He frowned down at Aurelie when she frowned up. He felt reluctant himself, but he nodded, thinking. The stairs cast a shadow on both of them, but the sun crept in between them; a band of light fell just above Aurelie’s eyes, gleaming in her brows and her eyelashes and the tips of her hair, and another across her chin, picking out a few freckles. He studied her face a moment, then glanced away, down the alleyway.
There was still nobody, of course.
And if… well, he doubted it would be the Seventen themselves, charging down alleyways at random in Castle Hill. Immediately a few spells came to mind; it would be easier to cast on a human, to avert attention.
He shifted his weight slightly, still frowning, oddly conscious of Aurelie holding to his arm. Unsettled, he looked back into the washroom.
Shadow was snuffling. He had got his slobbery mouth around a towel and was attempting to drag it away from the stack. The whole thing was a mess now.
He realized that he also had no idea how to do this.
He did not have to ask; Aurelie went on, her voice carefully low. The laundry tub, she said. He peered uncertainly about the washroom, leaning to poke his head in a little more. He found it in the corner just beside the linens, tucked underneath the shelf, with a washboard and a towel draped over the side.
Something about the sight of the washboard made him distinctly uncomfortable. He had offered to help with the dishes earlier, and he planned to persist; but it still felt…
Wrong, in a sort of nameless, bone-deep way. In a way that prodded at a fear he had only had as a little boy, before Brunnhold.
If you carry it to the alley, we can…?
“Er – yes,” he replied, keeping his own voice low with some effort. “Let us… If you distract Shadow, I shall – fill the tub.”
The small space of the washroom was something of an echo chamber for Shadow’s scent, and even Morandi was trying not to wrinkle his nose. He was even more conscious of his field alone filling up the small space.
Shadow trotted immediately to Aurelie, tail wagging and whacking everything in its path. It went clang, clang, clang against the bath proper, making Morandi blink and squint against his headache.
The bath. The same one that she had used the night before, some terribly improper bit of his mind whispered. The same one that he would use, very soon.
He crouched by the laundry tub, catching a flicker of his own reflection in the mirror in the corner of his eye. Best not linger too closely on that; there was little he could do now for his dishevelment. The washstand was a little above eye level where he crouched; he could see a comb sitting there, too. He thought nothing of it, until he saw a gleam in the corner of his eye, like a few strands of coppery hair caught in the tines.
By Her deadly terrors, they truly were going to be sharing a washroom.
The washboard was cool underneath his fingers, the wooden frame rough; he took it out of the tub and set it to one side, the skin on his left shoulder prickling. He picked up the tub and set it under the tap, increasingly uncomfortable. He turned on the tap, clearing his throat and sitting on his haunches.
The boiler hummed vaguely; a few drifts of steam came up from the water.
He dared to look at Aurelie over one of Shadow’s great fuzzy shoulders. They were all packed in rather tightly.
“It must be a busy morning,” he murmured, glancing over at one wall. The sounds of the bakery were a little louder in here; he could hear unfamiliar voices. And then laughter, surprisingly bright. His brow knit. “You would be there, baking, ordinarily, would you not?”
His glasses were beginning to fog. He blinked, frowning.