Sylvi had been rather hopelessly making notes toward the presentation she was going to have to give about her journey, writing down three things she thought she could talk about and then crossing two of them off again. It would be so much easier to have a pegasus to ask, she thought.
She sighed, and pushed herself away from the table, and went and sat on the window-sill. She had been given her own office when she began to work on dams and waterways, so she could receive reports and have a place to unroll the charts and diagrams that various people brought her. She had been offered rooms on the ground floor, where most of the rest of her family had their offices, but she had wanted something as high up as possible and was in fact in an attic.“I may try that,” her father said. “Anyone who will climb four flights of stairs to consult me must really want my advice.”
The attics had only slightly lower ceilings than the rest of the palace—and the wind that came through the windows tasted a little more like free air than house air, although when she had chosen the rooms almost four years ago she’d chiefly been interested in the view. She looked out over one of the palace’s smaller courtyards, then the outthrust bulk of the Great Hall, with a curl of old trees softening its outline. Beyond it there was parkland, and beyond that she could see the faint haze over the practise yards—and very far away, the thick dark line that was the Wall.
She sighed again, and had just stood up to go back to her desk when there was a quick knock on the door—and the head that was put round it was Danacor’s.
“Oh!” she said, and ran to throw her arms around him, her mood lightening immediately.
“How’s my favourite sister?” he said, smiling, but when she looked up at him she thought he looked tired and worried.“I’m sorry I wasn’t here for your arrival. How did it go? Or is that a bad question?” And he looked at her table. “When’s your presentation?”
“Three days,” she said glumly. “Three days before the party.”
“Dad’ll have scheduled it before you left. And written the list of questions. Which he wrote an addendum to after he got back, am I right?”
There was a list of questions, and there was an addendum, but her father had said, “These are only because I can’t help myself. This is your report. Tell us what you choose to tell us.” She had looked at him quickly and looked away. Lrrianay was standing just behind him; if she looked into her father’s face she risked catching Lrrianay’s eye. Fazuur sat at a table set end-on to Corone’s desk. He looked up from the papers he was reading and smiled at her.
Danacor added, “I hope I’ll be back in time to hear you.”
“They’re sending you away again immediately?” she said, dismayed.
He sighed.“We haven’t got any quiet borders left at the moment—except the Starclouds. It’s just a question of how far in, and how much effort to force them back. The wild lands are the worst, but we’ve got Ipinay and her Queen’s Own holding the most hazardous stretch of that line. I’m off to look at Pantock—there are reports of sea monsters. Sea monsters are a new one.”
Fthoom is from Ghorm, thought Sylvi, which is next to Pantock. Maybe it’s his family come to visit.
“From some other messenger I’d be inclined to say, ‘Mm hmm, send me another report in a month,’ but the mayor of Pantock is pretty reliable. If he says sea monsters, there probably are sea monsters. But I’ll be back for your party. So finish your presentation so you can enjoy it.”He looked at her, smiling.“My little sister, all grown up. Well, maybe not up, exactly. . . .”
“Troll,” she said equably. “Think of all the horse-fodder bills I will save the realm by never getting tall enough to ride anything bigger than a pony.”
“Of course. My future chancellor of the exchequer thanks you.” He paused again. “You look so much like Dad. It’s uncanny.”
“And you look more and more like Mum.”
He grimaced. “Yes. I’m the warrior, not the negotiator. You’ll have to take over the negotiating when Dad retires. Farley wants to raise horses and Garren wants to find new plants for his herbalism.”
“Not me,” she said. “I’m going to—to—” But her usual declaration of her