Steelhands - Jaida Jones [112]
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