Steelhands - Jaida Jones [40]
I rapped on the door without hesitating—I wasn’t one to question if I should wait until after the bell couldn’t be heard anymore, so as not to sound desperate or whatever these little details meant. After that, I could hear some noise from within the house, and a quicker footfall on the stairs that told me all I needed to know.
The boy was answering the door for him.
If that meant Roy was trying his hand at cooking again, I thought, shifting my shoulders and grinding my teeth, then there was probably going to be a fire in Charlotte tonight. Tragedy for the ages, though wouldn’t it please th’Esar to have what remained of his little magician problem taken care of by one of their number?
The latch clicked and the door swung inward.
“Welcome, Adamo,” Hal said, leaning against the door for a moment and looking nervous. Well, he had some thoughts for self-preservation in his head, at least, while I was beginning to believe Roy had none at all. “I hope I didn’t keep you waiting too long. Please, come in.”
Didn’t have to ask me twice. The wind picked up just as I stepped inside, stomped the frost off my boots on the mat, then sniffed the air suspiciously for any signs of something burning on the stove.
Hal cleared his throat. “Royston’s changing his vest,” he explained, almost too softly for me to hear him. How did he hope to get anywhere in life being so quiet like that? Whether he was a delicate flower by nature or not, it was up to the gardener to make sure his prized bloom didn’t get knocked over by somebody’s fart.
And that was enough flower-metaphoring for me for the rest of my days.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like Hal in particular. He seemed all right enough, and you had to have more than just dumb luck to help save an entire city. And it wasn’t that I was against Roy’s particular tastes, either, because if that’d been the problem, we wouldn’t’ve been friends for so damn long. I was just fine with whatever made a friend happy, provided of course that it did make him happy. But Roy had a type, and that type was always too damned young to see who he was and know him for a good thing. They always ended up leaving, which was why there was no point in me getting attached to them.
No point in Roy getting attached to them, either, but that was another story for another day, and I sure as shit wasn’t planning on meddling.
I sniffed the air again, shrugging out of my coat before Hal could offer to take it or something, which would’ve embarrassed both of us, and Roy probably would’ve come down right in the middle of us struggling over it, demanding to know why Hal was trying to steal my coat in the inner hall.
Wouldn’t’ve been the first time Roy took up with someone who turned out to love stealing more than he loved Roy, and right up until that business with the Arlemagne prince, I’d’ve said he was the worst of the lot by a mile. You’d think that kind of thing would put a man off looking for partners half his age, but Roy was nothing if not stubborn as a mule, despite how he hated mules and all their country ilk. I guess the rat’d been charming, in his own slippery way, but he’d helped himself to several pieces of the good silver and sold one of Roy’s prized first editions before anyone was the wiser.
Never saw him again. Lucky for him, anyway.
How we’d gotten that book back was a story in itself, but the simpler version involved a lot of cracking heads together while Roy made things explode, then refused to speak to me, because I’d been right about that crook all along and he needed somebody to punish.
Before he’d taken up with the thief, he’d been with the actor, up-and-coming in the Amazement, who’d quite enjoyed the boost in status Roy’d brought him. Of course, he’d cut loose once he’d decided he’d met all the right people, and Roy wouldn’t go to the theaters at all that season for fear of running into him,