Steelhands - Jaida Jones [95]
Luvander’s shop was open, I noted, and a young girl and her father—at least, I hoped it was her father—were just leaving. Luvander himself was seeing them out, and we caught sight of each other at the same time, him waving me over and me unable to avoid the social visit.
“Small city, isn’t it?” Luvander asked. “Care to come in for some tea, entertain the crowds, sell a few hats?”
“I’m on my way to meet someone, actually,” I said.
“And it’s a good thing, too,” Luvander replied. “You’d probably sell all the wrong fashions and start some terrible new trend.”
“What’s it matter to you, if you’re the one making money off it?” I asked.
“Principles,” Luvander replied. “If I don’t have those, what am I left with?”
“A lot of hats,” I said.
He stared at me before bursting into peals of laughter that seemed largely inappropriate to the situation.
“You do surprise me every now and then, I must say,” Luvander said at last, wiping a tear from his eye. He was wearing a blue scarf, made out of some fancy material that looked softer than wool. “I was just saying to Balfour the other day that you had hidden depths, and here you are exhibiting them.”
“Balfour’s come out of hiding, then?” I asked.
“Now that he’s seen my little establishment is well and truly a shop, and not some elaborate trap to snare him once and for all, you mean?” Luvander asked. “Poor young man. I think we may have been too hard on him, don’t you agree?”
“Always said so, myself,” I replied, folding my arms over my chest. A bit of a brisk wind picked up, and I stamped my feet impatiently.
“In any case, he didn’t come to me,” Luvander explained. “That’s going to take some more coaxing, probably because I once put fire ants in his—Well, anyway, if they’re calling him Steelballs these days, they should really credit me for that, that’s all I’m saying.”
“Luvander,” I said, with a note of warning.
“Spoilsport,” Luvander said. He sighed, adjusting his scarf, tucking a bunched-up pouf of it under his collar. “I ferreted him out of his little rabbit hole myself. And let me tell you that ‘rabbit hole’ is entirely too accurate a term for that place he’s living. Never you worry, though; he was in extraordinarily blithe spirits when I dropped by. Apparently all it took was th’Esar’s sponsored tune-up, administered by one Margrave Germaine, if I recall correctly. They were polished like mirrors, and working very well, it seemed.”
“Margrave Germaine,” I repeated, because something in my head was telling me I already knew that name. Somebody Royston had told me about, maybe, because he never could remember I didn’t care much for gossip.
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, and unfortunately I don’t have her references on hand,” Luvander said, offering an exuberant wave to someone walking down the Rue over my shoulder. They called out to him, and he performed a grand bow. “You’ll simply have to accept my word—or rather, Balfour’s word—that she’s a whiz with mechanical parts. You should have seen the look on his face; it was simply extraordinary. It was just like the time—well, I can’t actually think of a time when we went out of our way to make Balfour happy. Isn’t that depressing?”
“Seems accurate to me,” I said.
“You’re just in a foul mood because you haven’t seen them for yourself yet,” Luvander said, patting my arm in a way that probably seemed thoughtful to him and not condescending in the slightest. Or maybe he did know exactly how he was coming off, and that was the whole point of how he was acting. “Off with you, then, or you’ll be late for your appointment —unless that was just an excuse you made up to get out of having tea with me. You know how I chew your ear off.”
“Sure,” I said, distracted by that horsefly of a name buzzing around inside my big, empty head. What good was it knowing a thing if you couldn’t even remember what you needed it for in the first place?
Royston would’ve said this was another sign of my getting older, which was only fair since I wouldn’t let the issue of his nose go, despite how many years it had been.