“Hello, Locke.”
“Yes. Sabetha. Hello. Uh.”
“Meant to say something grander and wittier, didn’t you?”
“Well …” The sound of her voice, her ordinary voice, unaffected, undisguised, unaccented, was like a glass of brandy gulped on an empty stomach. “Whatever it was it seems to have business elsewhere.”
“It’ll come back to you when you least expect it.” She smiled. “Write it down then and have it sent to me. I’ll give it a favorable hearing.”
They were just a few feet apart now, and in her face he could see time’s peculiar alchemy—every line was where it ought to be, but all the softness and reediness of the girl was gone. Her figure and features were fuller. Her eyes had changed, moving from a lively hazel to a truer, darker brown, a shade that was faintly reflected in her hair.
“Take my hands,” she said, and gently redirected his fingers when he tried to entwine them with hers. Palm against palm they stood while she returned his stare; her touch was soft and dry. For a moment of pure anticipation Locke thought she might pull him into an embrace, but she maintained the respectable distance between them. “You’re too gods-damned thin,” she said, losing some of her dominating composure.
“I’ve been ill.”
“They told me you were poisoned.”
“Who’s they?”
“You know,” she said. “And you’ve been out of the sun. Your Vadran is showing.”
“We both seem to have gone back to our roots.”
“Ah, the hair?”
“No, the backs of your knees. Of course the hair.”
“It’s strange. I’ve been every shade of black, brown, and blonde these past few years, so I can disguise myself best now by going back to what’s natural. Does it please you?”
“You know it distracts the hell out of me.” Locke felt himself blushing. “Puts me at the most severe disadvantage.”
“I know,” she said, again allowing a touch of a smile. “Perhaps I wanted us on familiar ground for the evening.”
She released his hands, gave a playful half-bow, and moved around him.
“Hello, Jean,” she said. “You’ve lost at the belly and gained at the shoulders, I think.”
“Hello, Sabetha.” He extended his left hand. “You’ve gained a great deal and lost nothing I can see.”
“Dear heart.” She met his hand with her own, and her eyebrows rose when he took her by the forearm and shook politely. “What’s this? Five years apart and suddenly I’m just a business associate?”
Locke bit the inside of his lip as she put her arms around Jean and set her head against the lapels of his jacket. After the tiniest pause, Jean returned the embrace, his own arms easily folding around her and overlapping in the middle of her back.
“I’ll just need a moment to make sure everything’s still in my pockets,” he said as they parted. She laughed.
“What, you don’t think I’m serious?” Jean examined his jacket carefully. He didn’t bother grinning to lighten the moment.
“Ahh,” Sabetha said, stepping away from both of them and folding her hands in front of her. “So how long did it take you to figure it out?”
“About a minute,” said Locke.
“Not bad.”
“A minute too long. The initials on that purse were cheeky as hell. But that getup was excellent.”
“You liked it? Good. It wasn’t easy, taking a few inches off my regular height.”
“One of the hardest things in false-facing,” said Locke with a nod. “You were showing off.”
“No more than you, before we were done. Still feigning illness in public.”
“It worked,” said Locke. “After a fashion. But you’d seen it before; surely that’s why you weren’t caught too off-guard.”
“That,” she said, “and you two should remember I can still read most of your hand signals.”
Locke exchanged a glance with Jean; the fact that he hadn’t been alone in neglecting this point was little comfort.
“You get that one for free,” she said.
“So why’d you do it?” said Locke.
“I wanted to see you both,” she said, glancing away. “I found that I was impatient. But I wasn’t ready for … for this, just yet.”
“We might have been a little late for this appointment if they’d thrown us in a hole,” said Jean.
“Tsk,” she said. “You’re insulting us all. As if you couldn’t have clever-dicked your way clear of those imbeciles before lunch. After all, your friend Josten still has his ardent spirits license. Clearly you two haven’t forgotten how to stay on your toes.”
“That was cute,” said Locke.
“As was your riposte. It’s a wonder to me, how many people are so willing to believe the best of the laws that they live under.”
“They haven’t had our advantages. Anyway, you shouldn’t have sent a fat, good-natured fellow for that sort of work,” said Locke. “You should have arranged to put the warrant in the hands of some shriveled tent-peg like your Vordratha.”
“Isn’t he a treasure? Such a smirking dry bitch of a man. He can’t have spent more than a minute with you, and you’d crawl over broken glass to kick him in the precious bits, I’d wager.”
“Point me to the glass,” muttered Jean.
“Perhaps … once he’s given me a good six weeks of work.” She tossed her hair back and matched gazes with Jean. “Jean, may I ask you to … allow Locke and myself a few moments alone? I told Vordratha to have a chair set up just outside the door.”
“I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that.”
“Don’t sit in it, then.”
Jean’s only response was to clear his throat.
“May I beg to point out,” said Sabetha, “that the last reasonable chance you had to be cautious was when you stepped out of your carriage? I could have twenty armed men crouched in the next room. If I did, why would I bother to ask for privacy?”
“Well,” said Jean with a sigh. “I suppose I can feign civility with the best of them.”
He was gone in a moment. The door clicked shut behind him, leaving Locke and Sabetha alone with four feet of darkened floor between them.
“Have I offended him?” said Sabetha.
“No.”
“He seemed pleased to see me for a moment, and now he’s sour.”
“Jean had … Jean met someone. And lost her, in the worst way. So don’t think … it’s just that he can’t be terribly at ease, concerning the matters that lie between me and you.”
“What matters could you be referring to?”
“Please don’tdo that.”
“Do what?”
“Invite me to name my troubles as though they were somehow unknown to you.”
“The device you’re mistaking me for is called a mirror, Locke. I don’t reflect your feelings as well as you seem to imagine, so I’m afraid you may have to name them for everyone’s benefit.”
“Five years, Sabetha! Five years!”
“I can count! And so what? I’m not leaping into your arms? I’m not tearing your clothes off under one of these tables? You may have noticed that I passed those five years without crawling back to Camorr in search of you. Nor did I find youexactly dogging my heels!”
“I meant … I meant to—”
“You meant,” she said. “There’s a worthless coin, Locke. The past isn’t something we can negotiate. I might not have come back for you, but you certainly didn’t strike out after me.”
“There were difficulties.”
“Oh,” she said, “so you’rethe man whose life develops complications! I’ve so longed to meet you; the rest of us here in this world have it much too easy, I’m afraid.”
“Calo and Galdo are dead,” said Locke.
Sabetha leaned back against the nearest table, folded her arms, and stared out the windows for some time. “I had my suspicions,” she said at last.
“When Jean and I came alone to Karthain?”
“I passed through Camorr about a year ago,” she said. “I thought it best not to announce myself. It’s like it was in the old days, before Barsavi. Thirty capas and no Secret Peace. I heard some confusing things … You’d been cast out by Barsavi’s usurper, and no one had seen you since the mess.”