Steelhands - Jaida Jones [71]
“Just thought I’d see if he was in,” I explained, experiencing a slight moment of panic. I had to fetch Laure’s water and give it to her, then head to the apothecary and write to Mother—and what was more, I was certain that I had nothing at all to say to these people, who clearly didn’t even know me by name. Idle conversation would be a waste of time, and an awkward one.
“He hasn’t been in for days,” the boy said, scratching his head underneath the wool cap he wore. His hair poked out from under the brim in stiff peaks. “Been looking for him to get a bit of a ball game going, but I haven’t been able to find him. Not in the morning or at night, which just seems rude, don’t it?”
“Maybe he has a girlfriend in the city,” the girl said, tugging at the boy’s scarf. It seemed a very stupid suggestion to me, but I thought of Laure and their friendship and managed to keep my mouth firmly shut.
“Not likely,” the boy snorted. He looked past me toward Gaeth’s door and shrugged. “Bet he went home or something. Couldn’t take the city. All those fevers, all the time. You wouldn’t think a guy with that many physicians’ appointments would end up sick, but there ya go. Thought he’d last a little longer, but I guess I was wrong.”
“Oh, don’t talk about it. I’ve got mine next week,” the girl said, shivering dramatically for her companion’s sake. He stepped closer to her. If he hadn’t been carrying so many bags, I would have wagered he’d have put an arm around her, as well.
“It’s just a little needle,” the boy said, shaking his head.
“It is really very large,” I blurted out, because it seemed like the proper time for a contribution to the conversation.
“It’s not that bad,” the boy said.
“He says that, but he fainted clean away once he got back to the dorms,” the girl confided in me, lowering her voice, even though it was impossible to imagine he wouldn’t overhear her. “I couldn’t wake him up at all until dinner.”
“Did he vomit?” I asked.
The girl shook her head. “But he looked like he was going to.”
“That’s enough outta you,” the boy said, scowling and starting off down the hall once again, dragging his friend along with him. “Lemme know if you see Gaeth, though. Tell him the sides are all uneven without him and Thib’s looking for him. Okay?”
“I shall certainly do so,” I assured him, offering a small wave.
Under different circumstances, I’d have returned to Laure immediately to tell her of my adventure in the hall, but with matters currently as they were, I first retreated to the kitchens to pour her a cold glass of water.
My conversation with the couple in the hall had left me feeling uneasy, for reasons I couldn’t quite place. My worry for Laure—not to mention cleaning up her mess—had jolted my mood off center, but I found myself thinking of other things, ones that had nothing at all to do with Laure: Gaeth’s vague, preoccupied air when we’d met him in the Amazement; his apparent return home to the country; and the girl’s tale of not being able to rouse her friend once he’d arrived back at the dormitory from his own appointment.
That line of thinking did lead back to Laure, since her sudden illness coincided with her return from the physician. I knew a great deal about fevers simply from having suffered through more than my share, and it seemed impossible to me that Laure’s physicians wouldn’t have noticed anything out of the ordinary with her during either of her visits.
Perhaps the city physicians were—as my father had put it before we left—incompetent jackasses, like every other jacked-up charlatan living in the city, but I was unwilling to subscribe to my father’s beliefs just yet. Not even my doctors in the countryside had ever done so much harm, and they still subscribed to the outdated belief that leeches could actually cure a man of his cough.
My room was cold when I returned, but at least the smell seemed to have