She reached for a berry but didn’t take it. “You’re not giving up your share of the berries, are you?”

“No, I bought a quart of the berries that are for sale in the Market Square and decided to share them with you.”

“Oh. Well, thank you.”

He waited until she’d eaten a berry before broaching the real reason he was there. “Meg? What upset you this morning?”

He watched her throat work as she swallowed. Throats, with the blood in them so easily accessed by a kiss, always drew his attention. But with Meg, it was like looking at a delicate piece of art that could be admired but not touched because the cassandra sangue were Namid’s creation, both wondrous and terrible, and their blood was not drunk by the Sanguinati.

“I had a bad dream. Then I woke up. I guess I was loud about waking up.”

“You screamed and threw yourself on top of Simon.” With windows open to cool the apartments, her scream woke everyone in the Green Complex. But Meg tended to scream when she saw a mouse, so they all wouldn’t have come rushing into her apartment if Simon hadn’t yelped like he was also in trouble. To the rest of them, that yelp meant physical trouble. In a way that had been true, since Meg had been clinging to Simon while he’d been trying to get out from under her without hurting her. At least, he’d put on a good show of trying to get out from under her when the rest of them came rushing into the room. “What did you dream about?”

Color blazed in her cheeks. “I don’t remember.”

Vlad studied her, wishing he could believe there had been some erotic element in the dream that she didn’t want to reveal, but that wasn’t the reason for the blush. Meg had just lied to him.

“Why is a bad dream so important?” she asked.

“It wouldn’t be if someone else had the dream. But you’re a cassandra sangue.”

“I didn’t make a cut, and my skin didn’t split because of weather or anything, so it wasn’t prophecy; it was just a dream.”

He nodded as if she’d convinced him, but he presented the one thought that troubled him, the thought that had brought him to the Liaison’s Office. “It’s just odd, don’t you think, that three significant things happened at the same time of day? You had a bad dream, something compelled Hope to make a drawing that frightened her, and bison in Joe’s territory were killed. All at daybreak.”

“But daybreak in the Northeast Region is two hours ahead of daybreak where Hope lives.”

“Two hours ahead of daybreak in Joe’s territory as well. But you don’t remember your dream, so we don’t know if you had some kind of vision about the bison.”