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No, not to stop her. His fingers curled around her elbow and rebalanced her as his other hand came forward to seize her other arm and keep her from tipping over. His grip was firm, but gentle, and he averted his eyes with a sheepish bite of his lip. “Sorry.”
The ridiculousness of it all—his speed and her reaction—tore a laugh from her throat. She stepped backwards, more steady now, and drew her arms out of his grasp. “Maybe not so fast, next time.”
“Of course.” He didn't look her way again as she retrieved her measuring tape from her basket, but she found herself fixated on his eyes anyway. Not storm-gray, not steel. Now they were soft, the comforting gray of the family cat's coat. She tilted her head and watched him until he finally glanced in her direction. For a moment, she saw uncertainty. Then it hardened, and the storm came back.
She unrolled her tape. “Put out your arms, spread as wide as you can reach.”
Gil brought his feet together and stood straight with his arms to either side. She ducked under one of his arms to stand behind him and measure from the center of his spine to his fingertips and down the length of his back. Then she slipped to the front again and draped her measuring tape around his neck. He twitched as she drew it close.
“Sorry,” she murmured. Few people liked having the tape around their necks. She supposed an assassin might like it least of all. She checked the markings, then gave him the tape's end. “Here, hold this against that bone in your spine at the base of your neck.”
He did as he was told, his face twisting with a quizzical frown as she brought the rest of the tape up over his head.
“For the hood,” Thea explained. “I'm making your cloak.”
“Ah.” He let go of the tape when she tugged on it and then lowered his arms. “The simplest to make, I assume.”
“And the most effective, at the same time. Cloaks are ideal carriers for illusion magic. Their entire purpose is to cover someone.” She returned to the bed and pulled the green fabric from the basket. “It's also probably the most useful, since the rest of your outfit won't stand out so badly with this over the top.”
Gil made a thoughtful sound. “I'd prefer red. It's autumn.”
“Red cloaks are unlucky. And they draw a lot of attention. Green is an auspicious color. For spring, growth, new life.” She shook out the fabric and then spread it on the floor so she could fold it into a rectangle. It wasn't wide enough for a full circle, she could tell already. “Besides, I didn't pack any red.”
“Unfortunate. It's my favorite.” He moved his chair back to give her more space to work, then sat.
“I'm sure there's something to be said about an assassin choosing red as their favorite color, but it strikes me as distasteful, so I won't say it.” Thea hooked a finger in the corner of the folded fabric to pull it out smooth.
“I never actually said I was an assassin. You made that assumption on your own.”
“Is it wrong?”
“That depends on your definition of assassin.” He leaned back in his chair and when she glanced up at him, there was a playful sparkle in his eyes.
Unsettled, she made herself focus on measuring out the pieces she'd need. The sense of wrongness she'd felt the night before —the sense she was missing something—returned. But she'd started this, and to change the subject now seemed ridiculous. Shouldn't she want more answers? “A person who kills others for money.”
“Then I am not.”
“Or,” she added, her hand poised with her chalk between her fingers, “someone who kills for political gain.”
Gil hesitated.
It was enough. “You don't refute that one.” Though if she thought about it long enough, she'd probably question some of her own reasoning. If all it took was killing and money, then she'd have to paint Ashvin and every other soldier who'd served Kentoria with the same brush. Slowly, she shook her head. No, there was a clear difference between those who served in the kingdom's armies and those who killed innocents for their own gain. But then, could King Gaius be considered an innocent? She wasn't sure she'd label him so.
“It's complicated, sometimes,” he said slowly. A response to her head-shaking, she realized; he thought she was disgusted. “And if I am to be fully honest with you, sometimes I am not sure whose benefit I'm working toward. Kentoria's, I tell myself. But there are times I am not certain even that is true.”
The rasp of Thea's shears struck a cadence between his words. She finished cutting and turned to put away the shears before she spoke. “It shouldn't be that hard. Who sent you? That should tell you enough.”
He gave a soft snort. “I sent myself.”
She missed the basket and her shears hit the floor with a clack. He'd plotted this on his own? If that didn't put him firmly in the camp of being an assassin, she didn't know what else could. “So you seek benefit for yourself.”
“I seek answers. If those are benefits, I'll take the blame.”
Thea didn't know what to say. She'd already pegged him as guilty in her mind, but hearing the confirmation in his own words still caught her off guard. Yet it wasn't quite the confirmation she'd anticipated, and while curiosity prickled at the forefront of her mind, something in the back of her head warned her not to pursue it further. Knowledge was dangerous. If he lacked answers, it made his mission that much riskier. But she lacked them too, and the tingling desire to have her questions resolved won out.
“And,” she began slowly as she threaded her needle and knotted the end, willing her power to bind there, “you think those answers will change things?”
Gil watched as she began the first seam, connecting the two halves of what would become a hood. “Yes.”
