Amaranthe led the way past large coal stoves and racks of hanging pots. They slipped into the wide empty hallway that ran the length of the building. The last time she’d been here had been with Sicarius-nicknamed, to his disgruntlement, Hansor at the time-and she smiled to think how far they’d come in the last year. And how far they might go later that night. She flushed at the memory of the afternoon’s… promise. If she’d known talking about hurling herself into danger could bestir that response in him, she would have done it more often. Usually she hurled herself into danger without warning him beforehand.
Of course, she was nervous at the prospect of “later that night” too. What if she were overcome with some intense memory of being sprawled on Pike’s table? What if, in the middle of things, she grew scared and decided she couldn’t go through with it? What if she were so cursed tired that she passed out and drooled all over Sicarius before they got started? Sure, girl, she thought with a snort, that’ll happen. He could rouse the unconscious with those roaming fingers. All this time, she’d been certain he wouldn’t be all that practiced with women, at least not in the art of teasing… physical responses from them. Princess Marathi must have given her teenage paramour some lessons. Amaranthe couldn’t imagine anyone else in the intervening years who might have had the gumption to dare instruct him.
“Are we going in or will the records magically appear under the threshold?” Yara asked.
Amaranthe blushed. They’d climbed the stairs to the third floor and were standing in front of the headmistress’s office. Judging by the comment, they’d been standing there for a while. “In.” She tried the knob and found it locked. “Shortly.” She set down the lantern and withdrew her tools.
Yara sighed and leaned against the wall again. “Are you sure you’ll need me for this underwater adventure of yours? Someone should take a portion of Sespian’s funds and try to acquire some of the Forge prototype rifles. For our new troops.”
“All two of them?”
“You’ll get more. I’ve heard your spiel,” Yara said with a pointed sidelong look. Yes, she’d received the recruiting speech herself. “Besides, Sespian is out trying to get more men right now, isn’t he? We should be prepared.”
“Would you prefer a weapons-acquisition assignment for yourself? Instead of going to the Forge lair with me?” Amaranthe hadn’t been certain about bringing Yara anyway. She could imagine getting two “assistants” past the Forge ladies, but, as she had told Sicarius, it was unlikely the real Suan traveled with an army.
“I wouldn’t mind,” Yara said. “I could take the new men, make them feel useful and part of your team. They’d be less likely to cross us that way.”
Amaranthe appreciated her initiative. Yara’s enforcer promotion hadn’t come simply because she was a woman, and Sespian wanted a few female sergeants on the force, Amaranthe was certain of that. She couldn’t resist the urge to tease Yara though. “Are you sure you aren’t simply looking for a way to get out of wearing the costume Maldynado picked out for you?” Surprisingly, the velvety blue fabric was quite attractive, but if one didn’t like dresses, one didn’t like dresses.
“It’s the ridiculous footwear that always comes with those sorts of clothes,” Yara said. “My feet are already big enough that I don’t need snowshoes in the winter. Those dumb… girl shoes just draw attention.”
Hm, she must harbor secret longings to experience life as a modestly proportioned waif of a woman. Amaranthe wondered how many waifs out there saw Yara’s height, athletic form, and easy power and wished they could experience her life. The veins were always richer in someone else’s mine.
“Your feet are perfectly proportionate,” Amaranthe said. “Maldynado certainly doesn’t seem to mind them.”
Yara snorted.
Amaranthe replaced her picking tools and pushed the door open. They entered a tidy office overlooking the street, with a floral seat cushion on the desk chair and light airy curtains framing the window the only feminine touches. She moved the lantern to a bookcase and tried the door beside it, one of two that led to the records area. The other door was in the scholarship office-a room she and Sicarius had visited. She sighed when she found it locked. “They’re dedicated to security around here.”
Fortunately, this last lock could have been picked with a rusty hairpin, so she made short work of it. They walked into the long aisles of the records room. Long, dusty aisles. Amaranthe crinkled her nose and resisted the urge to whip out a kerchief.
“Maldynado is too busy being impressed, so he says, by my other attributes,” Yara said, surprising Amaranthe by continuing the conversation. “And attitude. And willingness to do… Well, I like a challenge. I think he expected me to be shy. I’m not.”
No, Amaranthe imagined Yara would have no problem telling a man exactly what she wanted. And what he wanted too. “He’s probably not used to that. Not all of us are that…” Brave was the word that came to mind, but she didn’t want to confess to being cowardly. “Unshrinking,” she finished lamely.
She waved away the sentence and focused on the rows of student records, hunting for less recent ones. Suan Curlev would have graduated in-
“If it makes you feel better,” Yara said, “I’d be intimidated by your assassin too. His list of kills, his reputation, his sheer deadliness. If someone like that ever got mad at you… I don’t know that I could-I mean, what could anyone do? Woman or not?”
“Oh, I’ve seen his temper. It takes a lot to disturb his rigid control, but I’ve… pushed him. He didn’t take it out on me, though a cabinet door did suffer ignobly. I trust him not to hurt me. He hasn’t even… there are times when he could have said cruel things-I’ve deserved them-but he didn’t. Even when he lost his temper, he was more irritated with himself than me.” Amaranthe chewed on her lip. Why was she sharing all this? “Anyway,” she said by way of closing off the conversation, “I’ve learned that reputation is a truth others concoct to serve their own needs. Genuine truth is revealed in one’s actions, actions preformed under duress without the time to calculate how they’ll make one appear in the world’s eyes.”
Yara digested that for a moment, then responded lightly, “Are we still talking about bed play?”
“I don’t know,” Amaranthe said, relieved her comrade had chosen light over serious. With Sicarius being so private, she almost felt like discussing their personal moments was an act of betrayal. “Is duress often involved in your bed play?”
“Often.”
This time, Amaranthe snorted. She wouldn’t be surprised. Maldynado probably had handcuffs, rope, and ancestors knew what else rolled up in his blanket.
She tapped her fingers on the shelves. “It looks like the records are only kept for ten years. Suan graduated before then. I guess this trip was wasted, and we should have gone shopping for ammunition after all.”
“Is it possible older records are stored in a basement or some secondary archive system?” Yara asked.
“I don’t remember hearing about anything like that, though let’s check the library. If this Suan was so brilliant and so beloved by her teachers, maybe some of her papers were kept for posterity.”
They locked the doors and returned to the hallway. Amaranthe led the way back down to the first floor, though she paused as soon as she stepped out of the stairwell. A mop and bucket rested near the wall.
“That wasn’t there on our way in, was it?” she murmured.
“No,” Yara said.
Amaranthe shuttered her lantern and skirted the bucket. With luck they could slip into the library without chancing across the janitor. She didn’t want to leave a trail of bound-and-gagged people stuffed into closets, not on this excursion. If Forge learned she’d been at the school, they might make some guesses as to why she’d been at the school.