Steelhands

by Danielle Bennett

  This much postponement of a simple decision was nearly killing me; I was close enough to standing and leaving without being excused and causing further scandal when Chanteur finally grunted, waving one plump hand. “Very well, take your time,” he said. “I know what my king would have me do already. If you are not so lucky, then by all means, take conference with him now.”

  Troius stood quickly, following me out of the room and away from the collective murmurs on both sides of the table. There was some fresh air in the hallway, but it was not enough, and without listening to hear if Troius was following me, I lurched quickly through the halls, desperate to find some means of escape—or, at the very least, a room with an open window in it.

  The voice was following me making wordless sounds in what I was forced to assume was an effort to terrify rather than communicate.

  If people were staring at me, I would not have blamed them; neither did I have the energy to spend on keeping up appearances.

  The more I ran, the more it became clear to me there was no outrunning the sounds. They grew louder and quieter as they pleased, the voice fading away only to start up again even closer to my ear.

  “Balfour!” Troius called after me.

  The current ballad in Charlotte about me would have to be amended, I thought, to account for my tragic descent into madness. I felt Troius catch me by the shoulder, trying to stop me before I went careening down a flight of stairs. For a moment, I fought with him.

  Balfour, the voice said in my ear. Balfour?

  It knew my name, I thought, then promptly lost consciousness.

  ADAMO

  I didn’t have much time to worry about the hell I was going to catch from Roy next time I saw him. A mind like his could turn any innocent encounter into a whole lot more than it actually was, and I knew he’d been waiting for his opportunity to have a go at me ever since he brought Hal back to the city. Probably since even before then. I’d been twitting him all his life about his love life—if it could even be called that—since good old Professor Lingual, and now here he’d gone and gotten the impression I suddenly had one of my own. It’d be open season no matter what the truth actually was, and I’d been going out of my way for the past few days to avoid him at all the usual spots.

  He had to know by that point I was avoiding him, which would only make it worse when he finally caught me. But all of that seemed like petty, peacetime thinking to me when Luvander showed up in my office.

  “Don’t tell me you’ve got a problem with the exam, too,” I said. It’d been a mistake passing my office hours around in case anyone needed consulting—because it turned out everybody did. Even more of a mistake had been letting the eager students—the ones with eyes like starved animals, begging for approval and grades instead of scraps—take the damned thing home early when they’d asked. It was that question that didn’t have an answer that had ’em all in such a tizzy, assuming they’d failed the class, a few of ’em even bursting into tears right in front of me.

  “No, it’s Balfour,” Luvander replied, not even bothering to make a joke at my expense. That was how I knew it was serious.

  I reached for my coat, putting it on without a word. We could talk while we walked and get wherever we needed to be twice as fast.

  “It’s only a rumor,” Luvander explained, as we pushed past a gaggle of students at the front door of Cathery and into the cold afternoon air, “but I heard it from multiple sources—and you say gossip never helped anyone!—that the ex–airman diplomat named Balfour had a bit of a … moment during the talks with Arlemagne yesterday. It’s all hush-hush, which means everyone’s talking about it, and I knew you’d want to hear immediately in case there’s something actually wrong.”

  “Your gossip any more specific?” I asked. If there was, then I’d consider amending my feelings on how useless wagging tongues were, but not before.

  “That’s the problem, of course,” Luvander replied. “In my own personal opinion, he must have been feeling stifled by such endless tedium—the talks aren’t going very well, according to my sources, and they’ve been at it for days trying to work out all the little details—and some are saying our good friend left in the middle of a vote on Arlemagne’s dealings with Verruges pirates. Just stood up in the middle of the talks and ran out of the room, then dropped like a lead weight. Fainted or something. Can you imagine the scene?”

  “Doesn’t sound like our good friend Balfour,” I said. “If he didn’t run from you lot, I don’t think a few diplomats’d give him that much trouble. Where’s he now?”

