When he brought tea, Adrik’s gaze snapped to my notebook as if the traitorous thing had called to him—I’d left it carelessly open to dry. In my panic, I grabbed the book so hastily, I almost spilled tea over its front. We blinked at each other, stunned.
“You are an artist.”
I began fearfully to shake my head, covering the page with my hands. Adrik only smiled before he kindled the fire and I sat tensely in anticipation of questions that never came.
“I taught myself,” I said defensively.
“Right,” he said with a glance over his shoulder, lips quivering.
“I am not very good.”
“Mhm.”
“I grew bored in the night and had no books left to read. I forgot to ask Lorell for new ones, not that he’d give me anything better than old journals—” The sparkle in Adrik’s gaze turned into outright amusement, a development that boded ill for me. “What?” I asked, cheeks aflame.
He laughed quietly as he leaned in that irksome manner against the armoire. “Do you have a particular interest in foxes?”
“Theyseem to have a particular interest inme.”
“Perhaps both can be true.”
His mischief made me nervous. I felt strangely as if he had caught me doing something improper. “I draw other things.”
“I shall believe it when I see it, Evana.” His smile, impossibly, widened. "Until then, I must assume that you possess a whole book of detailed drawings of this one fox, and I shall tease you endlessly for it.”
“There,” I snapped, flipping the notebook to a page of sketches of the robin who had lived with me in my shelter last spring.
Adrik sobered as he studied the page. “If the tomes Lorell makes me read had drawings half as pretty, I'd have a much better time.”
It was such a genuine compliment, I could scarcely find fault with it. I was glad when the scratch of claws on the floor saved me from having to answer. Bahra had come to bemoan her tragic fate of being the most well-loved cat in town.
“Not a quiet moment I’ve had since dawn,” she purred as she stretched out on a velvet cushion and allowed Adrik to feed her smoked fish. “Emond asked me for a paw in catching a fat rat, and Kalina needed her stores cleared of old cheese. I sat with Agnesa the rest of the morning. Nothing soothes her more thanbrushing my fur, and she was in such an uproar this morning from the cold.”
An idea struck me after Bahra had fretfully driven Adrik out into the snow with tidings of Emond, who needed his kitten rescued from a tree.
“Oh,” I said mournfully as Bahra and I sat alone in the parlor. “To think that I was about to ask Adrik for his help in a most crucial matter!” She was at once all ears, eyes gleaming with interest. “It is such a special request, too. I am unsure if I can trust him with it at all, given his negligence in other matters.”
“Negligence, indeed! He forgot my supper again last night,” cried Bahra.
I heaved a dramatic sigh. “What am I to do, Bahra? If I cannot trust Adrik with my request, who else might come to my aid?”
“Oh,” she purred, treading closer. “You know I am positively swamped, girl, but for a task of such importance I might find an hour or two.”
"Bahra," I said, clutching my heart. “I could never ask such a thing of you.”
Her purrs rattled the walls. “That is why I am graciously volunteering, girl. What troubles you so?”
“Remember when I got nibbled by the wolves?”
“Oh, dear! As if I could forget, girl!This is a corpse, I said to Adril that night. Frightful! You should have died, truly.”
I said, with great grief, “I lost half of my belongings in the wasteland. The wolves ate them, I reckon.”
“Vicious beasts!” Bahra snarled. “Horrible fiends!”
“Indeed,” I sighed. “I do not care much for the stolen coin, but they took some important keepsakes.” Bahra, intrigued by my sorrow, nestled against my legs. “It will not be the same, but I hoped to find perhaps a shard of moonstone or the feather of a rooster to remind me of home. I come from Eldevale, you know? I grew up on a chicken farm, and my father worked in the mines.Oh, to have a taste of the fresh spring water my mother often brought from the mountain—”
“Oh, how horrible,” purred Bahra. “Oh, how ghastly. How good that you brought this to my attention. Fear not, girl. Bahra will take care of you.”
