Steelhands - Jaida Jones [228]
“Inglory,” I told him.
“Ah,” Toverre said, like the first drop of rain before a whole downpour came flowing out of his mouth. I braced myself, just in case.
“Got something to say?” I asked. I didn’t take his reaction personally since I knew it was just because of Toverre’s high standards. If he’d been put in charge of naming anything, even something small like a mouse, he’d’ve devoted two whole weeks to searching in books until he found the most ridiculous name imaginable. He’d call it appropriate; everyone else’d call it bat shit.
And that was another reason we couldn’t get married. I’d never doom a child to walking around with a name worse than my friend Ermengilde had been stuck with.
“Not at all,” Toverre said, surprising us both, I think. “Given the circumstances, I feel it’s rather appropriate; it’s as if you’re paying tribute to the legacy that came before you. You and Gaeth have both done quite well for yourselves.”
“Gaeth named his after a cow,” I pointed out.
“Yes, well,” Toverre said, suddenly busying himself with straightening the napkins. “I didn’t say there was anything wrong with it; I was just surprised.”
I could tell he was dying to get all the dirty flatware out of his room so he could go torture the life out of poor Gaeth by teaching him how to fold socks, and it was probably time for me to go and get some of my own packing done as well, for once free of Toverre’s “help.” Neither of us was much for proper good-byes, and it definitely didn’t make sense to make a big deal out of my leaving the ’Versity—not when I knew Toverre would be visiting as often as he could, or else.
I probably should’ve been nervous about starting my new life, or maybe even a little scared, but I wasn’t either of those things. So far, I was the only one of the four without the proper means of controlling my dragon, but we were getting to know each other—and getting to like each other, too.
Besides, the others hadn’t been dealing with a man like Toverre their whole lives, like I had.
Compared to him, reasoning with a dragon was bound to feel downright simple.
BALFOUR
It wasn’t the first time I’d packed my life up to go and live with Volstov’s dragons, but there were a few key differences between this time and the first.
The most important was the secrecy surrounding my new position. When I left for the Airman, my family was proud of me, and my childhood companions envious. This time, I could tell no one what I was doing nor why I’d resigned my diplomatic post dealing with the Arlemagne embassy. In some ways, my very public breakdown with the fever had done me a service since I could simply allow everyone to assume that I’d cracked under the pressure and was retiring to lead a quiet life in the countryside somewhere to focus on my health. My family would worry for a time, but I would devote myself to writing as many reassuring letters as it took. Eventually, even my mother would come around. The rest of the city might amend a few of the stanzas to “Balfour Steelballs,” but I found that I didn’t altogether mind the idea as much as I’d thought I might. I was even looking forward to what the new lyrics might be.
In the face of recent events, having all of Thremedon questioning my sanity seemed like a very small price to pay for actually managing to maintain it.
The second difference—this one perhaps even stranger than the first—was that I had an entire host of company, real friends, who had volunteered to help me pack up my belongings.
I’d had my doubts about whether or not we’d manage to fit into