I laughed softly. “You don’t care what kind of garbage your barbarian ancestors chucked down their gullets. Only modern cuisine for you. I don’t blame you — I probably couldn’t stomach what my ancestors ate either.”

The door opened without warning and for a few fearful moments I thought it was the Singer. No. The shirt was buttoned and it was only Alex, but Alex looking grim and worried. “Roland wants to speak to you,” he said. He didn’t look me in the eye.

“Roland is awake?” I asked.

“He’s awake, but he’s not...” Alex’s voice trailed off and he looked down at his hands. One palm had a brown stain on it. “He’s not very good, Lyra. Maybe seeing you will calm him down.”

“I don’t know,” I said, wondering how obvious it would be if I just picked up my parrot from the dressing table and put it into my pocket, “Seeing me might only upset him.”

“He’s asking for you,” Alex replied. “He says it’s important. Roland, he’s... Women affect him strongly, you know? That’s why he writes such good songs. Women affect him. Sometimes they make him mad and sometimes he just burns himself up wanting them. Most guys... this is hard to say, Lyra, but for most guys, being with a woman is nice and all, but it’s not everything. Not to live and die for. But with Roland, it is. And whatever happened between you and him before he got all keyed up... I don’t know. It’s just, the only thing that calms him down when he’s upset is attention from a woman. Talk, I just mean talk. But you have to go see him.”

Sighing, I stood and reached toward the dressing table.

“Don’t take the parrot,” he said. “That will only complicate things.”

He took me gently by the arm and guided me away from the parrot on the table, toward the door. I tried not to wince — he’d taken the arm that Roland punched and it throbbed with pain when Alex touched me.

Alex immediately switched his grip to my other arm. I thought, Oh, shit, but he said, “Shhh, shhh.”