Staying Dead - Laura Anne Gilman [126]
“She’s okay?”
“Yeah. Just worn out.” For the first time he looked P.B. in the eyes and saw only concern there. “Get the door for me, okay? Keys are in my pocket.” The clawed hand felt odd, brushing against his jacket, but the emon had the keys out quickly, racing up the last flight of stairs to turn the locks and open the door so he could carry Wren in without stopping, going directly into Wren’s bedroom. P.B. turned the covers down, and Sergei laid her onto the sheets.
“Bunch of worrywarts,” she said sleepily, her eyes barely open.
“That’s us, yeah.” P.B. sat on the edge of the bed while Sergei stripped off her shoes and socks. “Word’s out on the street, Wren. Everyone’s talking. Rumor says Council’s shitting bricks. Nice going.”
Sergei frowned at that news, but Wren waved a lazy hand in the air as though to say it was nothing. “Gotta sleep now,” she told them. “Sleeeeeeeep and I’ll be fine. Promise. Go’way.”
Her partner nodded, pulling the cover up to her chin. She grabbed his hand, tugging him down closer, then slid her hand up to the back of his neck, managing even in her exhaustion to find his lips with her own.
It wasn’t a graceful poetic first kiss, but there were sparks. Literally. Wren’s eyes opened wide again, and she smiled sleepily up at her astonished partner. “Gonna haff ta talk about tha, too.”
“Later,” he promised, echoing her own words. “Sleep, Wrenlet.”
Sergei—gently—kicked P.B. out of the apartment, and went about brewing a mug of tea. He picked the largest mug in the cabinet, rinsed it with warm water, and then pulled the tea ball out of the sink and filled it with the loose tea she kept in a tin on the counter. While the water boiled, he sat at the kitchen table and fiddled with the spoon, dipping it into the sugar bowl and stirring the white granules around. He pulled his cigarette case out of his inside jacket pocket, looked at it, then put it away.
The case was over, for the most part. But all that meant to him was that there was time to worry about everything else. The things they had put off. The things he couldn’t avoid thinking about any longer.
His Wren had made powerful enemies with this case. Too many people knew that the Council had a hand in what went down, with the death of the architect and recent events alike, even if they didn’t know the why or how. Reputations were at stake, and he didn’t think they would be willing to let bygones be bygones. Especially not if what she said about the split in the Cosa between Talents and fatae were true.
And, he admitted it, the attack on her life was still making him see red. Which was another problem. Things had changed. Not for the worse…he didn’t think. But definitely changed. And they were going to have to deal with that, too.
He picked up the cream-colored business card on the table in front of him, turning it between his fingers for a long moment, then tucked it back into his pocket.
Deals. Deals were what he knew how to do.
twenty-two
Two days later, Wren had finally regained enough strength to demand to be let out of her apartment.
“No.”
When raising enough current to throw a steady stream of paperback books at Sergei’s head left her limp and exhausted, they compromised. She could get out of bed and sit in the music room, and maybe, if she was able to handle that, they’d go for ice cream.
“Tyrant,” she complained. But since she said it while he was making her breakfast, he just smiled and told her to drink her orange juice.
Three days later, Lee and his wife Miriam had stopped by to see her, filling the two of them in on the latest gossip. The Council had apparently agreed to talk to fatae leaders, and they were off somewhere unknown, holding conversations.
“It’s not going to come to anything,” Lee said. “But it’s keeping anything else from happening, too. And while the Council’s occupied with that they’re off our backs as well.”
“I give them a month,” Wren said, using her spoon for emphasis, the container of