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She wished he was beside her as she gazed around her suite, but as if hearing her wake, a tap on the door heralded the entrance of a very smartly dressed maid.

“Good morning, my Lady,” she curtsied. “His Lordship wonders if you’d care to join him for breakfast in an hour or so? I have a bath running for you, and towels warming...” She moved to a door and opened it, revealing a lovely shiny bathroom.

“Oh yes. That would be very nice indeed.”

And it was, realised Maelin, now clean, scented with a dash of lilac cologne she’d found on one bureau, and with her hair nicely arranged by the skillful maid, whose name turned out to be Agatha.

She would have loved to have lingered, chatted with the girl, and learned more about the house itself, but other than the fact that she liked working at Drake’s Nest, that the rest of the staff were nice, and the food excellent, she ran out of questions and felt it would be unwise to pry any further.

“We’ll return to Caelemar in the Nightglass,” announced Cyrus quietly. “Can I leave it up to you what you tell your Aunt?”

“Of course.” Maelin nodded over her breakfast. It was indeed excellent, but she found herself picking at it as the overwhelmingly troubling issues that surrounded them rushed back into her mind. “I’ll tell her I stayed with friends. She’ll be cross I didn’t send a note, but I’m sure she’ll have other things on her mind.” She grimaced. “Such as which rich idiot can she drum up to marry me off to.”

His head snapped up. “Mae...” He became dangerously still.

She held up a hand. “You don’t even need to say it, Cyrus. She has no control over me. I am of age. If worse comes to worst, I shall find my own residence in Caelemar and move out. It will cause talk, but to be blunt, I couldn’t give half a brass piece about that.” She shot him a quick grin. “Do you have a spare room in your town house?”

He rolled his eyes. Then his face turned serious again. “What about your Uncle?”

“He won’t care.” She thought for a moment or two. “I should go back to his club.”

“Why?” Cyrus asked as he sipped his tea.

“He had a book there, one I didn’t have a chance to do more than skim through. But there was mention of...what was it...” She frowned, trying to recall the passage. “Yes, the Hallion Project. Someone named Sir Brighton Hallion. Does that sound familiar at all?”

He thought about it, then shook his head. “No, but I can certainly research it. Do you remember the context?”

“I believe that it had something to do with the formation of the Velvet Houses,” she said. “It was a very old book. I recall looking at the index...” She closed her eyes for a moment. “It began with the Velvet Houses, the different names, who would live where, how they would be...wait...”

She frowned again, looking up at Cyrus. “The harvest, it talked of harvests. But how could that be? There are no fields to speak of in the Gloamtide.”

“I don’t know that it might lead to anything, but yes...I think it’s worth another look.”

“It caught my eye, because this Hallion person apparently had his own sigil, and it was very much like ours. But his was larger and all one colour....” As she spoke, she suddenly made the connection and raised her head to stare across the table at Cyrus.

He stared back. “The one I found in Gloamtide? It could be,” he said, anticipating her question.

“It’s a place to start,” she offered.

“Indeed it is. And that’s a really important discovery, Mae. Well done.”

*~~*~~*

Cyrus worried.

From the minute he handed Maelin into an aethercoach on the wharf and politely bowed as he kissed her hand, he began to worry.

Making his way back to his Caelemar house through relatively quiet morning streets, he worried.

She had become enmeshed in something that was potentially violent, dangerous, and could well get her hurt—or worse.

And he felt responsible for all of it.

The sensible part of his brain, what little there was left of it, told him to stop thinking nonsense. But the other part of his brain remembered how she’d felt in his arms, how her eyes had almost glowed when she fell apart beneath him, how her skin felt, dewed with sweat from their loving.

And he worried even more. He could tell her to stay clear of all of it, of course. He could also command the tide to stop coming in.

Gerald was, as always, awaiting the return of his master, stationed in the hall by the front door.