LEFTRIN AWOKE TO darkness and stillness. The warmth and the sense of certainty he’d had while he was dreaming was gone. His heart yearned after those things. He’d so seldom had them in his waking life. “Kelsingra,” he whispered into the quiet of his room, and for an instant he shared a dragon’s certainty that once they reached that fabled city, all would be well. Was it possible that when they arrived there, that would be so? In his dream the city had been peopled and alive. He and Alise had belonged there, belonged together in that place where no one could ever separate them. That, he knew for certain, was only the stuff of dreams.

A sound softer than the scratch of Grigsby at his door came to him. “Cat?” he asked, puzzled.

“No,” she spoke into the darkness. The white of her nightgown caught what little light came in his stateroom window as she eased open the door. He caught his breath. She shut the door more quietly than his beating heart. She ghosted silently to his bed and he lay still, wondering if his dream of completeness had returned, fearing that if he moved he might awaken himself. She did not sit down at the edge of his bed. Instead, she lifted the corner of his blankets and slid in beside him. His arm fell easily around her. She put the arches of her chilled bare feet on his ankles and perched there. Her breasts against his chest, her soft stomach against his belly, she faced him on the pillow.

“That’s nice,” he murmured. “Is this a dream?”

“Maybe,” she said. Her breath was on his face. It was a wonderful sensation, so gentle and yet so arousing. “I was walking with you in Kelsingra. And I suddenly knew that when we arrive there, everything will be fine. And if everything is going to be fine, then everything is actually already fine. At least that makes sense to me.”

A strange stillness filled him, welling up from inside him. He ventured toward it. Yes. It made sense to him, too. “We were walking in Kelsingra. You had a basket on your arm. Were we going shopping or for a picnic?”

A little shiver of tension went through her. She spoke near his mouth. “The basket was heavy. There was fresh bread, and a bottle of wine, and a little crock of soft cheese in it.” She took a small breath. “I liked how you were wearing your hat.”

“Tipped back, so I could feel the sun on my face.”

“Yes.” She shivered again and he pulled her closer, thinking at the same moment that they could scarcely be closer. “How can we dream the same dreams?”

“How can we not?” he said without thinking. Then he took a breath and added, “My ship likes you. You know Tarman is a liveship. Don’t you?”

“Of course, but—”