Steelhands (2011) (29 page)

“Oh yeah, Gaeth,” Laure said, finding her voice before I did. “He’s our friend, and we … We haven’t seen him for
weeks
now. Neither has anyone else. We knew he took ill with the fever, so we were just—”

“I don’t see how that’s any concern of mine,” the man said, crossing his arms. Then he did a double take toward Laure—as men so often did—and I felt the smallest sliver of hope wedge its way into my chest. Perhaps we might be able to use her assets, hideous as it made me feel to exploit her.

Behind her back, she thrust the letter into my hand, and I took it, folding it up and sticking it into my pocket.

We could use it—somehow—if only to send home to Gaeth’s poor parents as evidence of his final, lunatic ramblings. It might bring some comfort to them.

“I know it was wrong to break in like this,” Laure added, taking a step forward with some hesitance, as though she was nervous. She was a born actress, though she used her skills sparingly, and she’d never even had a single lesson. “We would
never
have done it except as a very last resort, and then only because we were so worried about our friend.”

“It’s quite illegal,” the man said with a sniff. If he was one of the room advisors, I’d never seen him. Where had he been hiding himself all this time? I doubted he even lived on the premises. “You should have come to me first with your questions.”

“I know that now,” Laure said, reaching up to twine a piece of her hair around her fingers. “And I feel just … 
silly
about it, believe me. When there was someone right here all along who could help me. I don’t know why we were so foolish.”

Ever so slowly—not wishing to draw attention away from my leading lady—I began to inch my way to the door. Gaeth’s disturbing letter was secured within my pocket, my hand covering it as an extra precaution. Though I had no idea yet of what we might use it for, it was the best piece of evidence we’d managed to uncover. I just hoped
madness
wasn’t catching.

I didn’t like what Laure had been trying to say before we’d been so rudely interrupted, but we’d try to sort that out later.

“Now, normally, I’d have to write the pair of you up for safety violations,” the man said, some indecision in his voice. The closer we came, the younger he seemed—and not quite as terrifying as the
real
authorities might have been. I’d been certain he’d been one of the Provost’s wolves come to arrest us, and now I saw he was merely a shabby little man. “But if—and that’s
if
—you leave here right now, I
might be able to let you go with no more than a warning, and a promise not to do it again next time.”

“Could you
really
do all that?” Laure asked, her voice pitched to a frequency I’d never heard before. It was ghastly, and my sides were starting to hurt from holding in my laughter. “How perfectly dear of you. We’d be ever so grateful. All we really wanted to see was if he was all right. I know someone like you would understand. You’d do the same for a friend, I’m sure.”

The man shifted his weight, looking uncomfortable. He was starting to turn pink—just a natural side effect of being so close to Laure while she turned on the full effects of her charm. Sometimes she didn’t even have to turn it on—it just worked naturally—but this was a special case, and I was in awe of her abilities. The older she got, the better the ruse worked. If only I had been born with such a lucky gift.

“Look,” the dorm manager said finally, “I have it on good authority that Gaeth went home. I wouldn’t look for him anymore if I were you; it’ll only lead to disappointment.”

“You’ve put our minds at ease,” Laure said, moving closer to him, as though she were about to thank him in some other way. I saw the pink in his cheeks turn to red, but Laure only moved past him suddenly, out into the hallway. I managed to squeeze by him as well, murmuring a few pleasantries before bolting after her.

“At least he’ll have fine dreams tonight,” I whispered, once we were out of earshot. My heart was racing, and we weren’t in the clear just yet—the man could always change his mind and, at the slightest infraction, I was certain my father could have me pulled from this program
despite
how prestigious everyone back home thought it was.

Laure made a disgusted face at me, her cheeks bright red. “Don’t want anyone dreaming about me,” she snapped, “and you could’ve helped, so I didn’t have to do that.”

I stared at her. “What more would you have me do?” I asked. “Should
I
have flirted with him?”

“I’ve seen you flirt before,” she told me, “and just because I’m the girl of the two of us doesn’t mean I should have to do such
things.
”

“It’s because you’re the pretty one of the two of us,” I told her. “It doesn’t have anything to do with anything else.”

