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last was said with a gentle sneer. If Mal was short and slight, Lady Selkirk was delicate as a lass; the crown of her head barely topped Mal’s shoulder. She wore the seaman’s uniform of trousers and tunic, and the Rose badge on her arm. A tightly knotted linen kerchief protected her dark curls from the wind; freckles and age spots on her hands and face spoke more of hard work than age.
    â€œMother,” Mal said, a caution. He knew very well what his family thought of his ser­vice to the flatland king; since Siobahn’s death, his mother’s dutiful letters were rife with pointed insinuation and disapproval. Siobahn had complained from the very beginning that Mal had given his heart to his king at the expense of his marriage bed. She’d been jealous of Renault’s claim, driven to distraction by Mal’s divided loyalties, and she’d filled her letters to Mal’s parents with line after line of vitriol.
    Still, it was much easier to feed letters to the fire, poison forgotten, than to face the same disapproval in person. He had to remind himself he was a man well grown, and not the same youth his mother had once put over her knee for nicking Cook’s mince tart.
    â€œCome and light the lantern, Malachi,” Lady Selkirk ordered, when his silence lingered. “Make yourself useful.”
    She indicated the barrel-­sized glass lantern hung in front of the window. A web of thick chain held the suspended lantern immobile against wind and storm. The glass was thick as Mal’s thumb, charmed generations earlier by a more knowledgeable magus, impervious to arrow, hammer, and blade.
    There were six such lanterns set in temples along Renault’s coastal holding. They’d been commissioned by the Virgin King’s sea-­loving sire, to guard his navy against rocky shore. The magic and materials used to engender the glass marvels were long forgotten.
    Lady Selkirk expected Mal to take the torch from its bracket on the wall, use the flame to light the oil already prepared by way of a hatch. Instead he tightened his smile, snapped thumb against ring finger, yellow gem sparking, and called fire to the oil. Flames leapt high behind the glass shield, loud and hungry, tinged green.
    The green was a failing, evidence of his rattled emotion, but his mother didn’t have to know that small secret.
    â€œDrama,” Lady Selkirk said, sounding now more weary than angry. “Even as a lad, you never tolerated normalcy. I’d counted on your wife to soften those edges.”
    â€œWithout edges I’d be a useless weapon, Mother.” Mal folded his hands at his back, watched the planes and shadows shift across his mam’s thin face. “You summoned me. I’m here. I expected to find Father laid out as proper.” He made a show of looking around the small space, cocking his brows at the stone bier, empty and cold between lantern and window. “You’re vacillating, Mother.”
    â€œNo.” She stiffened. For the first time Mal glimpsed real grief in the depths of her green eyes. His eyes, the one piece of herself she’d allowed him.
    â€œHe breathed his last only hours ago,” she continued. “There’s been no time. He’s had the blessing, of course. Master Josef said the prayers. And then we had word of your approach.”
    â€œAh,” Mal realized. “You’ve left the job to me.”
    â€œIt’s the least you can do,” she replied coldly. “See it’s done correctly, Malachi. I’ll not have his shade lingering for regret.”
    â€œAlive, my father spared no time for regret,” Mal said. “It’s unlikely that will change with his death.”
    â€œGod willing,” Lady Selkirk said, resigned. Then she turned her back on Mal, spine stiff as she descended the spiral. Mal sent his mage globe after, to light her way, and received no thanks in return.
    He walked around lantern and