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“Jealousy ill becomes you,” I whispered as I unbuttoned his jacket.
He glared.
“Also, I don’t like it.” I slipped the fourteenth button free and pressed my hands to his shirt, beneath the jacket. “It makes it look as if you don’t trust me.”
His chest heaved. “Of course I trust you.”
“Do you?”
The tailor returned with the finished dash jacket, this one sewn out of a fine damask dyed the color of a ripe peach. I stepped back hastily.
“Had you some remark upon the floral fabric, Maestra?” the tailor asked with a hopeful bow.
“I think by all means it is entirely appropriate for a dash jacket,” I said as the old man strove to contain his unprofessional wince at my unprofessional judgment.
Vai was too preoccupied by his own struggle to notice our aside. His tone could have been chiseled from granite, it was so hard. “Go on, Catherine. I don’t need to accompany you. Will Beatrice and your brother be returning to stay with us at the mage House?”
I took his hand. “It might be best to join them for supper at their domicile.”
The bell tinkled again as the door opened. A familiar voice said, “You’ve been in here a long time, Brennan. You said to come in after you if there was trouble. Is there trouble? Cat! I can smell you’re in here! Begging your pardon, Maesters. I didn’t see you there. I’m Roderic Barr. It’s a pleasure to meet you. You’re sewing! I do admire people who can sew. They have such nimble fingers!”
“Rory!” I shrieked, dashing out from behind the screen and into Rory’s arms. I looked up into his smiling face. “You’re all right, both you and Bee?”
He kissed me soundly on each cheek in the traditional Kena’ani way. Still close, he sniffed. “Goodness, Cat, that man has put his scent all over you!”
My cheeks must have flamed red, for the sewers turned their heads to hide their chuckles. Brennan looked past me with a warning lift of his chin. I released Rory as Vai stepped out from behind the screen in his unbuttoned jacket.
“So she did rescue you!” Rory walked up to Vai and stared him down eye-to-eye. Rory was a touch taller and he had puffed himself up in that odd way he had of making himself seem bigger. “I am her brother. I look out for her.”
Vai did not budge. “Catherine is capable of looking out for herself.”
“You have sisters. You know what I mean.”
“How do you know I have sisters?”
“Cat tells me everything.” Rory made the words a challenge.
Brennan put a hand on my arm to keep me out of it. The tailor put a hand on the screen to steady it in case there was an altercation.
Vai took in Rory’s black hair and golden eyes, and the badly mended and faded dash jacket he was wearing. “Lord of All! That’s the jacket I wore the night of… it’s ruined!”
Rory’s smile was almost a wink. “It was this, or go naked. Not that I mind going naked, but it does get cold. Be assured Cat already scolded me for ruining it and scolded Bee for letting me wear it in the first place. I do like it when Cat scolds Bee, because no one else does and I can assure you that nothing is more tiresome than Bee let loose in the world with no one to scold her.” Without asking permission, he smoothed the sleeve of the jacket Vai was wearing as Vai’s eyes widened in disbelief at the familiarity. Rory practically purred. “I really like this color. You have the most beautiful clothes.”
“Roderic, why don’t you accompany the magister so you can bring him along this evening,” said Brennan in a hearty voice as he grabbed my cloak and tugged me out the door.
I resisted. “But I… what if…?”
He cut me off as the door shut. “Nothing Rory can’t handle. Better to leave the two of them to get acquainted without you there, for I perceive they are each in their own way a bit… shall we say… protective of you, Maestra Barahal.”
“Call me Cat, please,” I said, for I perceived it was time to turn the subject entirely.
“So I shall, Cat, for that is what Bee calls you, and since she talks about you a great deal, I rather feel I know you better than I ought.”
“Oh dear,” I muttered.
He indicated a ramshackle carriage waiting at the intersection, driven by a young man burly enough to be a boxer, who was accompanied by a scarred fellow armed with a stout cudgel. The driver acknowledged us with a nod. The carriage started forward the moment we settled in the seat. Grimy glass windows rattled as if likely to shake right out of the frames.
“Are you the rats who brought news of Camjiata’s victory to Pinfeather & Quill?” I asked.
