“I didn't hear you,” Julien said blandly. “I'm sure you just said that you were going to find him and ask him, politely, if he had your blade.”
“Yeah. That, too.”
Another few decades passed….
“Widdershins, about last week?”
She blinked. What was he talking ab-Oh. That.
“I don't know what you're talking about,” she said sweetly.
“Uh-huh. The Ducarte estate?”
“Oh. That.”
“You're stealing again,” he accused her.
“What's the matter, Bouniard? You afraid of having someone out there you can't catch? I'm too challenging for you, maybe?”
“I'm serious. I can't…That is, I don't want…”
“Don't want what?”
Julien shrugged, looking away.
What could she tell him? That the Flippant Witch wouldn't survive without some “outside income”? That it was all she was good at? That she was bored? Somehow, she was pretty sure that none of those would fly.
And why am I bothering to explain myself?!
“Look, Julien. I promise you won't catch me doing anything illegal.” It was an old joke between them, but this time, he didn't seem amused.
“I'm serious, Widdershins,” he said again.
“You know, I think I almost picked up on that the first time you told me.”
“But you obviously aren't.”
“Well, no. Wouldn't want you accusing me of stealing your mood, would we?”
More glaring, more silence. A silence that broke as Julien scooted his chair back with a low scuffing across the carpet and began to pace.
“You shut up,” Widdershins breathed. Olgun, who hadn't actually been about to say anything at all, continued not doing so.
“Uh, Julien?”
He halted his pacing, his back toward her. “What?”
“Um, given that I've been out for a day, and that you're probably keeping a pretty close watch on what's happening in Davillon…”
“Hmm?”
“I was wondering if, well, if you knew who's throwing the next high-society ball or dinner party. And when.”
Oh, yeah, this was exactly the right time to ask him that, Widdershins! Graceful as a three-hoofed pig on a stack of turtles, you are.
He was facing her again, though his expression couldn't have been any more astonished if he'd just discovered that she'd been smuggling a street mime in her cleavage.
“Have you utterly lost your mind?!” The major was too dignified to actually shriek, but only just.
“Uh, maybe? What are my options?”
“I should have arrested you last week! Maybe you'd actually learn something from a few months in gaol!”
“What makes you think I'd have let you hold me that long? You couldn't manage it last time!”
Widdershins couldn't help but laugh as Julien's hand, seemingly of its own accord, dropped down to clutch at the keys on his belt-the keys that she'd used to escape the last time she'd been incarcerated.
Then, deciding that goading him any further was probably neither the wisest nor the most productive course of action, she said, “Look, I'm not looking to rob anyone. I told you, I want to find out more about what's going on in the city, as well as about some problems of my own. Nobody gossips like aristocrats, and nobody has more ears throughout Davillon. That's why I want to go; not to steal anything.”
“And I should believe that why, exactly?”
“When have I ever lied to-”
“Do you really,” he growled at her, “want to finish that sentence?”
“Ah, no. No, I don't think I do. Julien…” She sighed and finally, steadily met his gaze with her own. “Whatever else I might do, whatever tricks I might pull, I'd never make you complicit in something you wouldn't approve of. I swear it.”
His face froze an instant longer and then cracked and softened. “I believe you. Which may say less about your honesty and more about my fracturing sanity, but there we are. The Marquise de Lamarr is throwing a soiree of some sort tomorrow evening-she's asked for a few of the Guard to bolster her own security-but that's probably too soon. Next week, the Baron-”
“No, tomorrow should work.” Widdershins swung her feet off the mattress, wincing but refusing to retreat before the pain. “Are my shoes around here?”
“Widdershins…”
“Because I'm pretty sure I had shoes when I got in. I really don't go out without 'em all that often….”
“Widdershins, lie down. You're hurt. Give it a few days!”
“I heal fast, Julien. We've been through this.”
“Not that fast, you don't!”
And it was actually true. Widdershins's shoulder and chest burned, aching far more than she would have expected. Was Olgun's power less effective against such an unnatural wound? Maybe so-but she was doing better than anybody else would have been, even if she wasn't exactly her full self.
And she sure wasn't about to spend another night in Julien's office! In its own way, and for its own reasons, the thought scared her as much as Iruoch himself.
“I'll be fine, Julien. And I'm going.”
He stood before her, arms crossed. “And if I put men at all the exits, with orders not to let you leave?”
“How many windows does this building have?” she asked smugly. “I'm pretty sure you can't spare that many guards.”
“Guards on the office door, then.”
“Sure. Just as soon as you explain to them that you've had me stashed in here for a day or so. That'll go over real well.”
“I could arrest you,” he insisted, but she knew from the slump of his shoulders that he was starting to surrender. “I can hold you for a while before we have to start worrying about charges and trials and all that.”
Widdershins smiled, stood-with only a single wince of pain-and, unconscious of what she was about to do until she was doing it, ran the tips of her fingers across his cheek. “But you wouldn't do that to me, right?”
“No,” he admitted. It came out somewhere between a grunt and a sigh. “I wouldn't. Just…Be careful, Shins.”
“I'm always careful.” Widdershins stretched up on her toes and planted a kiss right at the corner of Julien's mouth-not on the lips, no, but not quite on the cheek, either. And then, before either of them could react to what had just happened, she was out the door and gone.
Without, it's worth pointing out, her shoes.
Julien was still standing in that precise spot, staring at the empty mattress and trying to remember how to form a cogent thought, when his door shook with a familiar, military cadence.
“Uh…” He shook himself, wishing briefly he had a snifter of brandy available, or at least a bucket of ice water in which to dunk his head. “Enter!”
Paschal pushed the door open, saluted (with the wrong hand, but given his injured arm, that was acceptable), and then looked with some bemusement at the mattress.
When it became clear that nobody would be answering his unasked question, he spoke. “Sorry to disturb you, sir, but I thought you should know…”
“Yes, Constable?”
“The thief we discussed last week? Widdershins?”
Demas, does this whole damn city revolve around her?! “What of her?”
“We've orders to arrest her on sight, sir.”
Julien blinked rapidly enough that Paschal could probably feel the breeze. “Why? What's she accused of?”
“Not entirely sure, sir. The request came from the bishop's office.”
“What?!”
“Apparently, due to her rumored involvement in the death of Archbishop de Laurent-”
“She was trying to save the man!”
“So I've read in the reports, sir. Nevertheless, given the unnatural events surrounding that tragedy, and given her proximity to what's happening now, they want her brought in until they can determine for themselves whether she's responsible or otherwise involved.”