Stalking Darkness

looked rather pale. “Is this because of last night? You said—”
    “No, of course not. This is something I can’t speak of to anyone.”
    “Why not?” the boy demanded, stubborn curiosity mingling with disappointment.
    Seregil spread his hands apologetically. “It’s nothing to do with you, believe me. And don’t bother pressing.”
    “This is something for Nysander, isn’t it?”
    Seregil regarded him impassively. “I need your word you won’t track me when I go.”
    Alec considered further objections, then nodded glumly. “When will you be back?”
    “In a few days, I hope. You’ll have to do that papers job for Baron Orante, and anything else coming in that looks like a one-man job. There’s Mourning Night to think about, too, if I’m not back in time.”
    “Not back in time?” Alec sputtered. “That’s only a week away, and you’re holding a party at Wheel Street that night!”
    “We
are holding a party,” Seregil corrected. “Don’t worry. Runcer sees to all the arrangements, and Micum and his family will be here by then, too. You’ll just have to play host. Remember Lady Kylith, the woman you danced with our first night there?”
    “We’re sitting with her at the Mourning Night ceremony.”
    “Right. She’ll see to your etiquette.”
    “People are bound to ask about you, though.”
    “As far as anyone knows, Lord Seregil is still away recovering from the shock of his arrest. Tell anyone who asks that I was delayed. Cheer up, Alec. Chances are I’ll be back in plenty of time.”
    “This secret job of yours—is it dangerous?”
    Seregil shrugged. “What do we do that isn’t? The truth is, I won’t know much myself until I’m in the middle of it.”
    “When are you leaving?”
    “As soon as I’ve had something to eat. Get dressed now and we’ll have our breakfast downstairs.”
    Alec smelled freshly baked bread as they crossed the lading room to the kitchen.
    The breakfast uproar was over. A scullery boy was scrubbing down the scarred worktables while Cilla bathed Luthas in a pan. Old Thryis sat peeling turnips by the hearth, a shawl draped over her shoulders against the damp.
    “Well, there you are at last,” the old woman greeted them, though she seldom saw Seregil before noon. “There’s tea on thehob and new current buns under that cloth there. Cilla made them fresh this morning.”
    “And how’s this lad today?” Seregil smiled, holding a forefinger out to the baby. Luthas immediately grabbed it and pulled it into his mouth.
    “Oh, he’s feisty,” replied Cilla, looking rather dark under the eyes. “He’s got a tooth coming and it wakes us all night.”
    Alec shook his head. One minute Seregil was speaking of mysterious journeys, the next here he was playing uncle to the baby like he hadn’t a care in the world.
    Not that his affection for Luthas wasn’t genuine. He’d told Alec how Cilla had offered him the honor of fathering her child when she’d made up her mind to avoid conscription. Seregil had politely declined. While his interest in women seemed marginal at best, Alec suspected the real reason for Seregil’s reticence was that it would have cost him his friendship with her grandmother. Thryis had been a sergeant in the Queen’s Archers in her youth and despaired that neither her son nor granddaughter had followed a military career before settling down. Cilla had never revealed who the child’s father was, but the man must have been dark. She was fair, while her son’s eyes and hair were as brown as a mink’s.
    Going to the hearth, Alec leaned down next to Thryis and reached for the teapot warming by the fire.
    “You’re looking down in the mouth today,” Thryis observed shrewdly. “Going off without you, is he?”
    “He told you?”
    The old woman gave a derisive snort. “He didn’t have to,” she scoffed, deftly quartering a turnip and pitching it into a kettle beside her. “There he is in his old rambling boots, chipper as a sparrow. And you here with the long face and still in your shirtsleeves? Don’t take no wizard to figure that one.”
    Alec shrugged. Thryis had run the Cockerel since Seregil secretly bought it twenty years before. She—together with her family and Rhiri, the mute ostler—was among the select few who knew anything of Seregil’s double life.
    “Now, don’t go fretting yourself over it,” she whispered. “Master Seregil thinks the world of you, and no mistake. There’s none he speaks so well of