Steelhands - Jaida Jones [146]
One good thing had come out of it, at least: Laure had finally decided once and for all not to return to that beastly physician. We still couldn’t say for certain whether that had been the cause of everyone’s fever, but it didn’t seem prudent to take the chance. I still got the shivers whenever I thought about Gaeth’s room, and not just because of the half-eaten sandwich we’d left behind. No doubt it was well on its way to becoming a sentient organism by now. At the very least, it was a homing device for all kinds of vermin. The dormitories would soon be crawling with bugs and mice.
Yet that did not frighten me as much as my wicked imagination, which ran in every direction the moment I thought of Gaeth—wherever he was. However he was. All my feelings for hats, pestilence, and airmen aside, this was a serious matter.
Gaeth’s disappearance had been hard enough; I couldn’t imagine what I would do if the same thing happened to Laure.
“What are the conditions for my attendance?” I asked, searching her face to see if the same worries plagued her. She looked tired, I realized, but in relatively good spirits. I gave her arm a little squeeze, and she patted my hand.
“Don’t spend too long figuring out what to wear,” she said. “And don’t make me change, either. I don’t wanna waste any more time than I have to.”
As a favor to her, I didn’t spend nearly enough time choosing a scarf and gloves. But I knew how she hated waiting around when she could be stomping purposefully through the streets like one of the proud horses I’d seen drawing carriages—though, she always informed me, these Thremedon show beasts weren’t nearly as fine as the ones she’d helped to raise back home.
“I wonder if he’s called all the airmen together,” I said, checking myself one last time in the mirror. Despite all my preparations, Laure was still more striking than I was—and she hadn’t even brushed her hair.
“As far as I know, it’s just Luvander,” Laure told me, taking my arm as we passed through the door outside. “At least I think that’s it. You know all their names, don’t you? You must.”
“Luvander is the owner of the hat shop,” I told her, choosing to be helpful instead of goggling in shock at her lack of knowledge. Obviously, in true Laure fashion, she’d paid far more attention to the dragons than to the men who’d been their pilots. Everyone knew only five of the corps had survived past the end of the war. One of them was our professor, the only one Laure seemed to have much interest in, and two had quit the city after the war—I’d learned a few useful things listening to city gossip, alongside all the rest. The fourth was Luvander, proprietor of the famed Yesfir haberdashery, and the fifth was that poor creature with the metal hands, a favorite topic among current city playwrights.
“I can remember a few of the names,” Laure admitted sheepishly. “Adamo, of course, and Luvander—though to be fair, he’s the one I always used to forget. And Rook, of course. And someone that started with a ‘B’…”
“Are you thinking of Balfour?” I asked her, as we made our way down the familiar path of the ’Versity Stretch. The air was cold enough that it was bound to snow, and I hid a series of loud sneezes behind my handkerchief.
“That’s the one!” Laure said, snapping her fingers. “I knew it couldn’t be Bald-something.”
I gave her a look of horror, then quickly pulled her to one side of the street before she could step in the steaming yellow puddle we passed.
Not everything in the city was as glamorous as I’d hoped, but I’d come to appreciate its shortcomings all the same. As long as you looked before you leapt, you could avoid most of her unpleasantness.
And, as I understood it, this part of the city was far cleaner than Molly. I shivered when I imagined what it must have been like living there, and Laure—bless her heart—put an arm around me, as though I were the one who needed comforting.
Yesfir was just a little way down the Rue,