  “I assumed we would check his apartment first,” Luvander said. “And might I suggest you do your best to intimidate his ghastly upstairs neighbors into being a little more quiet? No wonder the poor thing’s feeling worked to the bone if he can barely get any sleep at night without them stomping around. Most days I have trouble making it to lunchtime on a full eight hours!”

  “Been to visit him a lot, have you?” I asked, privately thinking that the same rule as with his ability to weather diplomats applied. Balfour’d lasted years on less sleep and more noise than he was currently dealing with. Despite giving the impression that he’d blow over in a stiff wind, he could be a tough little bugger when he set his mind to it.

  I’d’ve been less worried if he was prone to running out of the room and fainting like a noblewoman. Then I’d know not to pay this embarrassing incident any mind one way or the other.

  “Only once,” Luvander admitted. “I’m working him up to accepting the company.”

  Sounded a little like torture to me, I thought, privately glad Luvander hadn’t decided I needed the company. Once again, Balfour was a sacrificial lamb, but if he wanted to keep Luvander out, all he had to do was pretend he wasn’t home. He was a smart one; he’d figure it out.

  I let Luvander lead me away from the main thoroughfare of ’Versity Stretch, loping through the crowds on his long legs and not stopping to shoot the shit with anyone we passed, which was how I could tell he was looking to take us there in a hurry.

  At least neither of us had to worry about bypassing the crowds at our statues, since it was quickest to go around it altogether, taking the Whitstone Road to the Basquiat, then crossing the square to the bastion and the small apartments around it. Apparently Balfour was living close by to where he was working these days, which sounded pretty convenient to me. If I’d had a chevronet for every time I cursed making the long walk from middle Charlotte to Miranda first thing in the morning, I’d’ve had enough money to buy my own damn place by the ’Versity and eliminate the problem.

  Probably for the best that I didn’t since I was spending enough time in Miranda as is, and I didn’t want to turn into a stuffed shirt on top of being a crankpot.

  Besides, the walk was good for me. Kept the old bones moving.

  Streets were always crowded this time of day, but for once, I wasn’t letting all the gawkers and the millers and the slow movers bother me. I didn’t even settle for making angry faces at the backs of the chuckleheads who stopped right in the middle of the street and nearly tripped me up. Royston could say whatever he wanted about me being a mother hen and not knowing when to quit, but the point was I’d been in charge of keeping my boys alive for a long time. That kind of responsibility didn’t just pack up and leave easy.

  The last time I’d seen Balfour he could barely move his hands, and now this’d happened. I didn’t like it and worst of all I didn’t understand any of it, which wasn’t doing wonders for my mood.

  “Thought you said he was doing better,” I grunted at Luvander finally, needing someone to direct my thoughts at. Maybe someone to direct my frustration at, too; Luvander’d regret coming to me for help soon enough.

  “He was,” Luvander said, neatly sidestepping a man carrying a whole stack of packages tied up with twine. “I was ready to go about singing the praises of Margrave Germaine through the streets after I saw him. Send the woman a complimentary hat, maybe, though that’s an expensive g
ift.”

  “Something must’ve happened,” I said, just missing putting my boot down in a big pile of slush.

  “I do wish he wasn’t so secretive,” Luvander said with a little sigh. “It’s all very sweet and coy, I suppose, and I’m sure it drives the women mad, but it makes it absolutely awful trying to get anything out of him.”

  “Guess I can’t make fun of you for stalking him down like a rabbit in tall grass, now can I?” I asked. If it weren’t for Luvander, after all, I didn’t even know when I’d’ve caught wind of all this gossip. Looking Balfour up, finding out where he was living these days, would’ve been difficult, too.

  I’d probably have started at the bastion, asking everyone I met and causing an international incident just by being there. Balfour might’ve been the safe, declawed version of an airman that made the Arlemagnes feel more at home—he certainly wasn’t the sort who looked like he was going to slap any asses—and after everything that’d happened with Rook back in the day, I guessed that made them feel appeased. But I was a different kind. Just looking at me was bound to remind people of the war.

