Malachi was on his feet, hand still resting on his knife, but the stranger just stood there in the doorway with the cold air pouring in around him, looking more tired than dangerous.
"I'm not here to cause trouble," he said. "Name's Tobin Ashe. I knew your father. Zaine." His eyes moved to me like he already knew which face in the room belonged to that name. "You look like your mother, if the stories are anything to go by. Around the eyes, maybe."
That stopped me colder than the knife would have.
"You knew my mother?"
"Never met her. Just what he told me." Tobin glanced around the table, at Pearl's narrowed eyes and Kai's flat unreadable stare, and seemed to reconsider his opening. "Can I sit? I promise I'm more boring than I look."
"You look like a man who just barged into an inn shouting about temples," Des said. "That's a low bar."
