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“I only ask,” she continued, “because we’ve had that one close call already, and I’d rather not keep risking you. Once was enough.”
Kadou was so tired and had been pulled in so many different directions in one day that he could only stare at her for a long moment, trying to figure out how she hadalreadyheard about the—the incident in the alley.
Oh, gods, she already knew what he’d ordered Evemer to do. His nerves, wound to the breaking point, abruptly snapped.
He pulled a pillow over his face as he felt himself go scarlet and groaned, “How do you knoweverything?”
“I beg your pardon? You reported it to me.”
Moments too late, it occurred to Kadou’s exhausted brain that she was talking about something else entirely. She’d meant the thieves from a month ago.Thatone close call.
He lowered the pillow, hoped his face wasn’t too incriminatingly red, and said, “Oh, right. Of course.”
There was a beat of silence. He stared up at the ceiling, suppressing a grimace, and felt himself growing, if possible, even redder. There was no way she was going to fall for such a clumsy and glaringly obvious attempt to play it off as nothing.
When he dared to glance at her, Eozena narrowed her eyes. “Why did you say it that way?”
“What way?”
“That way. Did something else happen that I should know about?”
“No,” he and Evemer said in unison.
“Right,” she said. “And nothing happened, and nothing almost happened.”
“Nothing happened,” Kadou said.
She held up one finger at Kadou. “Your Highness, will you pardon me a moment?” Without waiting for a reply, she shifted her gaze to Evemer. “Lieutenant, report!” she barked.
He snapped to attention. “Commander. We went to the Jasmine Tree, an incense lounge in the waterfront district, and witnessed an exchange of money happening between someone in the back alley and, presumably, one of the workers in the establishment.”
“Were you seen?”
Evemer paused. “Technically,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“We were spotted, but we averted any suspicion.”
“How?”
“They would not have found our presence in the alley to be remarkable.”
“Anyway,” Kadou said loudly, so hot with his blush that he felt like he was roasting. “No need to go into all that! We both got out alive and unharmed, and as Evemer said, they didn’t pay any attention to us.”
“As His Highness says.”
Eozena glanced back and forth between them. “No, I want to know what happened. Report, one of you.”
“The person who brought the money came down the alley toward us, and we were hiding in a doorway, and, uh . . .” The words stuck in Kadou’s throat as he tried to find a phrasing that was not completely embarrassing.
“His Highness assessed the situation,” Evemer supplied smoothly. “And when we were seen, he ensured that we were not found to be suspicious.” Kadou had to admire that—Evemer really was doing his damned best, wasn’t he?
“Vague, Lieutenant,” said Eozena. “And not new information.”
Kadou couldn’t stand the tension any longer and abruptly threw down the flag of surrender. “I told him to kiss me, and the person who saw us a moment later told us to have a nice evening and walked off,” Kadou said. He couldn’t meet Eozena’s eyes. He was fairly sure his face was burning off.
“It was the only thing he could think of,” Evemer added.
