Elda offered a wry smile and clambered upright. “Another customer, no doubt. Some northwealder sergeant with a sore head from last night.”

She made her way from the kitchen, leaving Calenne alone with her thoughts. How strange to have spent her adult life wanting nothing more than to escape the town, and to now be so at ease. A little freedom went a long way.

When Elda returned to the kitchen, it was not with an ailing soldier in tow, but Lord Akadra. His head struck the uneven doorframe a glancing blow. He scowled at the offending timber and rubbed his brow.

“This one wants to speak with you,” said Elda coldly. “I’ll be in the garden.”

She retreated from sight, shoulders back and stride stiff. A door slammed soon after.

“I’ve had warmer welcomes,” said Akadra. “On the other hand: no slops bucket.”

“Elda was one of Katya’s oldest friends,” said Calenne. “You can’t blame her for hating you. And that cloak makes you look like a hangman going door to door to drum up business.”

“May I sit?”

She hesitated, enjoying the moment of power. “Why are you here, Lord Akadra?”

“Viktor.”

“I’m sorry?”

“Titles are for commoners. You’re a Trelan, a family of the first rank.”

Calenne narrowed her eyes and sighed. “Very well, Viktor. You may sit.”

He inclined his head. “Thank you, Miss Trelan.”

“No.”

Akadra – no, Viktor – halted halfway to his seat and frowned in puzzlement.

“If the Black Knight of my nightmares is to be Viktor, then I will be nothing other than Calenne.”

“Of course.”

The ghost of a smile touched Viktor’s lips. The chair creaked as it took his weight.

Why had she insisted he address her thus? A point of pride? Or so she need not hear her hated surname? But the man before her shared so little with the Black Knight of her dreams that she couldn’t discount the possibility that she wanted to be thought his equal.

“I didn’t know,” said Viktor. “About your dreams, I mean.”

Calenne shrugged, already regretting revealing that part of herself. “A man drives a child from her home, he should expect to be thought a monster.”

“And you think me a monster now?”

“I don’t know. I think you have it within you to be a monster, if you wish.”

He laughed, though the mirth didn’t reach his eyes. “As do we all. Lumestra may have brought light to the world, but she didn’t drive the Dark from our souls. It’s there, waiting for when we need it, or when we’re too weak to resist.”

“Elda would tell you that the Dark is all we share.”

“So she’s not a believer?”

“No.” Calenne blanched. Why had she told him that? If Makrov found out . . . “I mean, she’s not . . .”

“I know what you meant. Or I would have done, if I’d heard. But I didn’t.”