Suddenly a young woman stepped into the room, tall, brown-skinned like Quona, short-haired, something tight and quiet in her face. She wore furs, but not like the sleek, graceful furs Arni Devret had worn. It was a coat made of more than one kind of animal hide.

She squared her feet, a tiny blue fox kit tucked into the crook of her arm. The kit had a bandage on its face. Its fur wasn’t gray but actually blue, a deep, twilight blue. “Professor Varana?” she said. “You asked to see me?”

Quona’s eyes seemed to clear. “Nev!” she said. “Meet Giddon and Hava, who are members of the Monsean delegation. Giddon and Hava, meet Nev, who is one of my finest animal medicine students.”

“Nice to meet you,” said Nev, touching them with her dark eyes. Her expression was flat, closed. But tired, thought Giddon. Wary. Why is she here so late?

“Come upstairs, Nev,” said Quona.

Then Quona led Nev up the stairs to the attic, still carrying the cat in her arms.

Chapter Fourteen

Bitterblue woke again to a sound like a burst of wind against wood and glass.

Opening her eyes to the light of the moon touching her face, she thought, for a moment, that she was on the ship.

She’d tracked a full cycle of the moon on the deck of the ship, piecemeal, with Giddon, who’d seemed to fall in love with the night sky above the Brumal Sea. There had been so many stars.

“I think I could love it too,” Bitterblue had said, her body braced against Giddon’s, sheltered from the wind, “if I didn’t feel like I was spinning every time I looked up at it.”

“Does it help if you imagine the earth under you, supporting you?”

“But it’s water under us. Not earth.”

“But the water is holding us up.”

“No, it’s trying to swallow us. And the sky is trying to smother us, like a blanket we can’t breathe through.”

“Hm,” said Giddon doubtfully. “I see the problem. Maybe you should try yelling.”

“What do you mean?” Bitterblue said.

“Just shake your fist at the sky and yell something.”

Bitterblue giggled. “I’ll wake everyone up.”

Giddon had an impish grin sometimes that made him look eight years old. “You’re the queen,” he said. “It’s your privilege to wake everyone up.”

“That doesn’t mean I should!”

“Want me to do it with you?” he said, then raised both arms above his head, punched the air with his fists, and shouted, “You can’t get me!”

“Giddon!” she cried, half laughing. “Anyone who hears you will think you’re being attacked.”

“I can breathe just fine!” he yelled. “You can’t knock me over!”

Giving up, Bitterblue raised a fist. “I’m not going to vomit anymore!” she yelled.

“No vomiting!” Giddon yelled.

“I won’t drown!”

“No drowning!”