“Dione’s balls, man,” I said, and that at least made him flinch. It gave me a moment to gather my thoughts. “Do you think she’d send her maidservants alone into the streets at night? War constructs killed one of them on Nephilanu.”

He blinked. “No, no, I suppose not. Well I hope the herbs help her.” He stepped to the side to let me pass.

I made for the stairs, but as soon as my foot hit the first step, he called after me. “You carry a sword too?”

I’d strapped the sword to my back, and the cloak covered most of it, but the hilt still protruded above my shoulders. Endless Sea, did I need to murder him to shut him up? “Most guards do,” I snapped, and then I lunged up the rest of the stairs before he could say anything else.

The drizzling rain cooled the heat of my face and chest. I wasn’t sure what about Ragan bothered me so much. Maybe it was the way he’d inserted himself into Lin’s confidence, making her think we needed him, making her think he could possibly be useful. He was youthful, he was annoying, he wasn’t even a master among the monks. Maybe they’d sent him out into the world because they’d grown too irritated with him to let him stay.

I often had the feeling my mother wanted to do the same when I’d been his age.I crept past the guards and leapt from the deck to the docks without being seen. Ragan had already seen me, but the guards had not, and I didn’t much want to explain how I’d gotten onto the ship in the first place.

“You don’t seem to like him,” Mephi whispered to me.

“Who? Ragan? He’s a perfectly lovely fellow.”

Mephi looked so startled that I couldn’t help but to laugh. “I suppose I should teach you a little about sarcasm. It’s when you say the opposite of what you mean.”

He regarded me for a moment as we strode through the city streets. “His ossalen is very brave,” he said in a fair approximation of my tone.

“Not bad,” I said.

Mephi bounded in a circle around me as though chasing an invisible fly. I grabbed one of his horns as he passed and playfully wrestled him into place back beside me. “Enough fun for tonight. We’re going somewhere dangerous. I need you to stay close and to do as I say.”

It was a hopeless request, I knew. Mephi seldom did exactly as I told him to. The older he got, the more free he seemed to feel to make his own decisions. “I always do what you say,” he said in the same sarcastic tone.