Steelhands - Jaida Jones [96]
“And don’t be a stranger,” Luvander said sternly. “I’ll look you up, too, if I have to. I have ways and means. I might even show up at your next class and cause a sensation. I can see it now: ‘Reunion of the Old Flyboys Causes Riot in the Lecture Hall.’ They might even ask for autographs for their collections. All those young, impressionable little minds; the things I could teach them … Wouldn’t that be exciting?”
“Good-bye, Luvander,” I said, putting my hands in my pockets and moving along down the Rue. He was only excited because he didn’t know these country kids like I did. A little excitement was okay every now and then, but too much was bad for their digestion.
It wasn’t me being prejudiced against the young or the countryside or anything like that, either. You only had to look at the facts: How many students had up and vanished like a good mood on a hot day? There was talk of some winter fever going around, but that all seemed like a steaming load of horse pat to me.
Then, just like that, I had it.
Margrave Germaine was the name that hotheaded girl Laurence had given me when she’d come to see me about missing lecture. I’d even cracked some fool joke about making it stick in my head so I’d remember down the road if I ever caught her lying.
That’d worked out real well for me.
I thought about it for a few more blocks, trying to figure out why someone who was working on Balfour’s hands, with a background in mechanics and prosthetics, would be wasting valuable time looking after schoolkids with runny noses. The magicians’ plague had been devastating, sure, but as far as I knew it hadn’t left the Basquiat so strapped for helping hands that those with specializations were forced to do two jobs at once.
If this Margrave Germaine was looking after my boy’s hands, it meant she was good enough with metal to turn it into something that nearly lived and breathed, just like our dragons. To me, that seemed like the kind of study you’d have to devote your life to in order to be any good at it. Didn’t leave much time for learning medicine to treat ’Versity students.
I wasn’t an expert, though, and I wasn’t going to go jumping to conclusions like my fool students. I’d wait and see what Royston thought about it—if he knew the woman, and had anything to say about her—and then I’d just have to do my best not to call him an idiot if the answer wasn’t the one I wanted to hear.
That was one of my most bothersome habits—according to Roy, at least.
The walk down to the Crescents gave me time at least to sort myself out, so I wasn’t blustering about like a dragon breathing fire once I finally did find myself on Royston’s street. There were dark clouds gathering overhead—the kind that’d soak you to the bone if you tried to fly through ’em—and I wondered if we were due for rain this time, or more snow.
Either way, I was getting my boots wet.
I made my way to Royston’s door—not too early this time, thanks to my unexpected run-in with Luvander. At least I didn’t have to worry about walking in on something nobody wanted me to see—and me least of all—since the last I’d seen him, Hal was still at the ’Versity, helping his professor come up with exam questions. I couldn’t imagine what it was like to have a lecturing assistant who wasn’t a thorny pain in my ass, but I guess Hal was proof that they existed somewhere.
I knocked on the door, rubbing my hands together and blowing on them for good measure. I hadn’t had a good pair of gloves since the ones I’d worn for riding. Maybe I was going to have to do something about that soon, though I already knew I wouldn’t be doing my shopping at Yesfir. I wanted something sensible that’d keep my hands warm and that smelled like real leather, not a flower shop.
“Just a minute!” I heard from beyond the door. Roy operated better when he had someone to greet people for him. I was sure he found it all too taxing to have to actually