e did not think he’d ever seen Nkemi pezre Nkese in light so bright. The closest was that day in the study, after the ley channel had gone sideways and the mona had left them both with stinging reprimand. Her smile had been bright, then, above the folds of her thick brown scarf, if sleepy; he remembered her head nestled against the wing of his chair. He remembered the gentle, cloud-spun robin’s-egg blue of the sky out the great window, softening everything, even their quiet voices under the crackle of the hearth.
There was nothing soft about this light. It did not shaft; it illuminated. Nkemi was squinting a little as she turned her head to look out toward the street. It nestled in every fold and swath of her headcloth, brought out sparks of swirling light-purple and deep rich red, deeper than the carpet underneath them.
Everything glowed, for the first time in weeks. For the first time in months. Yaris did not glow; Yaris was merciless with its heat, maybe, but Yaris did not glow, not like the lush green spill of Roalis, the after-rain glow in Vyrdag season. Yaris was withered browns and yellows, soft hot haze.
This was the sort of lovely winter sun Tom remembered from the Harbor. It made smiling just a pina easier, and when Nkemi looked back at him, she grinned, too. The light caught her teeth white.
Little could be hidden in light like this. She looked much better than she had in Fly-Ash; her eyes weren’t so uncharacteristically hollow, and there was nothing pinched or sagging about her bright young face. But her caprise was as polite as his, and he thought something solemn haunted her expression, some echo of the prefect on duty.
At her thanks, he returned her smile with a warmth – if not brightness – of his own. “Thank you for joining me, Nkemi,” he said. “You’ve given me honor.”
Ada’na Ota came back, then, with a broad rattling tray full of small lacquer bowls and saucers. She set them down and inclined her head, still smiling, then left.
There were a few slices of some sweet, dense bread on one platter, each full of bits of something dark; a small bowl was full of puffed barley. Another nearby had some tangy, milky whip, dotted through with herbs, and circled with crisp-fried batter.
Tom glanced toward the window again, squinting himself against the aching brightness. Behind, he could hear the hiss-shuffle-pop, right alongside someone else grinding roasted beans somewhere in the back; he caught strong whiffs of kofi with every breeze that stirred the hangings. He nestled his chin deeper into his scarf, smiled.
The glass seemed to amplify the light. “The Mahogany Bay nearly froze over, once, I remember,” he said honestly. “Something like – twenty-seven… fifteen.” Was it a lie, if he couldn’t remember? In the corner of his eye, he saw Nkemi’s small face, her large dark eyes. The truth of the heart, he remembered, with her.
“The sun came out while the ice was still on the water.” He looked back at Nkemi and shook his head. “A day like today, and the whole bay was slick and still. A mirror caught on fire by the sun. You could’ve scried in it, if your eyes could bear to look.”
He could’ve said more, but ada’na Ota was back, then. With a friendly caprise to both of them, she set the tray with its kofi pot and two small cups and bowls of spices down. Quicker again, he thought wistfully, than kofi har’aq; they didn’t have so long before the blessing, not in a bustling place so near to the old gate.
But ada’na knew something of what they were here for, and she poured kofi into each cup slowly, first his and then Nkemi’s. That, at least, was not a lie – he thought, anyway. He was at least a little older than her. He watched as the steaming dark liquid trickled out of the spout.
The sunlight caught patterns on the bulb of the pot, traced over it almost like the lines of a plot. There were similar lines on each small cup, varnished as dark as the table was pale.
“Thank you, ada’na,” murmured Tom, inclining his head toward Ota. He took nothing in his own kofi, though it was offered. Then their host was gone in a swish of skirts.
Across the hall, a handful of voices rose in laughter. The smile on Tom’s face fell; he studied Nkemi’s face through the steam, cradling the warm cup in his cold hands.
“If you wish,” he said carefully, sitting straight on the pillow, “I’d like to share with you – something of what happened a day ago, in Fly-Ash. Of what it meant to me. I can only imagine how it must’ve looked.” He sucked at a tooth, then looked down into the cup. “You said you wanted to understand; I’ve owed you more than I’ve told you for some time now.
“But if I’m to help, I need to know what you already know of – my – condition. I can’t show you the landmarks if I don’t know the map.” A shadow of a smile.