Oriane
Walkelin was pleased to see Oriane.
She was pleased, too, though perhaps more by the fact that she had succeeded in finding him at all. The neckcloth had been of some help, for it appeared to know its way back to its creator and master far better than Oriane. More than once she was prevented from turning the wrong way, by an odd tug upon her neck, or a faint, admonitory tightening around her throat. She was back in Walkelin’s presence sooner than she would have imagined possible, though to her disappointment he was alone; there was no sign of Mistral.
‘I come to return your neckcloth,’ she told him. ‘It has been most unhappy to be separated from you, I believe.’
Walkelin accepted it with gratitude, handling it far more gently than either Oriane or Florian had. Oriane wondered gu