“That’s what you think,” Laure shot back, shouldering the door to her room open. “We’re not done talking about that letter,” she added
hotly, “but I want to be alone for a bit, so scram. And I’d better see you at dinner.”

She slammed the door shut behind her, and I winced at the sound, as well as at the little splinters of wood knocked loose onto the floor. I bent down to clean them up, wondering what had gotten into her. Perhaps, I thought, it was that time of the month, then immediately banished the thought from my mind—as she’d been able to hear me thinking that before, and the results were never pretty.

Gaeth’s letter burning a hole in my pocket and the splinters bundled neatly in my kerchief, I headed back to my room. There was a great deal to think about now—one mystery solved, but a new one had immediately taken its place.

It would be a miracle if we managed to study for our exams at all.

Nothing wasn’t the worst thing that could happen, but nothing happening when you were expecting
something
to happen was one of the worst feelings life had to offer. Mad as it might have sounded, I would’ve taken the routine of wartime over all this bastion-damned peace and quiet any day.

Of course, I wasn’t so selfish that I’d rather have had people dying in battle than everybody going about their daily business without anything to worry over. I was just on edge because I wanted th’Esar to make his move. All this waiting around felt like wasting time, and when I didn’t have any information to go on, I couldn’t very well make
mine
.

There was some chance our illustrious highness wasn’t going to do anything at all. He could do whatever he pleased, like pick his nose with a dragon claw, or sit on the information for the rest of his cushy life. And maybe I was just as worried about that happening as anything because I actually wanted him to give my girl another go. She’d done good work and didn’t deserve ending up in pieces.

I wished I hadn’t known about any of this. It was making me jump at shadows and shout at students—even more than usual—and the take-home exam I was making up had questions that forced even Radomir to admit he was stumped.

Good, I thought. Sometimes, there weren’t any easy answers. If the
idiots in the class could figure out there
was
no right way to solve a problem—and you were damned no matter what tactic you took—that’d be one strong life lesson learned. I’d pass whoever figured it out and send the others to a different class, where the questions would follow a formula and their heads wouldn’t get too turned around with possibilities.

“Owen, you are the most miserable and gloomy companion I have ever had,” Roy had told me on more than one occasion. “I am going to be forced to find myself a new best friend—and after I worked so hard at breaking you in.”

“Go right ahead,” I’d replied. “I hope he likes big noses.”

I was on my way to see him again—because he hadn’t made good on his threat, for whatever reason—passing by the statues because I liked to take the long way to the Crescents. The walk helped me clear my head, and maybe I hoped I’d be a better man by the time I knocked on Royston’s door.

Luvander’s shop was open, I noted, and a young girl and her father—at least, I hoped it was her father—were just leaving. Luvander himself was seeing them out, and we caught sight of each other at the same time, him waving me over and me unable to avoid the social visit.

“Small city, isn’t it?” Luvander asked. “Care to come in for some tea, entertain the crowds, sell a few hats?”

“I’m on my way to meet someone, actually,” I said.

“And it’s a good thing, too,” Luvander replied. “You’d probably sell all the wrong fashions and start some terrible new trend.”

“What’s it matter to you, if you’re the one making money off it?” I asked.

“Principles,” Luvander replied. “If I don’t have those, what am I left with?”

“A lot of hats,” I said.

He stared at me before bursting into peals of laughter that seemed largely inappropriate to the situation.

“You do surprise me every now and then, I must say,” Luvander said at last, wiping a tear from his eye. He was wearing a blue scarf, made out of some fancy material that looked softer than wool. “I was just saying to Balfour the other day that you had hidden depths, and here you are exhibiting them.”

“Balfour’s come out of hiding, then?” I asked.

“Now that he’s seen my little establishment is well and truly a shop, and not some elaborate trap to snare him once and for all, you mean?” Luvander asked. “Poor young man. I think we may have been too hard on him, don’t you agree?”

“Always said so, myself,” I replied, folding my arms over my chest. A bit of a brisk wind picked up, and I stamped my feet impatiently.

