e wondered what she’d been about to say, still. Probably not an answer to the question; probably another stinging tongue-lashing. Maybe she’d been opening her mouth to say whatever she’d come to say in the first place, whatever it was she still wasn’t saying, whatever question she still wasn’t asking. Countless evenings – evenings that smelled like cigar smoke and hair oil, lit by the soft phosphor lights of Pendulum House – had him listening to this councilman or that judge whinging about his fop son drinking up all his ging. He wasn’t a fool.
So why was he thinking about it? He didn’t want to think about it. He’d had only a few sips of champagne, and he wanted to drain his glass – he thought he might – he couldn’t even bring it to his lips, not with those eyes on him. He couldn’t drink a drop. He felt tsuter for having it in his hand.
He should’ve been bristling with anger; that wasn’t what he felt. He drifted, a knot in his belly, turning that splitsecond over in his mind, over and over: he tried to get a hold on what he’d seen in her face, before her mouth had snapped shut and twisted itself into a sneer. What had she seen in his?
She gets lonely, Cerise was explaining now. That’s why she tears up the drapes, then, he thought. He didn’t laugh, but he smiled faintly, looking back down at the thing.
“You’re a little fighter, eh?” He didn’t dare bend his head any closer; he still wasn’t sure, not really, if the things breathed fire. “Make a,” he started, and blinked, and felt terribly sad.
Make a kov bleed.
He couldn’t see if the little drake’d drawn blood; her fingers were balled up in her fist, knuckles white with it. You should at least tend to it, he half wanted to say, soon, so it doesn’t get infected. He’d had plenty of scars from untended cuts, when he’d been too much of a clocking man to worry about things like bandages. He felt suddenly irritable; he wasn’t sure why.
She was frowning down at him now, the ghost of one familiar line between her sharp brows. She was frowning so deep it made funny lines in her face; some he recognized, some he didn’t.
He brought himself back round. He had to do something – something had to be done – what did she want? What did she know?
What could be done to shape that knowing?
There was still a pit in his stomach that ached and clawed like the hatchers; he shook his head as if shaking away a dream. “Listen, I – wait – shouldn’t you be in class?” He clicked his teeth, waved a hand. “Never mind. You want to talk; I want to talk.” He paused. “I’d suggest a change of scenery, unless you want me to introduce you to Incumbent Burbridge and have him talk your ear off, but it’s up to you.”
There. Gods, but it’d be the talk of the convention, or at least the giggle of the convention, Vauquelin’s boch marching into a party and dragging her da out by the ear. He looked at Sish, hiding in Cerise’s curls. You and me both, kov, he thought.