Steelhands - Jaida Jones [218]
“Truly, I don’t deserve such kindness,” Troius said, voice dripping with sarcasm.
“House arrest, huh?” Adamo said, brightening perceptibly. “What do you say, Ghislain?”
“Big house filled with dragons? Sounds familiar,” Ghislain replied, cracking his knuckles while eyeing Troius meaningfully. “Guess my boat does need some time to air out. Raphael’d have to come along, too. Needs the rest. Country air’s good for a man; it’s what I was raised on.”
“Wonderful,” Antoinette said, smoothing her hair back from her face, neatly tucking behind one ear a curl of hair that had been bothering me for at least fifteen minutes. At last, I thought, and breathed a sigh of relief. “If no one else has any other concerns to raise, I’d like to suggest we retire for the morning. I, for one, have a great deal of work to do.”
“I would like to be able to see my husband,” the Esarina added.
The meeting was over at last, I realized, which meant a hot bath was only moments away. Though much had changed, for the time being at least, Laure, Gaeth, and I would not be forced to return to our homes—to the way things were—which, for me, would have been the worst possible ending.
Despite all that had transpired, I was still able to say I preferred this life to the one I had been living before the fateful day I arrived in the city. I had nearly been robbed; I had been assaulted by living conditions far below even the dirtiest urchin’s standards; I had been involved in a royal plot against the Basquiat magicians, not to mention the effective usurpation of the throne of Volstov; and, though I felt as though I would never be clean again, I had survived every indignity with only some indignation of my own.
Besides, without me, who would make sure Gaeth did not get himself lost again?
As Laure moved to follow Adamo out of the room, I had a premonition that explaining the dragons to my father would have been the least of my worries if I was ever to return to my old home. But I had a good feeling I simply wasn’t going to allow that to happen.
ADAMO
After our little secret meeting broke up, everyone’d gone their separate ways to prepare for another long day ahead. Some of us had more work to do than others, and I knew we were gonna be meeting again soon so Antoinette could do what she needed to do to make sure we all kept our mouths shut. Even those of us she could trust to hold our tongues were suspect, and there were some of us she couldn’t trust at all.
As much as I wished I could’ve gone back with my boys, I’d decided to take care of a few things at the ’Versity first, and so I’d ended up walking the kids back to their dorms.
The screwy cricket’d almost passed out on his feet, but Gaeth had claimed he could take care of him and I wasn’t one to argue when one of my boys told me he could do something.
Guessed that was how I was going to have to start thinking about him, too—Gaeth and Laure, since I’d somehow signed myself up for a second round of Chief Sergeanting faster than you could blink an eye. That was what I got for having secret meetings in the first place, on no sleep, in the middle of the Basquiat. Some things were said without you realizing, and the next thing you knew, you were signing yourself up for the same job that’d given you so much damn grief in the past. I could look forward to singed gloves and the stench of dragonmetal hanging over my clothing; the complaints from Royston that I smelled like a burned-out pot someone’d left on the oven too long. I could also look forward to the same headaches I used to go to sleep with—the same headaches I still had when I woke in the morning, wrangling personalities more stubborn and difficult than dragons themselves.
At least there were less of ’em to work with this time, even if I couldn’t quite convince myself that was a good thing.
Laure hadn’t seemed that tired, but I could tell it was all will