Leo was noticeably more agitated: somewhat jumpy and irritable, lashing out at the smallest thing. Resha had, in hindsight, done the best thing for his young charge. He had piled on the work, some menial tasks, others that required more thought, but it kept Leander busy, which kept his brooding mind away from over-analysing the events of that awful night. For his part, Resha didn’t pry, but he hovered slightly more than usual, even staying up when Leo inevitably went out each night... he always had an excuse, but the passive knew each time that Resha was silently examining him when he walked through the door in the early hours of the morning.
Hawke didn’t come to see him, as Leo had predicted. Nor did he send any of his lackeys to complete a debrief. Leander received no official news of what happened to the surviving, incapacitated galdor that Niccolette had put down. But Old Rose was a small place, in the sense that it was like a hive. Nothing stayed secret in the Harbour, and rumours were the life blood of its taverns and inns.
Gossip surrounded the King of the Underworld and his minions. Leo’s name was not mentioned this time, but Niccolette’s was. Leander learnt of the wick’s displeasure with the galdor, a long-standing feeling apparently. This displeasure had, word had it, been aggravated by her unannounced arrival at his door, and the unceremonious dumping of her captive. Whispers surrounded her failed mission - the decision to kill rather than to preserve life temporarily in favour of learning more. She was unstable and unreliable, gossip told.
Now, Leo wasn’t one to believe all rumours, having heard enough in the past to know they couldn’t always be accurate. But, Circle did he want them to be real.
He didn’t know quite what brought him to her door. He hadn’t been drinking, and had no particular purpose in his arrival at her door. Yet, here he was, outside the woman’s front door, staring at it. He knocked on the door and took a step back. He was rewarded for his unconscious decision to find Niccolette when she opened the door. Leander said nothing, but his facial expression said everything he didn’t.