Steelhands - Jaida Jones [89]
I was angry with Gaeth for disappearing—and so close to exams, as well—but mostly I was angry with myself for letting it get to me the way it had. In my distraction, I’d gone so far as to forget about my infatuation with Hal entirely, though that was one result that was probably for the best. In the country, all my crushes had been hopeless, but the knowledge that in Thremedon such relationships were not strictly looked down on forced me to consider the real potential of every suitor.
It was an uncomfortable position to be in, even worse than the troubling resilience of Gaeth’s continued presence in my thoughts.
Every time that it grew cold in my room, I was forced to think about him and his curious involvement in whether or not I kept my hands warm. It bothered me to have the gloves and not have Gaeth himself; I wanted to return them before someone assumed I’d stolen them. And, if Gaeth were present, I would have been able to twist an explanation from him that would solve once and for all my question as to why he was so peculiar all the time. The gloves, while sturdily made, explained nothing, and I resented them for how warm they kept my hands, how rough-looking and simple they were on the outside, and how soft within.
I’d told none of this to Laure. I didn’t know how to describe it, and I knew enough to realize that these were bizarre thoughts, strange even for me. Laure had enough to occupy her mind with trying to find Gaeth in the first place, and this latest plan especially required our full concentration.
There was no need to distract her with my peculiarities. At least, not for the time being.
After some argument over the best time to stage our petty crime—my feelings were that this should be done in the dead of night, as was proper; Laure, on the other hand, thought that was foolish and would make it difficult to see what we were doing, besides—we’d finally come to an agreement. We had arranged that I would meet her at Gaeth’s door around noontime, when most of the dormitory staff, and its inhabitants, would be out eating lunch.
Despite Laure’s very fluid sense of time—and timing, not to mention—she was there before I was, shifting from foot to foot and doing her best not to look suspicious. She was so beautiful that it was impossible to think of anyone finding offense in her presence, but then it was just like Laure not to take that into consideration.
“Bet you were scrubbing all the banisters on your way here,” she hissed in a gargantuan stage whisper.
“It was only the doorknob,” I told her, honestly offended. “Now give me one of your hairpins.”
“One of my hairpins?” Laure asked, staring at me as though I’d just spoken in gibberish. I nodded, holding my hand out to her. “Toverre, you know as well as I do that I don’t wear hairpins.”
That was right, I realized with a start. They were always getting lost, and she’d find them in the night by rolling over onto one and stabbing herself in the head.
And yet in all the books I’d read, whenever there was a necessary break-in, the intrepid hero borrowed a hairpin from his heroine. What would we use to pick the lock on his door without one?
“Do you have anything similar to a hairpin?” I asked. “Oh! I have it. Lend me your brooch.”
Laure unclasped it with some trepidation, still looking at me as though she thought I had taken leave of my senses. “What’re you gonna do with it?” she asked. “That’s my mother’s old brooch, Toverre. I don’t want you breaking it.”
“I do not intend to break it,” I told her.
“I don’t care what you intend to do,” she replied.
“Your lack of confidence in me at this moment is extremely distracting,” I said, inspecting my tools. The brooch was one of the few pieces of jewelry Laure owned—she had inherited it from her mother after she’d died—but I wasn’t looking at the carving on the front, or inspecting the fine green