Steelhands - Jaida Jones [43]
He had once employed, as far as I knew, a young man to come in and sort through the ruins of the upper floors once a week, but it’d ended badly—to the enormous shock and surprise of all involved parties, one of whom was me.
Despite not having a taste for what the rest of the world called real food, Roy did know how to order when it came to dinner. My own favorite part of the meal was definitely some kind of roast bird coated in brandy and lit on fire to get its skin all burned and crackling. Roy’d done the honors, of course, showing off pretty obviously for Hal, but it was equally obvious to me that Hal enjoyed it, so who was I to be the sour apple in the bin?
Except apparently that was my newfound purpose in life, and I was just gonna have to embrace it with open arms.
Halfway through the duck—and more than halfway into some kind of noodle dish with mushrooms—I got sick of watching Roy push vegetables around on his plate like that would trick anyone into thinking he was eating them. Besides, I’d come so we could have a real discussion, and even if I didn’t feel entirely comfortable talking in front of Hal about something that could get the both of us arrested—and get Hal arrested just for watching us talking about it—he did have that whole saving-the-city thing under his belt. Maybe he’d even be of some help.
I just had to hope, if anything were to happen, he’d come down on Roy’s side more strongly than he came down on th’Esar’s.
“Oh dear,” Royston said. “You have that look on your face.”
“I don’t have a look,” I told him. “I was just thinking.”
“Yes, that’s the one,” Roy said, spearing a bright orange piece of carrot and finally lifting it to his mouth. I guess mocking me brought his appetite roaring to the forefront. As much of an appetite as he ever got, anyway. “Have you made any decisions since the last time we spoke?”
“Been thinking about it,” I said, which sounded lame even to me. If Proudmouth’d still been in one piece, she’d have definitely let me have it. “In between classes and all. During classes sometimes, too. But I’m feeling that the right thing to do is let the boys know, even if that means setting the light to the fuse myself. It might make things a little messier than if I was the only one of us with the information—then I could say something like, I was gonna make an executive decision on account of being ex–Chief Sergeant and all—but if Rook knows, then it isn’t fair to keep it from the rest, you know? And I’m not Chief Sergeant anymore, just a civilian, so it’s not really up to me who gets to know what.”
“You’re hardly ‘just a civilian,’ ” Roy said.
“I’ll get you some water,” Hal said, getting up from the table and clearing his plate while he was at it. Had to hand it to the boy, he had excellent timing. And maybe he could read a room as well as he could read a book.
“I suppose this is the part where you lay all your wisdom before me and tell me I’m acting like a eunuch in the ’Fans, all frustration and no equipment,” I said, leaning closer and taking care not to land my elbow in the duck.
“No,” Roy said, fingers steepled together in thought. “I won’t pretend that I am any better equipped to judge this situation—and I’m certainly not one to be rational when it comes to dealing with privileged information. It just seems to me that if this were news the Esar wanted known, he’d have announced it by now.”
“When does th’Esar ever want matters known?” I asked. But it wasn’t really a question that needed answering.
“Exactly my point,” Roy agreed. “One can only imagine he’s using this information to his own benefit as we speak, or thinking up a way how. If that’s even possible, since the creation of the Dragon Corps was only afforded to him by wartime provisions. We are not, as you may have noticed, currently at war. Such extreme measures are illegal,