He set himself rather studiously to her ankle, though that was not helping, either.
Least exciting, she said first, and then cleared her throat.
“Only you?” It slipped out; he could not help it at all. He looked up again sharply, his brow furrowing.
Even with his hands on her stockinged ankle, his bafflement drove all thought of impropriety out of his head. Only her? Only her? There was no ‘only’ to it, or to anything about her. It seemed that every time he tried not to look at her, he found himself looking even harder, and noticing – more and more things.
It was only the case, he told himself, only the puzzle. That was separate from any friendship they may have had once. That accounted for his curiosity about the scars, and his strangely lingering desire to remember the feeling of her hand in his, with its servant’s calluses, and how newly small it felt. Or the feeling of her back, soft but strangely solid, where it had brushed his arm; or the sight of her in an embroidered summer dress, or the thought of her red-faced and wispy-haired and with a flour-dusted apron, hard at work in an unfamiliar kitchen. Or in any number of other places, in Hesse or even Mugroba; it was baffling, how little he knew.
It was only that, for all these incongruencies, he thought she might well be the most exciting fugitive he had ever… hmm.
He cleared his throat.
“I did,” he replied, frowning. “But I am very good at what I do,” he added, because he could not quite help it. He eased back from her ankle on his haunches, taking a deep breath.
He stood up around the time that she winced; he clicked his teeth again, grimacing. “You shall if you rest it,” he snapped. “Otherwise –”
I shall have you relieved of duty, he had almost said.
“Huh,” he snorted, sighing. “The swelling has gone down already. It should continue to improve, so long as you take care with it. Again, you should rather have a doctor or a living conversationalist. Alas,” he repeated, “it is only I.”
He paused a moment to look over her shoulder, where Shadow’s bulky shape, blurry and dark at this distance except for a lolling red tongue, was skidding about the greenery and panting. And rolling around in the mud. He supposed Aurelie was right; he would need a bath. And sooner than later, if they did not wish for Graywatch to find them by smell.
He tested the ropes then with his hands. It was easier to find the bucket and the pulley now that he could see; the well was not, he thought, as long-abandoned as he had originally supposed.
“Perhaps with your unorthodox methodology at being a fugitive and my expertise at catching them, we may get somewhere together.” His voice was dry and deadpan. “I daresay you have more experience than I do, regardless. Until an hour ago, I had none at all.”