Then he put his hand on my shoulder and left it there for a moment, as he used to at the end of a night on that field, when I was too tired to know whether I'd done well. He had never told me, then, whether I had. He didn't tell me now. He took his hand away.
"You still have that thing," he said, looking at Dream Haven.
"It still has me."
"I see that." He reached into his coat. "From your father."
The note was small and folded once, addressed in my father's hand. I broke the seal.
Do as Valerian tells you. He will tell me if you don't.
Underneath, in slightly different ink, as if it had been added after the first line had dried: Write when you can.
I read it twice. My father writes the way he speaks, which is as little as possible, and he had still found room for a second line.
I put it inside my shirt.
"Izabella says she was right about sleeping after meals," said Valerian.
"She wasn't."
