Steelhands - Jaida Jones [90]
I knelt beside the door, pressing the pin into the lock. Absolutely nothing happened. After a moment’s pause, with Laure’s disapproving eyes burning holes into the back of my head, I began to wriggle the pin around inside, hoping to catch the mechanism and spring the lock.
No such luck, though I did manage to slip the pin out of the keyhole and stab myself in the finger.
“Bastion,” I hissed, bringing it up to my lips to suck the blood out. “I should have sterilized it before I began.”
“Oh, get away from there,” Laure said. “And give me my brooch back.”
She snatched the item in question away from me, sticking it through the bodice of her dress and doing up the clasp before she shoved me unceremoniously to one side.
“You might be more polite,” I suggested, around my finger. “Or at least more constructive.”
“No,” she replied, “what I’ve got to be is more destructive.”
I hadn’t the time to ask her what she meant, as without warning she stepped back from the door and gave it a single, violent kick.
The sound reverberated through the halls, and in my surprise I hushed her equally loudly—though to what effect, I had no idea. The damage was already done, and the door swung open with a gentle creak. Everyone was used to ignoring loud noises in this place, and no one poked his head out to inquire after the commotion.
“The lock’s weak,” Laure explained to me. “Gaeth told me that one time when we were visiting him. You weren’t listening because you were cleaning his windowsill. But I remembered.”
I recalled the occasion—the windowsill had been covered in at least half a year’s amount of thick, gray grime, and a piece of notepaper had been stuck to it with a melted candy. I had been doing Gaeth a favor by getting rid of it, and myself one, as well, since who would want to take tea while looking at something so disgusting?
Laure and I had our different areas of expertise, and neither was more or less useful than the other.
“After you,” I murmured, sufficiently bested.
Laure patted me on the shoulder. “No worries, eh?” she said. “You can learn how to pick the lock next time. And I’ll even buy a few hairpins.”
“No need,” I sighed, as she entered the room in front of me. “You’ll only lose them, anyway.”
It was clear once we were inside that no one had been in Gaeth’s room for quite a few days. The strangest smell assaulted me all at once—I realized too late it was the scent of rotting food—and I quickly brought my handkerchief to my nose in order to block the worst of it out. After a brief search, I found the culprit on the bedside table: a half-eaten sandwich that appeared to have been abandoned midbite.
There were also boots by the bed, with socks dangling from them, and a vest hung over the back of his single wooden chair. A fire had gone out in the fireplace some time ago, but the ashes hadn’t been cleaned; and a book, held open with an inkwell and with a pen lying beside it, was on his desk.
All in all, the place gave the impression of someone being called away quite suddenly, in the middle of his work—in the middle of his supper, even. This was not the way someone left a room when they were planning on leaving it; even someone less thoughtful than I would never have done such a thing. For their own benefit if no one else’s.
“Creepy,” Laure said.
“Quite so,” I agreed.
She moved out of the doorway and deeper into the room, hesitating before she lifted a piece of parchment from his desk. “Don’t know whether or not I should read this,” she said. I nodded—what point was there in respecting his privacy when we’d kicked down the door to his room? She glanced over the lines, and her face softened. “He’s not very good at spelling,” she explained.
“What does it say?” I demanded, since I knew that if I gave her time to think about it, she might decide we were being too intrusive and give up entirely. Laure was very sensible and was able to kick doors down