Steelhands - Jaida Jones [132]
“Certain variations, yes,” I admitted, taking the distraction as an excuse to hide my hands behind my back, where the sunlight warmed them.
“They really are a keen piece of work, though,” Troius said, stretching his arms over his head with a yawn. “Guess that’s what the dragoneers are doing with their time, now that there’s no more use for them actually building dragons.”
“I really have no idea,” I told him, crossing into the kitchen to see if I had anything to present as a snack. Perhaps some food would distract him—fill his mouth for a time—and not offering anything just seemed like bad manners. “Margrave Ginette, the woman first assigned to work on my hands, never really worked on any dragons, as far as I know. She was trained in the theory of it, but her experience was chiefly mechanical. Originally a clockmaker, I think. I didn’t ask that many questions at first, but it was my understanding that whatever makes the hands ‘come alive,’ so to speak, came from somewhere else, and she knew as much about it as I did—which is to say, very little.”
“Maybe that’s why you were having so much trouble with them,” Troius suggested. “Sounds like she didn’t really know what she was doing.”
“I wouldn’t call it that,” I said, in absent Ginette’s defense.
“All that aside,” Troius said, waving his hand, “you are coming back into the Arlemagne fray with me, aren’t you? I mean, you do look well. Not like you’re about to go tearing out of the room and fainting again.”
“I feel much better,” I said a little too rigidly.
There was cheese and bread in the larder, and that would have to do. I’d gotten into the bad habit of not keeping my rooms well stocked once Luvander had started bringing food by. I was going to have to work on that since it hardly seemed logical to expect someone who didn’t even live with me to provide my daily sustenance—even if what Luvander brought by was regularly mouthwatering and at a discounted price from the bakery.
“You can’t blame a man for asking,” Troius said, in the same tone he used to placate Chanteur. “It’s been lonely. No one to pass notes with. I tried with Auria, but that vein in her head nearly burst.” He sighed before his voice turned somewhat keener. “You were behaving awfully strangely, you have to admit. Didn’t you say you were hearing things?”
“Did I?” I asked, slicing the cheese as neatly as I could manage, cutting out a spot that appeared to have gone green. Despite my distress, my hands remained blessedly steady, further proof that they weren’t really a part of me. If they’d been more natural, they would have been trembling just slightly with the effort it took to be deceiving. Yet, now that I’d told Adamo and Luvander the truth about what had happened to me—what I’d really heard—I knew that I didn’t want to be discussing it with Troius. In fact, I didn’t want to be discussing it with anyone.
The fewer people gossiping about Balfour Steelhands and his imaginary voices, the better.
“Yes, you did,” Troius said, leaning forward in his chair. “I assumed later it was just the fever, of course. Was it?”
“I must have been delirious,” I told him in true diplomatic form.
“Oh, good,” Troius said. When I turned around, I could see that he even looked relieved. Perhaps he really had been worried about me, and my own defensiveness over the subject had me acting irrationally suspicious. “Because if you were experiencing something more serious, as your friend, I’d have to—”
A knock at the door interrupted him, sending him twisting around in surprise. I set the bread and sliced cheese down on my table and went to answer it, brushing the crumbs off my palms. This, surely, had to be Adamo. I was only sorry we wouldn’t be able to speak as candidly as he might have liked—especially in light of my recovery.
“Sorry I’m late,” Adamo grunted, as soon as I’d opened the door. “Got caught battling the beast that guards your lair again. Damned doorkeeper wanted to know about the weather, and how we managed with all this cold when we were up in the sky. She’s got a mouth on her that