“In any case, he didn’t come to me,” Luvander explained. “That’s going to take some more coaxing, probably because I once put fire ants in his—Well, anyway, if they’re calling him Steelballs these days, they should really credit
me
for that, that’s all I’m saying.”

“Luvander,” I said, with a note of warning.

“Spoilsport,” Luvander said. He sighed, adjusting his scarf, tucking a bunched-up pouf of it under his collar. “I ferreted him out of his little rabbit hole myself. And let me tell you that ‘rabbit hole’ is
entirely
too accurate a term for that place he’s living. Never you worry, though; he was in extraordinarily blithe spirits when I dropped by. Apparently all it took was th’Esar’s sponsored tune-up, administered by one Margrave Germaine, if I recall correctly. They were polished like mirrors, and working very well, it seemed.”

“Margrave Germaine,” I repeated, because something in my head was telling me I already knew that name. Somebody Royston had told me about, maybe, because he never could remember I didn’t care much for gossip.

“Now, I know what you’re thinking, and unfortunately I
don’t
have her references on hand,” Luvander said, offering an exuberant wave to someone walking down the Rue over my shoulder. They called out to him, and he performed a grand bow. “You’ll simply have to accept my word—or rather, Balfour’s word—that she’s a whiz with mechanical parts. You should have seen the look on his face; it was simply extraordinary. It was just like the time—well, I can’t actually think of a time when we went out of our way to make Balfour happy. Isn’t that depressing?”

“Seems accurate to me,” I said.

“You’re just in a foul mood because you haven’t seen them for yourself yet,” Luvander said, patting my arm in a way that probably seemed thoughtful to him and not condescending in the slightest. Or maybe he did know exactly how he was coming off, and that was the whole point of how he was acting. “Off with you, then, or you’ll be late for your appointment
—unless that was just an excuse you made up to get out of having tea with me. You know how I chew your ear off.”

“Sure,” I said, distracted by that horsefly of a name buzzing around inside my big, empty head. What good was it knowing a thing if you couldn’t even remember what you needed it for in the first place?

Royston would’ve said this was another sign of my getting older, which was only fair since I wouldn’t let the issue of his nose go, despite how many years it had been. At least I wasn’t going gray the way he was, but I was certainly forgetful enough, with all those student names to keep track of cluttering up valuable space inside my brain.

“And
don’t
be a stranger,” Luvander said sternly. “I’ll look you up, too, if I have to. I have ways and means. I might even show up at your next class and cause a sensation. I can see it now: ‘Reunion of the Old Flyboys Causes Riot in the Lecture Hall.’ They might even ask for autographs for their collections. All those young, impressionable little minds; the things I could teach them … Wouldn’t that be exciting?”

“Good-bye, Luvander,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets and moving along down the Rue. He was only excited because he didn’t know these country kids like I did. A little excitement was okay every now and then, but too much was bad for their digestion.

It wasn’t me being prejudiced against the young or the countryside or anything like that, either. You only had to look at the facts: How many students had up and vanished like a good mood on a hot day? There was talk of some winter fever going around, but that all seemed like a steaming load of horse pat to me.

Then, just like that, I had it.

Margrave Germaine was the name that hotheaded girl Laurence had given me when she’d come to see me about missing lecture. I’d even cracked some fool joke about making it stick in my head so I’d remember down the road if I ever caught her lying.

That’d worked out real well for me.

I thought about it for a few more blocks, trying to figure out why someone who was working on Balfour’s hands, with a background in mechanics
and
prosthetics, would be wasting valuable time looking after schoolkids with runny noses. The magicians’ plague had been devastating, sure, but as far as I knew it hadn’t left the Basquiat so strapped for helping hands that those with specializations were forced to do two jobs at once.

If this Margrave Germaine was looking after my boy’s hands, it meant she was good enough with metal to turn it into something that nearly lived and breathed, just like our dragons. To me, that seemed like the kind of study you’d have to devote your life to in order to be any good at it. Didn’t leave much time for learning medicine to treat ’Versity students.