There was a faint tinkling of bells as the door opened and two men walked in, one red-haired, one brown. The brown-haired man had a thick, bushy beard, and hair as wild as the sea, and Agnes felt there was something familiar about him, something she couldn’t quite place . . .

“Oh my god,” she gasped, and slid down in her seat, covering her face with her hands.

“What?” Vada looked around. “What is it?”

Agnes peered through her fingers, her suspicions confirmed. It couldn’t be, though. It couldn’t.

“Agnes?” Vada shook her.

“Those two men at the bar,” Agnes said. “You see the one with the brown hair and beard?”

Agnes looked at Vada and her heart felt as though it was pounding through wet concrete.

“That’s my father.”

19

Agnes

WHAT WAS HE DOING HERE?

Agnes kept her face covered with her hands until Vada hissed, “Stop that, you are not looking normal,” so she picked up her glass of plum wine and downed it in one gulp, nearly choking on the richness. Vada refilled both of their glasses and adjusted her seat so that she was partially screening Agnes.

“It is dark in here, remember, and you are not looking at all the Kaolin lady you were when you first boarded the Maiden’s Wail,” she said.

“Right,” Agnes said breathlessly. “Right.”

She peered over Vada’s shoulder and saw her father deep in conversation with the bartender, who was treating him with a sort of surly familiarity. Her father’s beard had all grown out; she recognized the other man as Kiernan, but his face was ruddy and wind chapped. Xavier had been looking for Braxos like everyone else, but Agnes never in a million years dreamed he’d actually come looking for it himself.

And what could possibly have compelled him to come to this bar of all places? It wasn’t the sort of spot Agnes would ever have pictured her father patronizing, regardless of the country.

Whatever the bartender told him got a strong reaction from her father. His face grew stony, but at the same time his eyes seemed to burn. He shot another question at her and his reaction was, if anything, scarier—he began to laugh. He ordered a drink, took it in one long draft, then slammed the glass down on the bar. Kiernan said something to him and Xavier snapped back a response. Agnes nearly fainted with relief as they headed for the door. She held her breath until they were good and gone, then sat back and took a sip of wine, her blood pounding in her temples.

“Let’s see what he was looking for,” Vada said, standing and gesturing to Agnes to follow her to the bar. “Got a cigarette for me, Neve?” she asked the bartender sweetly.