“I haven’t had the pleasure,” he said, unable to soften the rough edge of his tone.
“My Lord, thank you for receiving me,” Xanthos said, bowing her head as any subject would. He guessed she worked out of the western quarter of the city, near the universities where Mountheim’s sharpest minds trained their young.
He nodded and asked, “Well, what is so urgent?”
All eyes around the table converged toher.
“We found something during my lesson that might be relevant,” Jane said. “I’ve been having the same dream for days, but now, you’re in it.”
He met her gaze. Jane’s gaze. And it was like walking toward the horizon where sea met dusk, beautiful and drowning.
Their last conversation surged back in his mind, when she’d said she didn’t want him. He’d known what she was doing then and yet, it hurt the same.
To think, once, he had found shapeshifting painful.
The worddreamirritated him, though he concealed it. Maybe she was trying to be subtle. Yet, across the table, Varian leaned forward, his eyes gleaming with predatory interest.
Reagan’s patience thinned. This meeting was already skirting the edge of a serious misjudgement.
“It’s a security matter,” Jane added carefully.
It was enough to halt him, sounding like a code for something Varian couldn’t be trusted with.
“In that case, come with me,” Reagan said. “Just you.”
He stood and turned for the door, power beginning to prowl just beneath his skin. When she joined him, they were left alone in the corridor, and his ward fell into place. The sound beyond the walls faded to nothing.
“Whose idea was it to convene a meeting with Varian present?” Reagan bit out.
“I thought you called him,” Jane replied, frowning. “This is a staff meeting, and you wanted him here.”
“You think I invited him?” Reagan exhaled sharply, tipping his head back. That served him right for deciding to keep his staff in the dark. “I just arrived. I didn’t even know there was a meeting.”
When he looked at her, she was closer than he’d realised. A faint red sheen clung to the inner corners of her eyes, the scent of iron wafting faintly to him. His restraint slipped as he got a hold of her chin and tilted it, angling her face to the light. Her skin was paler than usual.
“What happened?” he asked quietly.
Jane’s hand closed around his wrist, not to push him away. “Nothing. The lesson was tiring.”
Yet that trace of blood—like it had come from her eyes—kept his thoughts snared.
He knew little of divination, one of the few disciplines he’d never had to master, but crying blood hardly seemed normal.
Jane’s voice threaded through his distraction. “—didn’t know where it was. You and Gwin were just standing there. But since my dreams warned me about Joy and the Strzygas, she thought this might be a warning too.”
“A warning about what?” His tone was dry as he dropped his hand.
“I don’t know yet, but I think I can see more now. Maybe I can even look directly at your threads.”
“And that made your eyes bleed?” Reagan asked, his frustration mounting. “You tried to look, saw Gwinifer beside me, and we were looking at something.”
Her mouth thinned. “It’s not much. It’s not anything. But now I can follow the dream for longer, so I’m going to try to see more. I thought it might be worth mentioning.”
He scratched his jaw, taking the time to draw a breath. “It may be something, or it may be nothing. But do you realise you just revealed that in front of Varian, of all people? He knows about your gift now, even if you keep calling it a dream.”
Her brows furrowed, her gaze flicking to his mouth. “Should we keep it secret?”
“Yes. Partially.” He pressed the bridge of his nose, reining in his thoughts, his impulses. “Laerune must have told you how rare your gift is. How coveted it is. People like Varian might want to use you for their agenda.”
