Who was it?’
‘Not Pell,’ Lileem said. ‘You are quite a sleuth, Terez. I wouldn’t want to be an enemy of yours. There would be nowhere to hide.’
Terez laughed and drank some of the wine. He shuddered.
‘I know,’ Lileem said in sympathy. ‘It’s my first batch, but it tastes OK after a few glasses.’
‘Hara round here are too open,’ Terez said. ‘It only took a few minutes to find out where you lived. Good job I’m not an enemy, isn’t it?’
‘There are no locked doors in Shilalama,’ Lileem said. ‘That’s why we like it here.’
‘There seem to be a lot of humans here though. I saw several on my way here.’
‘There aren’t that many,’ Lileem said. ‘Just a few refugees. They keep to themselves mostly and have dwellings in the hills beyond the city. They come to Shilalama for supplies and trade, but after a while, you don’t even notice them. They’re just neighbours.’ She hesitated. ‘Why have you looked for us, Terez?’
‘You’re my family, aren’t you?’
‘That never meant anything to you before.’
He shrugged. ‘I found Immanion and it was the end of the path. A dead end. What next? Uigenna. No thanks. Other tribes? Too much effort. All I could think of was you four, and the pleasant evenings on the ‘Esmeraldarine’. We didn’t get off to the best of starts, but I think we were friends in the end. I want to make the peace with Mima. Human family ties are supposed to mean nothing now, but I like to buck against tradition, even Wraeththu tradition. Pellaz has no interest in us, Dorado has vanished into haradom, so there is only Mima. And she is har, or thereabouts.’
‘She will be astonished to learn of your feelings!’ Lileem said.
‘No more astonished than I was when I realised they were there.’
As Lileem continued to prepare the meal, now adding extra meat and vegetables to accommodate their surprise guest, she wondered whether, despite Roselane openness, she and her family should allow strangers to the tribe into their home. In her experience, none came to Shilalama uninvited, or at least they were vetted by Opalexian’s staff before being granted access. ‘Did anyhar try to stop you finding us here?’ she asked.
‘Not really. I said I was expected. Kept the family ties secret, of course, but… Where are the others?’
‘Out working,’ Lileem said, then told him the details. He didn’t seem that interested, which was a trait of the old familiar Terez.
Ulaume arrived home first and appeared quite pleased to see Terez, but you could never really tell with Ulaume. Claws might be extended later.
‘Good to see your hair grew back,’ Terez said to him, which Lileem considered to be rather an insensitive remark. ‘The talk is that Wraxilan is dead now, so unfortunately I’ll never get to punish him for you.’
‘That’s a shame,’ Ulaume said. ‘It would have been nice if you’d brought me his head as a present.’
Terez laughed. He appeared so at ease, and that was something entirely new for him. ‘If I’d had more time, I could have brought you a few Uigenna skins instead.’
‘Mmm, that would have been good. I need a new coat.’
Mima, however, effectively squashed this playful reunion. When she walked in through the back door, her reaction to finding Terez in her kitchen was a cold ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Seeking my sister,’ he answered smoothly.
She took off her coat and made a great fuss of putting her lunch satchel away. ‘I remember we once agreed we were no longer brother and sister.’
‘That was wrong. We are. We can’t ignore it.’
Ulaume excused himself from the room, and Lileem wished she could do the same, but unfortunately the bubbling pans needed supervising.
‘Did you find our other brothers?’ Mima asked. She got herself a goblet and poured a drink of Lileem’s toxic wine.
‘No. It’s just you and me.’
Mima regarded him thoughtfully, tapping the cup against her lips. ‘What do you want?’
‘Peace,’ he said. ‘On your terms. I’ve missed you all.’
Mima, surely, had to be as shocked by this admission as Lileem had been. It was in Mima’s nature to be difficult and to draw this situation out for as long as possible, and Lileem hoped she wouldn’t. She wanted them all to sit down to dinner with Terez and have a good evening. She wanted them all to be friends. She also knew she’d better not open her mouth, because if she did Mima would jump on her like a furious cat.
‘I’m sorry,’ Terez said. ‘Will that do?