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Andevai blinked. “I was…just…stunned…” His gaze flickered to the bed. “That jacket. Orange bars. Blue scallops. Peacock-winged spectacles. And a ruff?! Quite stunning. You would have to really…wear colors…and lace…to pull that off in a jacket.”
“Yes, you would have to,” said Lord Marius with a laugh, glancing toward me—at the jacket—and back at Andevai. The look he gave the man I had to call my husband was so frankly appreciative that I blushed. “You’re quite the decorative specimen yourself.”
“My thanks,” said Andevai in the most absentminded manner imaginable. I blinked so hard I thought he must surely hear me warn him with my eyes to stop staring at me.
Amadou Barry sighed in the manner of a man wanting to change the subject. “Speaking of shooting oneself. Do we search the roof??”
“What say you, Magister?” Marius’s amused and avid gaze remained fixed on Andevai.
“I say nothing,” said Andevai, glaring right at me in the most shockingly idiotic way.
“We were told you could lead us to the girl you wed.”
Andevai looked sharply away and appeared to be searching walls and ceiling for any remnant of good taste. “Is that what you were told? I wonder if this is meant to be a tailor’s shop, or if they only raided one and got all the pieces mixed up.”
Amadou Barry whistled. “You didn’t come to this district to get information on where she fled?”
“I was on my own business.”
“You’re not going to give her up, are you, wherever she’s gone?” said Marius. “Good for you. I liked her. That girl has spine and courage.”
“We should check the roof,” said Amadou.
Andevai’s gaze skipped back to me.
I widened my eyes and mouthed, broadly, “Yes. Say yes.”
“Ye-es,” he said slowly, brow crinkling with a question.
“Yes?” said Lord Marius with a surprised glance at Amadou.
I lifted my chin and mouthed, “Say yes. Say go up on the roof.”
“Yes,” said Andevai more decisively. “By all means, go up on the roof.” Then, with what was even for him an excess of haughty pride, he turned his glare onto a startled Lord Marius. “Are we going up? The soldiers told me they found a troll’s maze. Whatever that is. I’d like to see.”
The captain raised a hand as if catching a tossed ball. “A troll’s maze! We’re leaving.”
Amadou glanced at Andevai. “They could have come over the roof.”
“There’s a goblin workshop locked up for the day on one side. On the other, they’re poisoning themselves with arsenic or some such. I don’t see how the girls could have gotten in here before us. And I’m not risking a troll’s maze. One foot wrong and the whole thing will crash down. Then we’ll be years haggling in court for damages. Trolls love haggling in court. Amadou, I suspect you’re right: This detour is a chase after a wild goose. Let’s go. They’re out there somewhere. I promised the mansa I would recover them and return them to him.”
Lord Marius went out. Amadou Barry followed.
Andevai crossed to the bed and picked up the jacket, holding it high so it swept along my left side. “Now I understand how you were able to get out of Four Moons House without being seen,” he whispered. “What magic conceals you? None I’ve ever heard of.”
“Listen! The mansa told them not to trust you. If you say left, then they’ll go right.”
Anger flashed in the flare of his eyes. “Is that so?”
“They were following you, to try to find us.”
“Were they, now?” His gaze narrowed as he contemplated an object, personage, or situation that annoyed him very much.
“Magister?” Amadou Barry stepped halfway back into the room. “Is something amiss?”
“I just can’t keep my eyes off it,” said Andevai, gaze skating above the collar of the jacket as his eyes met mine. “There’s so much about its tailoring I don’t comprehend. But it doesn’t truly belong to me, so I fear I must leave it behind. Although you never know. I haven’t given up on gaining something so very close to my heart.”
My cheeks were so on fire that I was amazed the legate could not see me.
