Steelhands - Jaida Jones [120]
“Might be best to wait it out,” I said finally.
“And not tell anyone about it, either,” Luvander added, very practically.
“It doesn’t sound so foolish when you say it,” Balfour admitted. He almost looked relieved he’d told us, which I guessed meant we’d done our job all right.
“But you’re going to have to be very forthright about how you’re feeling,” Luvander added, tapping his fingers against the table. “No long-suffering silences from you, young man, and I’ll show up here with soup if I have to just to make sure you’re getting well again. If you prove stubborn, I’ll have to send another letter by pigeon to Ghislain telling him to return at once, and believe me, the last thing you want is him showing up here with his old Ramanthine remedies, not to mention whatever he’s picked up on the open seas. He’ll have you drinking chicken’s blood out of a hollowed-out Ke-Han skull, and you’ll do it because, well … Because your alternative would be saying no to Ghislain.”
Balfour shuddered. “No need to make me worse with talk of things like that. I’ll do whatever I can. I’d prefer not to feel this way, myself.”
“We’ll check up on you,” I said. It wasn’t a suggestion, and fortunately, nobody spoke up with their idea of a better plan. “I can do mornings, and Luvander can come at nighttime. How’s that sound?”
“A little like I’m an outpatient,” Balfour replied.
“But you suppose you’ll accept it,” Luvander said for him.
“However did you know?” Balfour asked.
“Then it’s settled,” I said firmly. “And, if you don’t mind, I’m requesting permission to share your experiences with a friend of mine at the Basquiat who knows a sight more about everything than I do.”
“A friend of yours?” Luvander asked, with a look of pure shock. “No—I can’t believe it.”
Balfour, on the other hand, looked momentarily reluctant, then allowed his shoulders to fall in a shrug of acceptance. “I don’t suppose it matters much now one way or another who knows,” he admitted quietly. “As long as all this doesn’t make its way back to my mother. I wouldn’t want to worry her for no reason.”
“Despite how much my friend likes to talk,” I said, “almost as much as Luvander here, he can keep a secret, too, and at least he has common sense for matters that should be kept private. Leastways when those matters don’t involve him.”
“It offends me that you are intimate with such a fascinating person,” Luvander said, “and you haven’t introduced us.”
“The world’d end,” I told him, “with both of you in the same room together. You’d both be trying to outtalk each other so hard your tongues’d fall out. Actually, he’d probably end up blasting you from here to Nevers, now that I think about it. You free Sunday?”
“Unfortunately, I’m busy bringing soup to my old friend Balfour, who isn’t feeling well at the moment,” Luvander replied. “But perhaps I could get a rain check on the introduction?”
Balfour’s laughter at that served to make us all feel better, I suspected, and somehow Luvander and I managed to join in. But it was a serious matter—one that was going to demand a whole lot more thinking and not something a simple chuckle’d be able to solve. When I left Balfour’s apartment it was with a heavy heart, and I wasn’t looking forward to any answers I could possibly get. None of ’em made for a promising future for any of us.
NINE
TOVERRE
Unbeknownst to Laure, who had enough difficulties of her own these days and often disapproved of my more intricate plans, I had embarked on my own private investigation, delving more deeply into the mystery of the missing Gaeth by taking matters—and a pen—into my own hands.
To begin with, I wished to resolve the issue of his mother’s gloves once and for all. In order to get them off my hands—a pun that made me very proud indeed—I would have to write directly to the source herself, the good woman to whom they truly belonged. I had been in possession of them for long enough,