Chapter Nine
Konrad stood for some time outside the front door of Bakar House, heedless of the sleet driving into his face, or the cold seeping into his bones. His hat was long gone, as was his coat — everything. He wore… there was no word for what he wore. A robe, maybe, of materials he had no names for either. The thing hung shapeless around him, puffed about by every breath of wind, so light it might as well have been woven of cobwebs. (Considering its provenance, it could have been). He ought to have perished from the cold by now, so garbed, but the peculiar little spirits Nanda kept company with knew their arts: the cobweb robe kept him warmer than it ought.
Still, he dreamed of the huge, roaring fires he liked to have in his snug study, and in the parlour he’d so often sat in with
