The Sleeping Life (Eferum Book 2) by Andrea K Höst

startled. "Probably one of the ship's mages being curious. Captain Faille told me to put an extra ward on the room."
    "I suppose that's the simplest solution," Duchess Surclere said. "It's rare they'd find me doing anything but sleeping, but it's still annoying."
    Fallon left, knowing Auri would follow rather than be trapped in the room by a ward. They'd encountered wards only occasionally since the Dream started, and they were painful and impossible to cross, no matter whether they were trying to exclude Eferum-Get or magical intrusions. At least the ship's wards formed a bubble over the masts, so Auri would be able to enjoy the view from the deck.
    At the steep stair at the end of the passage Fallon concentrated on going up without slipping through, then headed toward the front of the ship. He hadn't quite reached it before experiencing that curious, stretchy sensation that told him he was at the limit of the distance he could go from his body, but almost all of the deck was within range.
    "I'll take an afternoon nap tomorrow," he told Auri, when she finally joined him. "You definitely want to see what the sunset is like."
    Subdued now, Auri eyed the nearest sailor fretfully. "Do you think Mrs Pardons will look after Father properly?"
    "As she said, she's managed him well enough when I've been at school. What worries me is if Uncle decides to get back at him for letting me go off with Duchess Surclere, but Mrs Pardons said she just wouldn't let Uncle in if he gets too bad. She had all these plans for pretending the household had come down with Shaky Fever."
    Auri didn't respond, just stood shoulder to shoulder with him and watched the moon inch higher. Her way of apologising. Fallon doubted he would be able to handle the long isolation much better, but the chance of Auri letting her temper ride her to disaster was another worry to add to Uncle and Father and spells gone wrong and a seriously angry Lord Surclere.
    He was so tired.
     

CHAPTER NINE
    Rennyn glanced out the window at grey, damp sky, then back to the warm cabin that had been home for the past two weeks. "Can you hear music?"
    The range of expressions in return for her question clearly told her 'no', and were also a nice illustration of the different personalities before her. Sukata concentrated, even though Kellian hearing meant she would ordinarily have caught any sound before Rennyn. Fallon was analytical, searching for a double meaning to the question, while Aven Meniar's light smile gave way to a quick, professional survey, on the off-chance that she'd suddenly developed a fever. And Kendall was just suspicious, convinced as ever that half Rennyn's actions were for her own quixotic amusement.
    "Guess not. Sorry for interrupting." She gestured for Meniar to continue, though the impression of notes too distant to be truly audible hadn't gone.
    "For bone-work, caulding isn't a replacement for a splint," Meniar said, with a shrug. "For all kinds of reasons, you don't want to rely solely on magic to keep fractures in position. With a clean break, once the bone is set you don't truly need caulding at all after the splint is in place, but where the bones have been shattered, where there are many fragments, caulding might be the only thing to save a limb. And to cauld a bone you need to see the bone, which is what this casting is all about."
    The Sigillic was straightforward, but Rennyn had found the lecture interesting for the new words that stood for all the different layers of people. She'd only ever learned the most basic of healing magics, because the study of how living creatures worked required many more years than she could devote. This trip had become a good opportunity to explore new avenues, and she and her students had enjoyed a round dozen of these lectures from Meniar and the other Sentene mages, as well as the specialist ship mages.
    This Sigillic had been written in a circle around a flat bowl filled with water, and as Meniar began to activate, the