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“Solomon? What’s wrong?”
Solomon put the letter down on the bedspread. Slowly, still gazing in that general direction, he said, “There’s a stone under the blanket. Very cold. It keeps touching my shin and ah, I think I’ll freez-“
He wasn’t able to finish before Sheba was trying to hit him with a pillow. Laughing, he put up his arm to ward her off, his little demon. Perhaps he shouldn’t have goaded her given the news he was about to share, but these days, more and more, it felt like he’d only ever have so many chances…
When she finished threatening his peace and livelihood, she went to pluck the letter off his lap. He caught her hand. He knew she’d rather hear it from his mouth.
“The manticore tribe wrote,” he said. “Your clever friend Momo has been tracking the magicians stirring trouble back to what he believed is an organised group. He thought it was a bigger problem than we guessed.”
Sheba straightened slowly, putting aside the platter on her half of the bed – empty now save for a few grape stems and melon rinds. She said, “It’s a good thing to know, isn’t it, if it’s true? Why do you look so concerned?”
“It’s possible he learned too much, or that’s what his mother thinks. Sheba, he’s gone missing. It’s been a week. They want our help to find him.”
“Oh,” At once, Sheba seemed to harden, making a grave face Solomon wished the times never called for. She said, “I see. Of course we’ll help. You can’t afford to leave, right? I’ll go alone.”
Solomon could sense her quick mind already parcelling out her responsibilities to the different leaders in her group for this period. He handed her the letter. “That would be best. Here, they said they’d explain more once you arrived. If you move quickly and covertly, I think you won’t need to take more than two strong magicians. But I want you to ask for backup if it seems even slightly likely to be necessary. You already strain yourself too much while you’re—“
“I’ll be fine,” Sheba said sharply and Solomon realised he was fussing. He watched her get swiftly out of bed, the sheets sliding off her body, her skin like burnished bronze in the lamplight, her warmth going with her. She went straight for the desk, pushed aside his piles of correspondence, and started writing missives with his brush, not even dressed. For some reason, Solomon felt a strange, sad pang in his chest. “Can you get my things?” she said.
He began to do so. “You’re leaving now?”
“If I fly through the night, I’ll be on manticore territory by midday,” she said, scrawling aggressively, hunched over the desk, her elbows at angles. “Why didn’t they tell us anything before this, even about the investigation?” A frazzled note entered her voice and her script jerked. “What do we have to do to show the other species that they don’t have to deliver things to us wrapped up nicely in a bow? That we’ll listen and help and they don’t have to do things perfectly or alone? – Momo, for God’s sake – Those assemblies clearly don’t suffice. Do they appear merely ceremonial in some way to the manticores? Solomon, do you know?”
Solomon liked this about Sheba. No matter how bleak the news, the wind never seemed to leave her sails. Always questioning. Always fighting forwards. When Maril’s entire group fell to a mobile Gunud assault, Sheba simply ate a lot, moped a bit, and then roused a third of the resistance to an even more ambitious campaign. Against seemingly unassailable defences, she led strategy after strategy until God gave her a working solution, probably out of horrified disbelief that He had sired such a force. Solomon had been driving a larger attack elsewhere at the time, but he wished he’d been there to see it.
“I can only guess for now,” Solomon said about her concerns. “We’ll review it when we’ve dealt with the immediate problem. But are you sure you shouldn’t leave later? If Agares is right, magicians could be watching the skies with every pair of eyes they have. If you fly in at night—“
“Good point. I’ll sleep before I get too close to the centre. It’ll make me sharper going in, too.” She signed one missive, reached for another parchment, paused. “Hm. Can we spare Halef? She can make us hard to see, she’s slippery if one of us needs to get away, and she can fight if it comes down to it. I know times are tight and she’s good, but… Ah, no, isn’t she east with the centaurs?”
Solomon’s memory came to him quickly. “Her group returned two days ago. You write. I’ll find her.” The whole matter hadn’t seemed so urgent to him earlier, but the fact that the manticores hadn’t spared the time and ink to translate the details and had asked for not one but both of them – Sheba’s intuitive urgency seemed correct.
Solomon threw on his clothes, slipped into shoes, and took up his staff. It’d be a shock for Halef to wake up to Solomon himself asking a mission of her, but if he recalled correctly, she was solid. Earth to Sheba’s fire. She’d turn the task down if she needed to.
“If she can’t make it–“ Sheba floundered, her attention torn halfway between writing instructions and considering the next best candidate.
“Nehtab will do it.”
“Yes. Yes, he’ll do. Thank you. We’ll meet at the fountain. And Solomon–“
Solomon anticipated Sheba here – don’t let me leave without a kiss – and he was already before her. He pressed tenderly to her mouth. How she could be frighteningly capable and almost childishly clinging at the same time.
“Be careful,” he said seriously. “If they’re truly so organised, they’ll be expecting you. It could be a trap, frightening you into doing something rash.”
“I know. Quickly now,” she said and touched his wrist. Ink on the side of her palm, her hair flat in patches from lying on it while wet. Solomon imprinted the image in his mind to cherish for when she was gone.
She bent her head back to her work.
Solomon went into the hall and did his.