Steelhands (2011) (43 page)

“Lucky me,” I said, doing my best not to look like an eager schoolboy at lecture. “So what’d you find?”

“Well, your hunch was right,” Royston said. “If the Esar
was
going to capitalize on the new information about the dragons, it seems likely that her services would be the ones he’d use. She was an assistant on the original dragon project, though they never used her Talent outright; I’d assume she was simply too young at the time to participate, but she must have learned a great deal from the original magicians. I’m not saying for certain that’s what she’s doing now, however—if she is, she’s
smart enough not to leave anything so helpful as a speck of proof lying around—but it
would
make sense for Germaine to see to your man’s hands first, if that’s the case. According to anyone who knows anything, the principles of dragons and Balfour’s steel hands are essentially the same, and observing him might very well help her to fine-tune the process of
other
endeavors. I must stress again,” he added, looking at me sharply, “that this is speculation based on what information I
did
suss out. We still don’t know that the Esar—meticulous as he is—is planning anything.”

“So you believe that?” I asked him.

“Not for an instant,” Roy told me.

“Better not go shoveling that shit in my direction, then,” I said, thinking over what he’d said. It all made sense, but there was still a piece missing. Why the
hell
was a woman like that doing routine checkups on ’Versity students, and why had Laure and Balfour both come away from seeing this woman feeling feverish and hearing voices?

A dragon’s voice, in Balfour’s case, I reminded myself. I wasn’t prone to the shivers, but I got the faintest sliver of one right then, like someone was dripping ice water down my back.

“Best let those thoughts out, whatever they are,” Royston said, peering at me from across the table. “You’ll give yourself an ulcer otherwise.”

“With all your chatting around, did you find out anything about why Germaine’s playing physician to the new ’Versity kids?” I managed finally, spitting the words out like bad food. “If she’s such a high-end Talent, you’d think th’Esar’d put her to better use than wiping snotty noses. But one of my students told me they’ve
all
been coming back feverish—and I’m sure, what with you being so caught up on your bastion gossip, you’ve already heard about what happened with Balfour.”

“There might’ve been a murmur or two about that poor gosling floating around the Basquiat,” Royston said, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “Nothing too undignified. I believe most sympathized with the poor man for having to deal with the Arlemagne emissaries day in and day out. No one enjoys that. I’m simply lucky enough that I’ve been forbidden to speak with any of them, on pain of death. You know how it is.”

“Well, fever’s not all that’s been going on,” I said, coming around to the real point at last. As much as I could and did give Royston shit
about dancing around a topic, I was as guilty as anyone right then. Sometimes, a man knew he wasn’t gonna like the answers he was about to get and avoided asking the question for as long as possible.

“Oh?” Roy asked, his attention immediately focusing. He was pretty sensitive to mysterious illnesses at the moment, and I could tell the idea that it might’ve had anything to do with another Margrave was getting under his skin.

“Balfour said he was hearing voices,” I said, not feeling guilty because I’d gotten his permission to talk about it. Still, it felt a little strange telling someone else without him being there to supervise us or make sure I wasn’t misrepresenting it. “And before you ask—yeah, I believe him. He’s the worst liar I’ve ever met, so I know he wasn’t spinning some story to cover his ass after making a fool of himself in front of the diplomats. The symptom came alongside the fever, and that
fever
came after he had his damned checkup with Margrave Germaine.”

Royston sighed, glancing away from me to look out the window for a long moment. He was gathering his thoughts, sorting them out, and putting them in order, but sometimes he could get too caught up in the flourishes and the embellishments. I could only hope I wasn’t in for three, four minutes of contemplative silence, at least not today.

“When magic gets into someone without a Talent, it
can
cause a slight fever,” Roy said at last, right when I was about to reach across the table and drag the words out of his mouth. “Their bodies aren’t used to the sudden change—the water gets into the blood, you see, where it’s treated almost like an infection until the body becomes accustomed to it. Hence the reaction. I didn’t think anything of it before, since, as you said, it
is
winter, and fevers always spread like wildfire through the ’Versity dorms the moment the weather changes. But you say Balfour fell ill, too, and that this woman’s been providing the care for all those first-year students when her specialties
clearly
lie elsewhere. You
know
how I hate to leap at shadows; it wastes good energy. But I would be remiss to decide I could ignore this uneasy feeling entirely in favor of my own personal comfort.”

