Steelhands - Jaida Jones [141]
“Lucky me,” I said, doing my best not to look like an eager schoolboy at lecture. “So what’d you find?”
“Well, your hunch was right,” Royston said. “If the Esar was going to capitalize on the new information about the dragons, it seems likely that her services would be the ones he’d use. She was an assistant on the original dragon project, though they never used her Talent outright; I’d assume she was simply too young at the time to participate, but she must have learned a great deal from the original magicians. I’m not saying for certain that’s what she’s doing now, however—if she is, she’s smart enough not to leave anything so helpful as a speck of proof lying around—but it would make sense for Germaine to see to your man’s hands first, if that’s the case. According to anyone who knows anything, the principles of dragons and Balfour’s steel hands are essentially the same, and observing him might very well help her to fine-tune the process of other endeavors. I must stress again,” he added, looking at me sharply, “that this is speculation based on what information I did suss out. We still don’t know that the Esar—meticulous as he is—is planning anything.”
“So you believe that?” I asked him.
“Not for an instant,” Roy told me.
“Better not go shoveling that shit in my direction, then,” I said, thinking over what he’d said. It all made sense, but there was still a piece missing. Why the hell was a woman like that doing routine checkups on ’Versity students, and why had Laure and Balfour both come away from seeing this woman feeling feverish and hearing voices?
A dragon’s voice, in Balfour’s case, I reminded myself. I wasn’t prone to the shivers, but I got the faintest sliver of one right then, like someone was dripping ice water down my back.
“Best let those thoughts out, whatever they are,” Royston said, peering at me from across the table. “You’ll give yourself an ulcer otherwise.”
“With all your chatting around, did you find out anything about why Germaine’s playing physician to the new ’Versity kids?” I managed finally, spitting the words out like bad food. “If she’s such a high-end Talent, you’d think th’Esar’d put her to better use than wiping snotty noses. But one of my students told me they’ve all been coming back feverish—and I’m sure, what with you being so caught up on your bastion gossip, you’ve already heard about what happened with Balfour.”
“There might’ve been a murmur or two about that poor gosling floating around the Basquiat,” Royston said, pressing the tips of his fingers together. “Nothing too undignified. I believe most sympathized with the poor man for having to deal with the Arlemagne emissaries day in and day out. No one enjoys that. I’m simply lucky enough that I’ve been forbidden to speak with any of them, on pain of death. You know how it is.”
“Well, fever’s not all that’s been going on,” I said, coming around to the real point at last. As much as I could and did give Royston shit about dancing around a topic, I was as guilty as anyone right then. Sometimes, a man knew he wasn’t gonna like the answers he was about to get and avoided asking the question for as long as possible.
“Oh?” Roy asked, his attention immediately focusing. He was pretty sensitive to mysterious illnesses at the moment, and I could tell the idea that it might’ve had anything to do with another Margrave was getting under his skin.
“Balfour said he was hearing voices,” I said, not feeling guilty because I’d gotten his permission to talk about it. Still, it felt a little strange telling someone else without him being there to supervise us or make sure I wasn’t misrepresenting it. “And before you ask—yeah, I believe him. He’s the worst liar I’ve ever met, so I know he wasn’t spinning some story to cover his ass after making a fool of himself in front of the diplomats. The symptom came alongside the fever, and that fever came after he had his damned checkup with Margrave Germaine.”
Royston sighed, glancing away from me