Steelhands - Jaida Jones [80]
“You really did miss me,” I said, trying not to sound too smug. “The sound of my voice, my witty discussions, my inability to dress myself—”
“Do not scare me like that again,” Toverre snapped, looking quite serious for a minute. “It’s so … impolite. Not to mention that I have a crick in my back from sleeping in that chair all night.”
“I’ll do my best,” I promised him.
“See that you do,” Toverre said with a sniff. “I’m going to clean my room now.”
We’d both feel better after all our necessaries had been washed out. As much as I figured Professor Adamo didn’t give a hoot what I was wearing or whether I’d washed myself that day, it always made me feel more human to sluice off after I’d been sick. It seemed to me like I was washing the sickness off, and even Da had always told me that you could do half a physician’s job for ’em just by using soap and water.
Well, ex–Chief Sergeant Adamo was probably used to men showing up in fighting condition, too. Toverre was right, and a little bit of preparation wouldn’t hurt.
I bathed and dressed without any of the other girls needing to use the facilities, which on a regular day would’ve seemed like a real piece of luck, but today just seemed a little eerie. Much as I hated to admit it, Toverre’d kind of gotten to me with all his talk about people getting sick and Gaeth disappearing. He was good at blending in, for a country boy. It was something I’d noticed right in the beginning, but there was a difference between being some trouble to track down and clean vanishing off the face of the earth.
Which he hadn’t done, I reminded myself. Coincidence was going to explain everything, and we were going to have a good laugh together later.
But I wanted to find him for more reasons than one. First of all, because he was my friend; and second of all, because I was starting to get the feeling like he could’ve been Toverre’s friend, too, and you didn’t find someone like that on every street corner. He was good to Toverre—even gave him an extra pair of gloves one time to warm his hands—and no one other than me had ever done something like that for Toverre before. It was important to keep this poor idiot around, and Toverre never had to be the wiser for how I’d helped him.
I tied my hair back with the ribbon Toverre’d picked out, hoping he wasn’t going to make a fuss about me hopping over to the ’Versity with wet hair. It was only a short little jaunt, and it wasn’t even snowing.
Toverre’s door was open when I reached his hallway, and he was on his hands and knees, scrubbing parts of the floor I was fairly certain I’d never been sick on.
“I’m ready to go,” I told him, just so he wouldn’t think I’d snuck out behind his back or anything like that. “Can I dump my laundry in with yours?”
“Please do,” Toverre said, straightening up and wringing out his little sponge into a brand-shining-new bucket. “I can’t stand the sight of your clothes when you do them. They come back all wrinkled, and then it’s so many hours I have to spend on ironing them.”
“You don’t have to bother with that,” I told him, feeling somewhat guilty as I dumped my clothes on top of the bed linens I’d mussed. “Then again, you’re you, so I guess you kinda do.”
“Stop stalling,” Toverre said, checking his watch. “Professor Adamo’s latest lecture should be letting out at any minute; if you talk to him straightaway and don’t waste too much time, you’ll still have time to make Professor Ducante’s general consultation hours.”
We heard the peal of the bells as we were crossing the grounds, which made Toverre pick up his pace. I had to do the same just to keep up with him; for someone with such skinny legs, he sure could run. I found myself looking for Gaeth’s face in the crowd, and occasionally I caught sight of a flash of golden hair, but it only ever let my hopes down when I craned to see a face that wasn’t his. Gray coats seemed to be “in” this year, as Toverre would have said, and eventually I gave up looking.
Where was he? And more importantly than that, was he all right?
“There he is,” Toverre