“Shit,” I said, rubbing my hands over my face. I hadn’t shaved long past the point where I’d meant to; waking up early to see Balfour before work had taken up most of my free time, and I was closer to growing a beard than I had been in about fifteen years. Pretty soon I was gonna
have a nice winter goatee to match Roy’s if I wasn’t careful. “One of those kids went missing, you know.”

“I can only hope he proves easier to locate than Margrave Ginette,” Royston said, looking grim. “I wonder …”

“You wonder what?” I prompted.

Roy was so lost in thought he wasn’t even complaining that I was pacing back and forth, or that my stomping around was distracting him. “Hal heard a similar sort of rumor,” Roy explained. “About a missing student. I wonder if it’s the same one, or if they’re being spirited away right and left. How embarrassing for the dean if that’s the case.”

“Ain’t funny,” I said.

“No, of course not,” Roy agreed. “It’s very grave indeed. It leads me to believe something I don’t want to contemplate—and yet all the clues do point directly toward it, making the conclusion inevitable.”

“And that is?” I asked, hoping he wouldn’t confirm my suspicions.

“That Margrave Germaine is conducting experiments in magic on children,” Roy replied simply. He pressed his forefingers to his temples, closing his eyes for a moment, then relaxed. “And if her specialty is in dragonmaking …”

“This is a fucking mess,” I said.

“Very well put,” Roy said.

We were quiet after that, giving our thoughts the gravity they deserved. It wasn’t as though we could go to the Provost about everything—him being th’Esar’s bastard son made it clear where
his
loyalties were—and I felt like I was going to be arrested myself just for having these thoughts. They
were
treason, sure enough—and I’d feel like the madman, not Balfour, if it turned out I was believing His Highness capable of something so fucking drastic.

“I gotta meet with the boys,” I said finally. “We’ll stand together, same as always, but if it’s about dragons, then it’s not your fight. You get your large nose out of this and stop asking around before you’re exiled again, or worse.”

“How cheerful you sound,” Roy replied, but his voice was without any humor; it was a sorry day indeed when he got no pleasure from teasing me. “The Esar
has
been desperate to regain full control over the city. And with so many of the magicians dead after the war, now is the perfect time to strike. It wouldn’t be so difficult to rearrange the balance
of power completely, so that there
is
no balance—perhaps even no Basquiat. It
all
lines up perfectly, doesn’t it? With everything we know?”

“We don’t actually
know
anything,” I told him. “And I’d suggest keeping thoughts like those to yourself before the wrong person overhears ’em.”

“I do know how to be discreet,” Roy said.

“I’m talking about Hal, too,” I said—not a pleasant topic to get into with a friend, and surely one that wouldn’t make him too happy with me, but I had to make him aware of the dangers all the same. “You don’t know who that boy trusts or what kind of people he talks to. Could be working for th’Esar himself after everything that went down at the end of the war. You watch out for yourself.”

“I’m surprised at you, Owen,” Roy replied, sounding genuinely hurt.

“I’m just saying you don’t exactly have the best track record,” I said, which was nothing but the truth.

“I find it unfortunate that you are so tainted by my past relationships you refuse to see any goodness in a truly good person,” Roy told me. “Hal should hardly suffer because of
my
failings.” He sounded caustic now—probably embarrassed he’d shown any kind of real emotion—and I wondered if I’d done the wrong thing by bringing up my concerns.

But the shit we were discussing
was
treason. Just talking about it was grounds for imprisonment, or worse. And with all the
velikaia
hanging around th’Esar these days, maybe even
thinking
about it could mean the end.

I should’ve been smart, like Rook and Ghislain, and gotten the hell out of the city while I still could.

