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The awkwardness turns into sarcasm on my tongue. “You’re not even going to lecture me about taking off on my responsibilities? Or failing to properly inform every concerned party of where I was going?”
Stavros lets out a bark of a laugh so raw it startles me. “I got the impression I did more than enough of that yesterday.”
I open my mouth, close it again, and finally settle on, “I suppose you did.”
We walk in silence for several minutes, leaving behind the fringes for the less shabby streets on the edge of the middle wards. Stavros rests his prosthetic hand, the realistically sculpted one he’s currently got on, on his opposite palm, running his thumb over the inflexible fingers.
“You’ve been at it for a while, this charity project. I first heard the talk about ‘the Hand of Kosmel’ a few years back.”
“Yes.” If he’s not going to ask a proper question, I don’t see the need to give more than a single-syllable answer.
“From what I heard, most of the merchants complaining about lost earnings were of the particularly slimy sort.”
In answer to that comment, I simply grunt.
Stavros glances over at me. “You would have been putting yourself at an awful lot of risk, over and over. Leagues more than if you’d only been stealing to get by on your own. Why?”
It’s the shortest question possible, but it compels me to give a proper response anyway.
“You put yourself in an awful lot of danger every time you led the army into battle against our enemies. Somehow you felt that was worthwhile.”
I don’t need to spell my motivations out more. He considers my answer for a moment and then says, “I was trained for that danger. Brought up for it. You wouldn’t have—”
“I had my own experiences to prepare me. I’m not happy about everything I’ve done in my entire life. If I can set some things right, it seems only fair.”
He hesitates. “Well, that explains rather a lot. I know your family treated you harshly. I can’t imagine anything a child could do that would warrant those scars on your back.”
Oh, he can. He just hasn’t let himself.
I grimace, but part of me wants to be a little honest, just this once. To keep being who I actually am a bit longer.
“My little sister died when I was seven,” I say. “My parents resented the fact that I was alive and she wasn’t.”
And the fact they suspected: that I’d been the one who killed her.
How can I blame them, really, when I’ll never forgive myself either?
I keep that half of the answer to myself, which is the only reason Stavros’s mouth tightens with sympathy rather than disgust. But he must sense it’s not a subject I want to dig into any further.
He drags in a breath. “The Watch raided The Night’s Calling last night. The attic showed some signs of habitation, but no one was currently living there.”
I’d be grateful for the change of subject, but my heart sinks at the news. “Another dead end.”
Did Ster. Torstem secret his special ladies away to some other place? Does he know we’re on to him—didhedirect the attack on me?
“For now,” Stavros says. “It does suggest that everything is connected. Torstem didn’t say anything about them leaving when you were listening in, did he?"
“No. I suppose it could be a coincidence.”
He snorts. “I’d rather not bet on that.”
I guess I wouldn’t either.
The former general picks up his pace, and I manage to match it on my shorter legs. It’s only when the spires of the temple come into view up the sloping inner-ward street ahead of us that he gets back to business.
“All circumstances considered, I’dstronglyprefer if you’d oblige me and not make any more impromptu trips around the city. Whoever made that attempt on your life is likely to try again.”
I wrinkle my nose at him. “Don’t you think you should be worried about yourself too? Are you keeping tabs on the other men or just me?”
