And so the week goes. I am watched, constantly, consistently. I feel their eyes tracking me across quads, through doorways, up staircases: Callahan's careful distance, Lanz's nervous hovering, Kai's willful deliberate avoidance that somehow still keeps me in his peripheral vision, Kingston's dutiful…presence.
Four of them to keep me safe.
Whether I like it or not.
FOURTEEN
GWENNA
On Saturday,I let Morgan talk me into going into Sarrasford.
“God, it’s cold as my tit out here,” she grumbles, wrapping her arms around herself and stuffing her gloved hands into her armpits.
A little howl of wind down the canyon of the Main Street works its way through the front flap of my jacket, making my teeth chatter. I nod and pull my scarf further up over my face. “Hilarious.”
Itiscold, bitterly cold, in a way that’s crossed the line from “cozy New England winterscape” to genuinely Siberian.
A hard winter we’re having. Reminds me of home.
Moroslav’s words from the reception room echo in my mind as I follow Morgan through the swinging door of the Oracular Curio, and I shiver in a way that has nothing to do with the cold.
“Hi, Lucinda.” Morgan throws a look over her shoulder. “They’re…with me.”
I give a little wave. Lanz—my bodyguard of the moment—gives Lucinda a polite nod.
“Hello, hello,” the shop owner singsongs. Her hair’s a deep turquoise instead of the vibrant red I remember, and she’swrapped in a chunky knit shawl of nearly the same color. “I have something in for you, don’t I, Morgan?”
Morgan nods and bustles over to the counter, leaving me
“Cold out there,” Lanz remarks.
The weather. I guess that’s…something to talk about.
“Mm.” I look up from the replica Aztec calendar disk I’m idly examining and acknowledge the existence of the snow.
Reminds me of home.
“Lanz.”
“Hmm?”
“What’s the deal with the…Russians?” I lower my voice just a little, not that I think Lucinda’s eavesdropping, or can even hear us over the Enya CD she seems to have on permanent loop. “Moroslav, and all of them.”
“Oh.” Lanz nods. “St. Ignaty’s? They’re our rivals. Always have been, as far as I know.”
I’m not…quite convinced my his answer. “Fencing rivals.”
Lanz waits a beat before answering. “Yes.” Another beat. “Well…”
Now I’m the one to wait. Patiently.
But nothing comes.
“Yeah.” Lanz is suddenly preoccupied with a glass chess set on display in front of him, fiddling with the tiny blue queen. “It’ll probably be us and them in the final.”
“A fencing rivalry,” I say slowly. “That’s why Moroslav destroyed millions of dollars’ worth of irreplaceable historical artifacts.”
Lanz bites his lip. “Um. I guess…yeah.” He nods a few times.
