Steelhands - Jaida Jones [219]
Basically, I didn’t know how appropriate it was gonna be to take one of my corps out to dinner. For obvious reasons, the situation’d never quite come up before, and I was getting caught on that more than I had been on the idea that she’d been my student.
Although that was a sticky little piece of work, and there was no getting around it, either. Roy was gonna have himself a field day no matter what happened, plain and simple. Not that I was planning on letting what Roy said stop me. If I ever let myself go down that road, then I’d never get the chance to do anything fun.
Speaking of Roy, I’d’ve thought the cricket might’ve been more like him—talking endlessly no matter how tired he was, just to let the sound of his own voice keep him awake—but somehow he stayed quiet, which I guessed more than anything was a sign of how weary we all were.
It’d been a long twenty-four hours. Not the longest in my life, but closest to. And maybe, just maybe, it’d been the weirdest.
Finally, halfway down ’Versity Stretch, Laure’d cleared her throat.
I almost twitted her about needing a lozenge, but I figured that kind of thing was best saved for another time. “Something to say?” I’d asked instead.
I’d always been better at readying a strategy once I knew exactly the mess I was riding headlong into.
“Just thinking,” Laure’d said, puffing her cheeks and blowing out air like a horse. “I feel a little stupid, getting duped like that by th’Esar. Not to mention I’ve gotta come up with some way of telling my da that I’m staying in Thremedon for good—sure can’t go home and leave that beauty here all on her own. Don’t think she’d even let me, and like I said, I couldn’t keep her in the barn, now could I?”
“Doesn’t seem right,” I’d agreed.
“So that leaves me in a tight place,” she’d explained, glancing over at our walking companions to make sure they weren’t paying attention, but they’d been pretty wrapped up in their own thoughts. I’d known right then I was gonna have more trouble with Gaeth than I was gonna have with Laure. Balfour’d be easy ’cause we each already knew how the other one worked, and, in my own way, I was gonna enjoy rebuilding the shit job that was Troius, watching him cry like a baby until he finally manned up. No one wanted to start th’Esarina’s reign with more useless killing, and it wasn’t as if the poor bastard was evil—he was riddled with ambition and questionable morals, the same way some people carried infectious diseases. It was only a matter of finding him the cure for his stupid ideas. Then I’m sure we’d get along just great, so long as I made sure to have eyes in the back of my head and watch him like an owl watching a barn mouse. Even though none of us had what you might call warm feelings toward the bastard, nobody wanted him to end up as a brainless maniac. That was part of the reason we were having Ironjaw rebuilt; Troius knew it, and I figured that was most of what would be keeping him in line at the Greylace manor. He was the type of man who’d make himself useful in the long run—if I could get him to pull his head out of his ass long enough to see sense.
“At least you’ve got a place here now,” I’d tried to reassure her. “No one else can fill that position but you. Don’t think about it like you can’t go home. Look at it this way, instead: You’re needed in the city. Not many people can say that.”
“Also, you owe me a square meal,” Laure’d said, giving me one of those sideways looks that women were always giving Roy, poor hopeless chickens. I hadn’t even known Laure was capable of that kinda look,