Joking aside, Rosa and Kasamor would have made a handsome couple. They shared hair the colour of ripened wheat, and eyes as pale and blue as the winter skies. Rosa’s face was that of a divine serathi – if that serathi was given to scowling. Kasamor had a lantern jaw and heavy brow that echoed portraits of kings long dead. But they’d been friends too long. They all had. Any lingering attraction lay buried beneath a lifetime of faults and foibles witnessed at close hand.

Malachi was content with his own unremarkable looks. Even if his dark hair was already flecked with grey. A honed mind was a far more valuable tool than a handsome face, and lasted longer.

Rosa snorted. “I’d sooner kiss a goat.”

Malachi grinned into his tankard.

“And why not?” mused Kasamor. “We all know you’ve a thing for beards.”

“Just as we all know that you can’t grow a beard worthy of the name.”

Kasamor slumped against the chair’s backrest. He clapped his hands across his chest in mock pain. “Your words . . . They’re a blade in my heart.”

Rosa chuckled. “It’s a large target. You’ll survive.”

Hands still to his chest, Kasamor closed his eyes. “Not so. Even now, I hear the flutter of sable wings. Lumestra sends her handmaidens. They’ll weep golden tears as they carry me off.”

“I’m not sure the serathi weep tears for anyone, much less for a man.” Rosa hooked an eyebrow. “Then again, you’re barely a man, are you?”

Kasamor’s eyes flickered open. “Is that curiosity I hear? Alas, my dear, beautiful sister-at-arms, you’ve missed your opportunity. I’m pledged to higher things.”

With an exasperated sigh she turned to stare out across the room. “You’re impossible.”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you.” Kasamor grew unusually sincere. “My heart belongs to another.”

Rosa offered no response. Enough, Malachi decided, was enough.

“So you’re still going through with it?” he asked.

“Without a flicker of hesitation.” Kasamor straightened up. “My mother’s mood will soften once she meets Calenne. How could it not?”

That aspiration struck Malachi as totally unfounded. A son saw much that remained hidden from acquaintances, but in this case . . .

“Is your mother much given to softening?” Rosa’s expression could have been carved from stone.

“On occasion. Why, I once saw her smile at Marek.”

“Her steward?” Malachi tried to picture Lady Ebigail Kiradin favouring a servant with anything resembling warmth. He gave up. There were limits even to imagination. “I don’t believe it.”

“It’s true.” If Kasamor was at all offended on his mother’s behalf, nothing of it showed. “He happened upon one of the indentured maids making off with the silverware. Girl looked like death by the time he was done scolding her.”