  Especially at present. Part of my ease in getting through the streets was that people were clearing out of my way left and right, without me even asking. It was handy; I’d have to remember the expression I was wearing for later, when I was late for appointments and couldn’t afford anyone slowing me down.

  “It’s just a little farther this way,” Luvander said, steering west of the bastion toward a tall clump of apartment houses, all grouped together and built with the same gray stone. The architect had done his best to spruce ’em up with some fancy design work up around the rooftops, but the masonry was starting to crumble. One of these days an unlucky bastard was gonna catch a gargoyle right in the head; I was keeping my eyes up, just to make sure that unlucky bastard wasn’t me.

  “Are you having a staring contest with your brother up there?” Luvander asked, glancing back over his shoulder. “While the resemblance is uncanny, I would ask that you do please try to stay focused. I’m reasonably sure you’d win the match anyway, but it makes you look very peculiar, and you know how people talk. We wouldn’t want to damage Balfour’s good standing in the neighborhood.”

  “If you’ve been visiting him, then it’s probably been knocked down a couple of pegs already at least,” I said, casting one last stubborn look upward. Luvander was right, though. And if Balfour was feeling poorly, then the last thing he needed was a living gargoyle pounding down his door. I took a deep breath, willing the crags in my face to smooth out.

  Luvander surveyed my attempts, cringed, then shrugged.

  “I’ll have you know that I happen to be universally beloved wherever I go. It’s as though a magician put a spell on me at a very young age in order to make me happy and successful for the rest of my life. Hello, my dear flower, how are you today?” Luvander directed this last not at me—thank Regina—but at a middle-aged woman in a dark green uniform, who seemed to be the concierge for Balfour’s apartment building.

  I’d half been expecting him to suggest this was a stealth mission and to surprise Balfour we’d have to pick the locks, so I guessed this moment of sanity was a pleasant surprise.

  “So there’s two of you this time,” the woman said, adjusting her spectacles. They were attached to her face with some kind of jeweled chain—no doubt she thought it very handsome indeed, but it made her look like a cat in a fancy collar to me.

  “Two of us,” Luvander confirmed, putting on that winning smile that made him look just a little too devious for my liking—like he was about to announce that he’d found Raphael’s old books at last, after everyone’d been searching for days, and somehow I always got the feeling he’d been the one to hide them. “I hope that won’t be a problem. I just happened to pick up another concerned well-wisher on my way here. Some people bring flowers, others bring old friends. Of course, the flowers might’ve brightened up the place more, so I think at this moment I’m experiencing buyer’s remorse.”

  “All right, that’s enough outta you,” I said, shrugging my shoulders uncomfortably.

  “If you’re sure you want to visit him,” the woman murmured, adjusting her spectacles.

  “And why wouldn’t we?” I asked.

  “Haven’t you heard? They’re saying he went mad right in the middle of the bastion,” the woman said, leaning forward with an air of confidentiality, like she’d been waiting all day to get some proper chin-wagging in. “He just up and left right in the middle of something important. Guess that’s one way to show them Arlemagne cunts you mean business, isn’t it? Tell you what, though, talks’d never have gone on this long if the dragons were still around. Mark my words, they’d be pissin’ in their boots and running back to their cindy king in no time.”

  “I couldn’t agree more,” Luvander said carefully, eyeing me like he thought I was going to wade in and tell her what for, and he assumed he was going to have to bodily restrain me.

  Like he could even if he wanted to.

  Truth was, I had more important things on my plate than educating some lonely gossip. If I started in with every backward-headed civ who didn’t know their ass from their ankle, then I wouldn’t’ve had any time for teaching my actual students, not to mention all the other things I really enjoyed doing.

