“Oh, nothing to concern yourself with,” she assured him. “As the story goes, a few hundred years ago the noblewoman who owned Mirror Moon disappeared mysteriously, and her lover was hanged for murder, though her body was never found. It’s said she walks the corridors on misty nights, dripping with seawater and knocking on the doors, looking for him. She doesn’t hurt anyone, and she doesn’t appear often, but is known to when there’s a new master or mistress in the house. She’s just a lost soul, or perhaps only a memory.”

“How sad,” said Seregil.

“So she just knocks on doors?” asked Alec.

“Well …”

“Go on then, tell them,” Dorin snapped.

Willow nodded. “It’s just that the chamber you had last night was her room and she’s known to haunt it, as well.”

“She opens the window and lets the sea fog in,” Vhadä added.

“Not for many years, my lord,” said Dorin. “I’ll have the latch seen to. It’s probably just loose.”

“Is there anything about a dead owl in the room, in the old stories?” asked Alec. “A hanged owl?”

Vhadä and his mother both made a warding sign on the air.

“No. But it’s terrible bad luck to kill an owl on Kouros!” Willow told them.

“Thank you,” said Seregil. “You can leave us for now. I think we have all we need.”

“As you wish, my lord.” Dorin led the others out.

“Seregil, did you know it was a ghost?” asked Micum.

“Ask Alec. He saw her.”

“Just for an instant,” Alec explained. “But we both felt her. And then I dreamed about her. There was a dead owl in the dream.”

“I’d say that would be bad luck anywhere, especially to a ’faie.” Micum stroked his moustache. “Well, we’re off to quite a start.”

Dorin returned as they were finishing to inform them that more refugees had arrived. “I have them in the front hall, my lords, if you’d care to look them over.”

Seregil slammed his knife down. “Damn it, Dorin, they are not livestock! I will thank you to treat any ’faie who come here with more respect than I’ve seen thus far. You may hate your own lineage, or have been mistreated because of it, but it is time you let go of that, or I shall have to find myself a new steward.”

The color drained from the man’s face and to everyone’s amazement, he fell to his knees. “Please accept my apology for my behavior, Baron! I—this has always been my home. I couldn’t bear it.”

“You have my terms,” Seregil replied coldly. “Now bring them in to meet us. Respectfully.”

Dorin rose and strode from the room, returning a moment later with a bedraggled-looking woman clutching a little girl in her arms.

“May I present Oria, and her child Daisy. They have come here for shelter, as you offered, my lord.”

Alec felt his heart torn between gladness and sorrow as he went to greet the newcomers. The woman was pure ’faie and young, barely old enough for childbearing. The little girl had the dark eyes of whoever her Plenimaran father had been. The right sleeve of the woman’s dress was pushed back, exposing her former master’s brand on her forearm.