around my hips, it made a skirt. I pulled a short gauzy blouse over my bodice.

Bee surveyed me critically. “That looks very well on you, Cat. The style would not flatter my figure.” She fluffed out her curly hair to get the worst snarls out. “Wouldn’t the fastest way to pursue Vai be to enter the spirit world here and follow your sire to Europa through the spirit world?”