  Luvander relaxed slightly when he didn’t see me wind up for some kind of wrestling match. “You know, it would be fascinating to see what they would do if they came to the rooms one day to find a few dragons waiting for them,” he added, getting a faraway look in his eye. “One never could outargue my dear Yesfir—she was much too clever for that, old girl—and if I recall correctly, Cassiopeia never even bothered with conversation. A little too burn-happy, if you ask me, but that certainly would make those talks interesting, wouldn’t it? They’d end because there’d really be no one left to talk to!”

  “Before my friend’s swept away by nostalgia,” I said, “do we have permission to visit Balfour, or not?”

  “You two head on in,” the woman said, pausing to polish one of her spectacle lenses. Fortunately, Luvander’s wild little story had blown right past her. “I ain’t seen him today, but that don’t mean much. He’s a real quiet fellow, keeps to himself mostly. Last person I’d expect to cause a scene in the middle of the bastion, but it just goes to show I ain’t got the sense given a mouse.”

  “You ain’t kidding,” I muttered, and Luvander gave me a little shove in the back, just to show me he’d heard and I should’ve been sweeter-tongued while talking to a lady.

  It was more than a few flights up, which I guessed was all right for exercise, but I had to wonder how Balfour’d managed it when his hands were troubling him. By the time we finally reached his floor, even I was a little winded. I let Luvander knock, seeing as how he never ran out of breath, and then we both stood there, the strangest get-well party I’d ever been a part of. Also, we were probably the first.

  “Perhaps I should have brought flowers,” Luvander said regretfully, “but I think he was allergic to the pollen … Do you remember that one time Compagnon collected all those stamens—”

  I didn’t have time to ask if he’d cracked his head on one of the low-hanging beams coming in, because Balfour was there opening the door.

  To put it frankly, he looked like shit.

  The thing with someone like Balfour was that he was always so damned tidy and put-together. The minute he didn’t bother with it, he ended up looking like he was about to drop dead. He was pale, probably clammy, and his hair looked like something for birds to nest in. There was a neat little pattern of wrinkles on his cheek from a pillow, and when he saw us he looked like he wanted to sink through the floor and disappear.

  That, at least, was a familiar look.

  “Oh,” he said, fidgeting with the doorknob. He wasn’t wearing his gloves, but fuck me if I was going to stare and draw attention to something that made him uncomfortable. I focused on his face instead, even if I was curious. “I d
idn’t realize you were coming. I didn’t realize anyone was coming …”

  “We thought we’d surprise you,” Luvander said, inviting himself in. He pushed past Balfour into the sitting room and made a noise of despair. “In the nick of time, by the looks of it. Let’s get some sunlight in here, shall we?”

  That left me and Balfour staring at one another at the door. He wanted us to be elsewhere, and I definitely wanted us to be elsewhere, but neither of us was gonna get what we wanted just by wishing it and staring at each other.

  “You eaten yet today?” I asked, giving him my look. If he said no, he was going to regret being so careless, and I’d know if he was lying. That was the look I’d perfected.

  Too bad it didn’t seem to work with students and their homework. They just didn’t have the right amount of shame or common sense for self-preservation.

  “A … little,” Balfour said carefully, glancing over his shoulder as Luvander started making some kind of infernal racket with the window shade. “I suppose you’d better come in.”

  “Before Luvander gets you slapped with room-destruction charges?” I asked.

  It was an okay little place, if sparse, with barely any color on the walls. Either Balfour’d just moved in or he hadn’t seen the point in adding something personal to the place. No posters on the walls; no paintings or portraits. There was a settee on the far side of the room and a table with a few chairs in the middle of it; the room opened up into a kitchen the size of a closet, and I noticed the water closet and the bedroom next to it. Sure would’ve depressed me to live in an empty little place like this, I thought, especially coming from someplace so distinctive.

  But maybe, after everything the boys’d put him through, he’d felt like he needed some peace and quiet.

  There could be too much of that, though, so much that you didn’t notice yourself getting so lonely until it was too late. I cursed myself for not checking up on him sooner and was grateful Luvander had been nosy enough to do it for me.