Steelhands - Jaida Jones [193]
“All right, men,” I said, and Laure cleared her throat. “Troops,” I amended, “we’ve got a bad situation here. Once we get the others rescued, we’re gonna convene and see if we can’t come to some kind of agreement on what to do next. If Ghislain runs into any trouble, we don’t want him to be out there on his own, do we? When a man’s flying solo, we’ve got his back. Ain’t that right?”
“Yes, sir,” Balfour and Luvander chorused.
Raphael, Gaeth, the cricket, and Laure all stared at them.
“What?” Luvander said, shrugging his shoulders in Raphael’s direction. “It isn’t my fault living among the Ke-Han has destroyed your discipline.”
“Let’s go,” I said, taking point. Just once, Balfour could hang back while I took over position of lead scout.
Someone shoved into place right next to me—a small someone, but looking pretty fierce.
“You’re all right, aren’t you?” Laure demanded, studying the hall real carefully and not looking at me. If she wanted to ascertain the information for herself, an inspection would’ve been the smartest choice, but none of us was operating on all burners. “I mean, that Germaine—she didn’t do anything to you, did she?”
“Nah,” I said, shaking my head. Her hair was in her eyes, so I reached over and tucked a piece back behind her left ear. No good setting out on a mission with your visibility compromised. “Guess I’m just not important enough.”
“That’s not funny,” Laure said, then smacked me one on the shoulder. I didn’t know who looked more shocked afterward that she’d done it—me or her.
“I’ll make it up to you,” I said, not bothering to rub my shoulder on account of how we both would’ve known it was horseshit. “Maybe we can get hot chocolate in one of them real places, not a booth where they’re just as liable to sell you sweet brown water.”
“Or dinner,” Laure suggested, innocent as the country lamb she wasn’t. “Since I’m missing mine to do this.”
“If no one’s injured, we move on,” Luvander reminded us. I could’ve hit him myself. Only trouble was, he was completely right.
It wasn’t exactly hard to follow Ghislain’s trail. Just had to follow the open cell doors, down the simple corridor with its flickering light. To the credit of my new recruits, none of ’em was whispering or muttering anything or—like one poor bastard I’d known—giggling nonsensically every chance he got at things that weren’t funny anyway.
We were gonna have to do all this quick, before anyone came to check up on us and realized right away shit wasn’t right.
I rounded the first corner, followed by Laure, and nearly ran straight into Antoinette. At least I could be thankful it wasn’t Ghislain. I had a hard head, but if anything could crack it, that would’ve been it.
“I was wondering what was taking you so long,” Antoinette said. Her voice sounded a little different now that I was hearing it from outside rather than in. It made me feel like I had water caught in my ears, and I shook my head to wring ’em out.
“Had to wrangle the troops,” I said, gesturing around behind me. It was gonna be like herding kittens; a couple of them actually were kittens, in my professional opinion.
“That one is wearing the uniform of the men who arrested me,” Antoinette said, glaring around at Gaeth.
“I never arrested nobody,” Gaeth insisted, eyes wide as the sky. “I was raised better than that by a long shot. That’s the Provost’s job, and no one else’s.”
“I don’t suppose I can argue with that,” Antoinette said, sharp, scarlet nails drawing a stray piece of hair away from her face.
“He says he’s with us,” I told her quickly. “He might not be in a cell, but he’s a captive. I was hoping you could tell us whether or not he’s lying.”
Gaeth looked at Antoinette nervously. He had good instincts—sharp enough to tell he was supposed to be afraid of her. “How’s that done?” he asked.
“Just a little scratch,” Antoinette said, though it was particularly gentle. “You’ll barely notice it.”
“If you draw blood, Cornflower’s bound to come,” Gaeth warned. “It’s happened before, and it’s never been pretty.”
“ ‘Cornflower