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bed,” Garett said, his tone of voice betraying his own weariness as he took a seat on the corner of the desk and ran a thumb over the pile of reports that came in each morning from the watch houses.
    Burge shifted one foot so that the heel of his boot rested on the reports. At the same time, he reached down on the floor beside the chair and brought up a ceramic bottle and two silver cups. He pulled out the cork with his teeth as he slid one of the vessels toward Garett. “I was headed there,” he said, spitting the cork across the room. It hit the far wall and rolled about on the floor. Burge could spit a cork farther than any man Garett had ever seen, even knock an object off a table from ten paces. His skill and accuracy was legendary in half the taverns in the River Quarter. “Then I saw Korbian come in with blood in his eye and Ellon Thigpen right behind him,” he continued calmly. “I figured it would take ’em about an hour to decide to cover it all up, then you’d need some of this.” Without taking his feet from the desk, he leaned forward and filled the cup in front of Garett, then his own. “Go on, it’s the best Celanese in the city.”
    Garett frowned, then picked up the cup and sipped. The fine, sweet wine flowed sensuously down his throat, and he closed his eyes, the better to savor its flavor. “Nice,” he murmured as he raised the cup and sniffed the wine’s heady aroma. “Very nice.”
    Burge tossed the contents of his own cup down in a single gulp and refilled it from the bottle. “Let’s finish it,” he suggested, holding the bottle out to top off Garett’s cup.
    “Let’s not,” Garett answered firmly, pushing the bottle back and setting his own cup down. “We’re going to need rest and clear heads tonight, not hangovers.” He hesitated and stared out the narrow window, the only one in the room. Its shutters had been thrown back to admit the breeze and the bright morning light from the east. The sky beyond was a perfect, clear blue. Yet Garett’s thoughts were on the night to come. “This isn’t over,” he told his friend quietly. “I feel it in my bones.”
    Burge took his feet down slowly, rose, and went to stand by the window with his cup in his hand. “Maybe you need some time off, Cap’n,” he suggested, his voice pitched low with concern. Pausing, he sipped from his cup and regarded Garett over the rim before he continued. “Yu haven’t had a night away from here in over a year. You take your duties too seriously.”
    Garett frowned again and waved him off.
    “A tired man makes mistakes,” Burge persisted, throwing one of Garett’s own favorite aphorisms back at him.
    “Then we should both get some sleep,” Garett said, rising to his feet. In fact, he was quite tired and looking forward to his bed. Maybe Almi could prepare him a simple breakfast before he retired. “Tell Blossom and Rudi to come in early tonight, though, ''you, too. Say, just after dark.”
    “Slave driver,” Burge muttered with a sidelong glance. He tipped his cup and drained it again. He gestured toward the bottle on the table. “A good Celanese shouldn’t be recorked, you know. Loses its flavor, it does.”
    “Then I suggest you take it back to the barracks and share a drop of it with your comrades there,” Garett answered good-naturedly. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the benefit of an elf s alcohol-resistant constitution. Not even a halfelf s. He picked up his cup and poured the remains back into the bottle. The one taste had been paradise. But one taste was enough. “I appreciate the thought, though, Burge,” he added as he bent over to pick up the cork. He wiped it with the hem of his scarlet tunic and tossed it across the room, “"You’re a good friend.”
    Burge caught it with an easy sweep of his hand and pushed it back into the bottle. “If I didn’t know you, Cap’n, sir,” he said, collecting both the silver cups in one hand, “I’d think you were a stiff.” He