“You look well, too,” Feir said. “You were fat when you left. Look at you now. A decade of military service has done you right.”

Solon smiled, but the smile faded fast. “Dorian, seriously, I have to know. Did you mean that I needed to come serve Logan, or did you mean Regnus? I thought you’d said Lord Gyre and not Duke Gyre, but when I got here, there were two lords Gyre. Did I do the right thing?”

“Yes, yes. They both needed you, and you saved both of them several times. Some you know, some you don’t.” Perhaps the most important thing Solon had done was something he would never appreciate: he had encouraged Logan’s friendship with Kylar. “But I won’t lie to you. Keeping your secret was something I didn’t foresee. I thought you would have shared it years ago. Down most paths I see now, Regnus Gyre will lose his life.”

“I’m a coward,” Solon said.

“Pah,” Feir said. “You’re many things, Solon, but you’re not a coward.”

Dorian kept silent, and let his eyes speak empathy. He knew differently. Solon’s silence had been cowardice. Dozens of times he’d tried to speak, but he could never summon the courage to risk his friendship with Regnus Gyre. The worst of it was that Regnus would have understood and laughed about it, if he’d heard it from Solon’s own lips. But discovering deceit in a friend felt like betrayal to a man who’d had his fiancée sold out from under him to another man.

“Your powers have grown,” Solon said.

“Yes, he’s truly insufferable now,” Feir said.

“I’m surprised the brothers at Sho’cendi let you come here,” Solon said.

Dorian and Feir looked at each other.

“You left without permission?” Solon asked.

Silence.

“You left against their direct orders?”

“Worse,” Dorian said.

Feir barked a laugh that told Solon he’d been put into another plan of Dorian’s that he couldn’t believe.

“What did you do?” Solon asked.

“It belonged to us, really. We’re the ones who found it again. They didn’t have any right,” Dorian said.

“You didn’t.”

Dorian shrugged.

“Where is it?” Solon asked. From the bland looks on their faces, he knew. “You brought it here?!”

Feir walked to the little bed and threw back the blankets. Curoch lay sheathed on the bed. The scabbard was white leather, inlaid with gold Hyrillic script and capped with gold.

“That’s not the original scabbard, surely.”