Yet, a dry voice—sounding a lot like Royston’s, once I thought about it—told me that would never have worked. I might’ve hated the responsibility of being in charge most of the time, but I needed it, too. Why else would I have taken the damn lecturer position in the first place? It sure as shit wasn’t because I loved teaching.

I was the kind of person who needed to be looking after someone—a whole lot of someones, more like. It was the only thing I was halfway good at, and the feeling like I was going to fail and let ’em all down was usually the kick in the ass I needed to get my brain working.

“If something is happening,” Royston said at last, voice tight, “then
the Basquiat needs to be forewarned. We can’t simply have something sprung on us when we’re at our weakest. Though I am loath to accept the idea, and though I have no clue as to what the Esar could possibly be planning, a little dose of mistrust at present does not seem particularly unwise.”

“He’s building the dragons again,” I said because I knew it was true. It was the one thing he’d done that’d won him the war—or so the people felt—and it’d made him a hero along with the airmen. It’d been his idea, when he was a much younger man and had much larger vision. But now all his thoughts had turned inward, to Thremedon. Without an enemy outside to focus on, he needed to find one somewhere else, and the Basquiat was his next target.

The dragons had been his weapons against magicians in the first place—albeit Ke-Han ones, not Volstovic. But to him, the principle would be the same; he’d always had trouble with the restrictions presented by a rival group for his loyal bastion.

It all just made sense in my gut, and if I was wrong, then I’d allow myself to feel pie-faced.

“I don’t know whether you’re angrier that he’s doing this or that he’s doing it without you,” Roy said, somewhat sharp-tongued. “But I’ll let you sort that personal matter out—if you leave me in charge of
mine.
”

“I gotta call the boys together,” I told him again. “We can talk about the rest later, and you can wrangle some apology outta me if it makes you feel better.”

“Perhaps,” Roy replied lightly. “We’ll see how I’m feeling. We’ll see if I’m still around; if I haven’t decided to abscond with my life to some other, less difficult city.”

I didn’t want to leave things so uncomfortable with him, but I wouldn’t’ve done a good job of making my case to him just then. It was a bad idea to let Roy stew over a slight—but we both had more important things to worry about, and I just hoped he’d understand I had
his
best interests in mind when I’d stuck my nose into a place it didn’t belong.

“I suppose I’ll have to cross-examine you about that young girl with whom I saw you enjoying sweet drinks at another, more appropriate time,” Roy said as I was showing him out the door.

“I’ll hold you to it,” I said.

“Just see that you’re careful,” Royston said, tugging on one glove and then the other. His voice was clipped—I knew things were bad when he wasn’t even getting any enjoyment out of teasing me. “It can be … difficult for someone from the countryside to adjust to city life. I don’t mean to sound crass, but it’s the truth. You should keep it in mind.”

I was surprised enough that I came close to shutting the door in his face. Somehow, good sense kept me from making too many mistakes in a short period of time, though, and I refrained.

“Okay,” I said instead, though it stuck in my throat. “Thanks. I’ll keep that in mind.” Things’d work out with us since they always did; neither of us was the kind of person who had so many friends we could afford to lose the few who managed to stick around.

The door closed behind him, and I just hoped he wasn’t going to do anything stupid, like unburden himself to someone who might be unburdening
themselves
right in th’Esar’s private confidence.

For now, I knew I couldn’t let Laure see Margrave Germaine, no matter how many angry letters they sent. The rest, like what it meant—and me looking out for her this way—I’d deal with later.

Somehow, without my knowledge, Laure had been fraternizing with our Professor Adamo again.

The only reason I’d learned the truth at all was not due to my own innate skills of deduction but the fact that she’d come to see me at last, as a gesture of peace between us, and told me outright.

After I got over the initial slap in the face that she had been confiding in someone other than me, I was at least grateful she’d found someone with any kind of standing who was willing to help her, though I sincerely hoped her good looks had nothing to do with that man’s eagerness. Hero of Volstov or no, there were some things that were never acceptable, and I did not care if he had twenty statues dedicated to him throughout the city. Laure’s honor was far more important than anyone else’s reputation.