“Thank you,” Giddon replied in Keepish, pausing to knock on Hava’s door. She’d skipped that interminable dinner last night. Refused to leave the ship, then kept turning into a sculpture anytime anyone tried to talk to her. So they’d left her behind with the sailors, then Giddon had returned after dinner to collect her. Once he’d explained that they’d be staying in a quiet, isolated home, then begged, pleaded with her to come, she’d done so, silent and cold, going straight to bed when they’d arrived.

“Hava has already gone to breakfast,” the man said.

“Has she?” said Giddon, worry twisting inside him. “Was she wearing a coat?”

“No, sir,” said the man.

Then maybe she really had gone to breakfast. Though Hava could make a man see a young woman without a coat, if she wanted to.

Giddon walked on quickly toward the staircase. At its top, a cat sat at attention, its rump on the floor, its nose in the air, its white fur, even its posture and gravity, mirroring that of the man in white, almost comically, as if it believed itself to be directing guests to breakfast as well. Then it saw Giddon and darted down the steps in front of him and the illusion was broken. Giddon was comforted, obscurely, by its familiar, catlike behavior.

There had been a few blue foxes at dinner last night—though their fur had been a dark gray, not actually blue—and he hadn’t liked the feeling of their intelligent gold eyes on him, the sense that they might be “bonded” to some person at the party with whom they were having a secret conversation. Of course, everything about dinner last night had been difficult. Giddon had felt as if he were clinging to propriety by a thread; he’d wanted to crawl under the table and roll into a ball.

Through the south-facing windows, he could see the Cliff Farm that, Quona had explained, was owned by the Winterkeep Academy and was used by the school of animal medicine. Its barns, painted pale blue, were perched on a cliff of gold grass above the sea, fat cows grazing idly. Giddon had never seen barns with huge glass windows before. Suddenly he hated the farm, because it was part of an educational institution more successful and blessed with resources than Bitterblue had ever been able to dream of.

His breath whooshed out in relief when he found Hava in the dining room, tearing bacon with her teeth like she was trying to punish it. Her shoulders were hunched, her pale face in a snarl. He sat across from her, not pressing her to speak when she ignored him.

Guide me, he said.

You’re doing fine, Bitterblue said. Just let her be.

—

Breakfast was overrun by cats.