“Stealing my correspondence?” Bastien suggests, still smiling at the painting. But he turns the smile on Colin a moment later. He’s joking.

And Colin’s presence in the room is welcome. He picks up the desk chair to carry closer to the armchair.

“I am from Val Royeaux,” he says on the way, “and I was a bard,” since he’s given up hiding that from colleagues, “and then I was a printer, and now I am here, and very excited about your tarte tatin. And you were a mage in Kinloch Hold, and your mother is from Antiva, and you like to paint and cook.”