Steelhands - Jaida Jones [229]
Fortunately, I hadn’t been living in the apartment long enough to accumulate anything very valuable or breakable, so I wasn’t too worried about losing any heirlooms. My apartment did look as though an earthquake had hit it, but since I was leaving it behind, I figured it didn’t matter that much—save maybe for the poor fellow doomed to move in behind me.
Even the dulcet tones of my neighbors making their morning rounds, feet clad in concrete blocks, was like music to my ears.
Since it was the last time, I no longer flinched every time bits of plaster came crumbling down from the ceiling above me; Luvander used it as a sort of metronome, setting the beat while he hummed and tossed things into crates.
Mostly, I was glad for the company, since it didn’t leave me much time to brood on all the things I was worried about, such as whether or not I was really ready to deal with another dragon and what I was going to name her, besides.
Dear Thom, I began in my head, which was the only place such a letter could ever be written. It seems that once again I have you to thank for changing the course of my life, though I wonder whether or not you ever intended to in the first place. I only hope you are able to make such strides in your own. I wish you all the best, and by the by, do you have any suggestions on what to name my new dragon? She is blue, if that helps you any.
It was strange to think that without Thom’s letter, none of us might have ever been forewarned of what the Esar was planning. The magicians would have suffered most, though I also couldn’t bear to think of the poor children who’d died because of that fever. And yet I couldn’t ever tell Thom what he’d done for us just by his insistence on writing. I knew that he wasn’t the sort of man to revel in being praised, but it seemed a shame he might never know.
And for Rook, the only one of the remaining airmen who wasn’t in on the little secret …
If he ever came back to Thremedon, he’d thrash us all with one arm tied behind his back.
“None of these cups match,” Raphael commented from where he was standing on a chair and emptying out my cupboards. “How can this be, Balfour? I always considered you a kindred spirit, dedicated to the finer things in life, and now I discover you’re just as slovenly as the rest of them.”
“There were sets,” I protested, faintly. “It’s just that certain parts got broken when I was first learning to use my hands.”
“Oh,” Raphael said, pausing in his work to look guilty. It passed quickly; he never harbored the same emotion for very long. “I suppose you’re right, how terribly awkward of me. Now I’ve put my foot in it.”
“That’s right,” Luvander said, coming up on my left with another full box to hand off to Ghislain, who lifted it in one hand like it was no heavier than a pillow. “I bet you feel terrible now, and it’s no more than you deserve. Forgot you were dealing with the new Balfour, didn’t you? This one’s feisty. And watch out. When he hits back, I can only imagine how much it hurts.”
“I was only stating a fact,” I said, somewhat embarrassed. In truth, it was almost nice to be around someone who’d forgotten about my hands entirely—though I didn’t envy Raphael being in the position of catching up on everything he’d missed since being lost in the war.
Evidently he was quite resilient, just like the rest of us. He’d manage well enough, and he wouldn’t be doing it completely alone, either.
“Carriage’s getting pretty full,” Ghislain reported, coming back up the stairs and into my apartment. He was taking them three at a time, and the whole building shook with