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invitation tapped again.
    Naia was sweeping the Guild House porch when they stepped out into the brightness of the morning. “I’ll have a groom take your horses down to the exercise meadow by the river port, if you’re busy today,” she said. “You could probably leave them there, if you wished, as the Guild keeps space in the port’s livery stable.” She straightened, looking around the small yard. “It will be a pleasanter spot for them and leave more stable room for newcomers here.”
    Jehane Mor thanked her, and she and Tarathan spent the morning delivering the Ephor’s dispatches, as well as dropping off sealed reports from business agents in Terebanth to a series of merchant warehouses. They ate their lunch beneath an awning in the largest of the Westgate markets, with the heat of the sun on their backs and the last of the rain puddles disappearing from the cobbles. A clerk from one of the trading houses found them there, with a request that they call for more dispatches, and it was mid-afternoon before they turned toward Minstrels’ Island and the Inn of the Golden Lute.
    The inn was located close to the great, golden dome of the College, and was a substantial, three-storey affair, with the upper levels built around three sides of a large courtyard. Timber balconies overlooked the central area, and the heralds’ boots thudded on the stairs as a servant led them to the topmost gallery. The afternoon air was heady with the scent of jasmine growing along the balustrade, and a College bell rang out the hour. The servant paused before a door of honeyed oak and knocked once before opening it. “Them heralds are here, your honor,” he announced, before slipping away.
    Jehane Mor stepped into the room ahead of Tarathan and saw a man lounging in the window seat. “Ah,” she said. “I wondered if it might be you.”
    The man laid aside his lute, rose gracefully to his feet and crossed to a table that was set with glasses, a flask of wine, and a plate of candied fruit. “I was unsure,” said Haimyr the Golden, the Earl of Night’s minstrel, “whether you knew that I was of the Ilvaine kin—although I suspected that you might.” The golden bells on his sleeve tinkled as he raised the wine flask. Both the flask and the goblets set around it were golden, too, wrought from the delicate and costly glass of Ij.
    “It has been a long time since the Keep of Winds,” the minstrel continued, “but the two of you have remained in my thoughts. Would you care for some wine?”
    Jehane Mor came further into the room, Tarathan’s shadow stretching alongside hers after he closed the door. “If that is an Emerian white in that flask, then yes,” she said. “To whom or what do we drink?”
    “We must pour the libation for Seruth,” Haimyr the Golden replied, matching his action to the words. “It really is a very fine wine—and from Emer. I salute your perception, Herald Jehane!”
    The herald accepted the glass he held out and sipped, regarding him across the rim while he poured a second glass for Tarathan. She noted the faint lines around eyes and mouth that had not been there five years before, but there was no thread of silver in the bright hair or lessening of mockery in the golden eyes. “I had forgotten that you were of the Ilvaine kin,” she said, after the wine had been duly appreciated. “But once we received the invitation, I reflected further on who might room so close to the College.”
    “As a minstrel my business is with the College, so it makes sense to stay nearby.” Haimyr swirled the wine in his glass. “I could stay in the mausoleum they call our palace, I suppose, but I find all that marble and gloom of family history a little dismal.”
    “We saw the banner over the Ilvaine trading house yesterday, the one on Westgate. Is that for you, even though you stay here?” Jehane Mor asked. “Or for another of your kin?”
    “For me?” Irony glinted in Haimyr’s smile. “No, my illustrious