“Meaning?” It was sharp.
“Meaning, usually she just sends me these weird dreams—”
“What kind of dreams?”
I rubbed my eyes, and suppressed a yawn. I kept getting sleep, but not enough. Possibly because I was constantly being woken up in the middle of it. “More like memories. Your memories, mostly. She was hitching a ride on you a lot while growing up—did you know?”
He grimaced. “Eventually. I would have preferred to realize it before I spent quite so many nights in dissolute company.”
“And in dissolute beds?”
He raised an eyebrow. “More like playing cards in rough taverns. Sometimes I wonder what you think of me.”
So did I. But he’d been doing the good-father routine in the stuff Dorina had showed me, fighting to keep her—us—safe, and putting himself in danger to do it. I was about to ask how he’d got off that damned death boat, and if it was Dorina whose voice he’d heard, but I didn’t get the chance.
“What has she shown you?” It was idle—too much so. Mircea and I don’t make a lot of small talk.
“Why? What are you afraid of?”
“Nothing. But if you want to know about those days, you have only to ask. I could tell you—”
“But it would be from your perspective, wouldn’t it?”
He didn’t say anything, and his face—of course—gave nothing away. But, somehow, I knew I was right. “That’s it, isn’t it? You’re afraid of me seeing things through her eyes. Is that why you told her not to talk to me?”
“No.”
“Then why? Because it’s caused some damned problems, Mircea!”
“And could cause more, if you allow it to continue.”
His expression hadn’t changed, but his voice was clipped, the way it got when he was angry—or afraid. He didn’t process fear any better than I did; he just hid it better. We both had a tendency to lash out, to savage whatever was threatening us, even if that was each other. It had led to some truly spectacular fights in the past.
“I warned her to be careful,” he told me. “Now I am warning you. Give yourself time.”
“Assuming I have any.”
I’d spoken without thinking, because I was still half-asleep. But of course he picked up on it. And pulled me even farther away from the others—I didn’t know why. With the acoustics in here, and with most people’s hearing, we could be eavesdropped on from anywhere in the room.
Or maybe not.
“Explain,” he told me, but I was preoccupied, watching Burbles and the other guys suddenly start drifting this way.
“What are they doing?”
“Putting up a screen.”
“What?”
“Creating mental white noise.” Mircea’s voice was impatient. “No one will hear us.”
“No one but them.”
“They’re family.”
Maybe yours, I thought, watching Burbles flutter his fingers over a tray of hors d’oeuvres that was being passed around. “Are these fey?” he asked delightedly.
“Yes.” The blond fey holding the tray bent down a little, to provide better access, since he was tall enough to give Olfun a run for his money. And I suddenly understood why the consul had NBA-sized guards.