Steelhands - Jaida Jones [178]
“So we go down there, you blow up the building, I crack some skulls, and we carry Adamo away,” Ghislain said, cracking his knuckles again for emphasis. The way he said it, it almost sounded like a viable plan. But then, Ghislain could be very convincing. “What’s the problem?”
“Besides potentially murdering innocents and forcing the Esar to retaliate in a harsh and likely fatal manner? Oh, nothing,” Royston said. “No problem at all.”
“What if I …” Laure began, then stopped herself. When everyone turned to look at her, I saw her gather her considerable mettle, forcing herself to finish the thought. “You think there’s a chance that he’s in there because of me, right? That Margrave Germaine made me crazy, and she’s been trying to hunt me down ever since. What if I went down there, said I’d heard about Adamo, and wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help? They wouldn’t be suspicious of me ’cause I’m a girl, and the rest of you could sneak in—though with that big bugger you might want to give up on the idea of being stealthy and skip straight to the exploding part.”
“Wonderful, and how did you learn about Adamo’s location in the first place?” Luvander said, turning his gaze to me and trying to communicate something to me with his eyes. “More importantly, I don’t know how Adamo would feel about us using a civilian as a diversion.”
I wasn’t as thickheaded as some of the other airmen had always assumed I was, but if what Luvander was attempting to convey was what I thought it was, then I was a little disturbed. Surely this young woman was too young for Adamo—though stranger things had happened, I supposed.
“Oh, bastion, not that,” Luvander said with a groan, upon seeing my expression change. “What about you? Our diplomat? Why don’t you go in there and be diplomatic?”
“You mean Balfour?” Royston asked. “They would arrest him on the spot. There were people looking for him, according to his landlady.”
“Yes,” Luvander agreed, “but he’s one of us. We send him inside, and then he gets in contact with Antoinette, then perhaps some other things happen—and then you start with the explosions.”
“This is ridiculous,” Laure said. She drew herself up to her full height—puffing out her chest the way Adamo did, though it looked less pigeony when she did it—and straightened out the front of her dress. “You lot are an embarrassment, and I, for one, can hardly stand to look at you. Th’Esar’s already made his move, and he did it in public. If there’s nobody we can go to for help, then we make a stink. Adamo’s a hero, isn’t he? And don’t you think the people of Thremedon would be a mite ticked to learn one of their heroes is locked up without any good reason? They’d be pissed, same as how we’re pissed. We oughta be able to use that.”
“They’d need to hear it from Owen’s mouth before they believed anything,” Royston said. “But I do agree, that is a sensible way of thinking.”
“It’s an Adamo way of thinking, is what it is,” Luvander said.
“So here’s what I think,” Laure said. “We fake ’em out. You do your explosion bit nearby, just close enough so they think we’re making our move but we’ve got it wrong. Still, they’re gonna have to come check it out, or else they’ll look real suspicious—and while the place is left mostly unguarded up top, Ghislain here knocks the remaining heads together