In the haberdashery, of course. She had been a fugitive, and he had been a stranger on the verge of arresting her. When he had performed his diagnostic, it had been awkward and uncertain, both of them blind, and – only natural to be frightened or scandalized. When he had cast on the magister, too, it had been sudden. But now?
He thought he remembered her expression changing, when he had suggested that he knew spells which could hide them in Old Rose Harbor. Even with warning, with his word that he meant her no ill will. Certainly it was inappropriate for him to cast around – her kind – the sinking in him grew confused; she seemed, looked, as much a galdor as he did, albeit a galdor who by some terrible mishap had been imprisoned in the life of a servant –
It was only him, he thought, only his poor manner. Surely she had not been – no one had cast on her?
He had seen her lips twist before that, a strange expression he could not place, when he had spoken of the Seventen. Not quite a smile or a frown; not quite bitter, or sweet. He remembered the shiver at his elbow again in the coach, and felt a swell of indignation. Again, he found himself wanting to explain, to justify: everything he had done in the last ten years had been for the sake of safety, for the sake of the social order; everything he was now, no matter who thought him harsh or cruel, was in service of…
He was unsettled.
I’m not so good at it myself. Another feeling he could not place. He ached to know, but scarcely knew where even to begin to ask about… the life she had had. The parts of that life that she - enjoyed, even. It seemed so far removed from everything he knew, in all of the ways that counted.
He grimaced faintly, watching pup smear mud on her skirt with his paw; he thought of her as a girl, worrying at dust on her dress. But he dipped the other rag in the bucket and leaned in to help. Pup let out a huff, but permitted him to.
Someone, she said first, stumbling; then – a friend. Then, him. Morandi’s cheeks prickled slightly; he cleared his throat, resisting the uncharacteristic urge to apologize. The same friend, it must have been, who did not have an oven. You need not tell me, he thought to blurt out, brusque. If it was – if – he was hardly the commissioner on her case any longer –
Sentimental, she said, and his brow furrowed; then, I haven’t been given a lot of things. He frowned.
Then –
“The drawing,” he said. He looked at her face, his eyes gone very wide indeed.
The drawing that he had given her?
He nearly stopped washing pup. Oh, he remembered the one. He remembered too the long saga of begging for it back, when he was older, of promising to draw it and draw it again, better; and her stubborn, sweet refusals, every time.
“Of Caroult?” His voice came out sharp and harsh with surprise, but there was a smile twitching at his lips, baffled and almost desperate. “Of the chapel?”