Page 108 of The Other Omega

“This is amazing.”

The baker beamed.

I bought six.

Eira glanced at the bag when he handed it over.

“For later,” I told her.

We went for coffee next.

I hadn’t realised how much I’d missed sitting in a café until we found a little table by the window and I held a hot cup in my hands. People talked around us, cups clinked against saucers, and nobody wanted to examine me or ask me questions I couldn’t answer.

I could just sit there and drink my coffee for as long as I liked.

A man stood near the door, dressed much like everyone else in the café. If I hadn’t met him before we left, I never would’ve guessed he was part of my security team.

“Do they do that the whole time?” I asked.

Eira followed my gaze. “Do what?”

“Watch everyone while pretending they’re not watching everyone.”

“Yes.”

She smiled over her coffee.

I tried to find the others. One was outside somewhere, and I thought another had taken a table across the café, though I wasn’t completely sure.

“They’re very good.”

“They’re trained by House Vaelor. Only the finest candidates complete the programme.”

I’d worried that having security would mean being surrounded by enormous men glaring at anyone who came near me. This was much easier to get used to.

After coffee, we found a tiny shop selling wooden things carved from trees that grew on the upper mountain slopes. I picked up a smooth, dark bookmark carved with a mountain range and immediately thought of Lucien.

“He’d like this.”

“Master Lucien?” Eira asked.

“Yes. He reads constantly.”

Buying it made me think about the others. I couldn’t bring something home for one of them and nothing for the rest, so I found Leon a little box of chocolates from a confectioner who made them with mountain honey.

Caius was harder.

Most of what I picked up was either too decorative or not particularly useful, but a specialist outfitter had a small precision whetstone in a dark leather case.

I turned it over in my hands, then held it out to Eira.

“Do you think Caius would use this? He has so many knives. It would come in handy, wouldn’t it? And it’s really pretty.”

She examined it. “It’s a fine one. Commander Stormforge would certainly have a use for it.”

“Perfect. I’ll take it.”

I found Alaric’s present at a tea-and-coffee merchant. The shopkeeper let me smell several blends before opening a tin of dark-roasted beans from the southern range.