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“And,” Elric had announced to the galley on his return, “from your description, sounds like it truly is him.”

“Vindar’s information is never wrong, sadly” Damon said.

“He has a lycat, they say. An orange one.”

“Didn't he used to love the lycats in the Rose Palace?” says Lukas. “He used to follow their trainer around. And,” Lukas frowns in thought, furrows on his handsome brow. “didn’t a lycat go missing when he left in the night with his mother?”

Damon shakes his head. “It can’t be the same lycat. How long does a lycat live?”

“Around twelve years,” says Lyr.

Trysta, sitting beside Lyr at the long table with Marko on her lap, slings an arm around Lyr’s shoulders and kisses him on the temple. “Is their nothing you don’t know, my sweet wife of Damon Darekul?”

Lyr had made a soft cooing noise to be called so and it had made Elric wonder if it would be sweet to be called the wife of Lukas Darekul.

“Anyway,” Elric says. “One of them boasted that he’d gone back to Tobi’s caravan and after a bit of bed sport they’d spoken about things and Tobi mentioned that his mother lived at the Ceruleum Bride House.”

Lukas exchanges a glance with Damon. “Mareena?” Lukas says, “Mareena of Archa has become a Bride of Zai?”

“Yes” Elric says, “which means there is somewhere we could send Tobi a message. Warning him about Vindar. Apparently he visits his mother once a moon.”

“And Perl said one of us would encounter Ur-Durik in the Amber Forest. That must be Tobi,” says Damon. “We need to get in touch with him as soon as we can and find out if that is true.”

“If Perl wasn’t simply spinning stories,” Lukas says with a shrug. “Perhaps he was just a madman.”

“You saw him do magic, bastard,” says Elric. He is certain Perl was some kind of fae. He didn’t think the fae ever left their lands north of Ismagaar, but what other explanation could there be for what they’d seen? The things Perl had known?

Lukas, still sour after watching Elric flirt all day, says, “Doesn’t mean he was not telling us a tale. We do not have any reason to think that any of these tales of old demons returning are true.”

“No,” Damon says, “Which is why we must find out what is written on Lyr’s skin.”

But it was agreed they should find a messenger to take a letter to the Ceruleum Bride House, telling Tobi to seek them out in Attar where they could warn him about Vindar and Ur-Durik.

“We can’t send him a letter,” Lukas says. “Tobi can’t read.”

Damon frowns. “Of course he can read. He was educated with us.”

“Yes. And he couldn’t read. He hated book lessons. He said the letters moved around the page.”

“Whether this beast tamer can read or not is one thing,” says Trysta, “but are you really going to write down that Tobi Darekul ought to come to Attar to meet with his brothers Lukas and Damon? If that letter was lost we would be met with executioners when we arrived.”

“Perhaps,” says Opeth, “some sort of code.”

After a day at sea, Elric is walking alone on deck. The weather is squally and rough and Lukas and Lyr are in the galley with Razelii and Trysta playing arca. Elric likes playing arca, but the sea had grown so rough it made him feel dizzy. He feels much better now he can see the horizon.

He’s leaning over the rail when he sees someone walking along the deck towards him.

Damon.

Elric does not speak to Damon much, and in truth he is still deeply in awe of the One Man Army. He finds himself standing up straight as Damon approaches him. “Elric,” Damon says in his deep, slow voice. “I would speak to you in my cabin.”

Elric feels distinctly nervous as he steps into Damon’s cabin. The White Watch is not a large ship, but the cabin is fitted for an Imperial Army General, well appointed with shiny brass and shelves of books. Damon sits behind a large polished desk and bids Elric sit opposite him.

“What can I do for you?” Elric says. He feels his face colour a little. Are all Rafus’s bastards so handsome? Elric wonders what Tobi looks like. The descriptions of him from the merchants he met sounded wildly exaggerated. Multi-coloured hair and elaborate outfits that barely covered his body.

“I wish to ask about the talk in the Rose Palace after I was exiled,” Damon says.

“What of it?”