“Truly stupendous minds in that garrison. Just the best of the best.” She dropped her hands, looked at him. “Should we tell them?”
Them: August and Anton. She didn’t have to spell it out. Silence strung bowstring-tight between her and Gabe, waiting to see who’d slice it.
If she was useless to the Arceneaux brothers as a spy, she’d be kept in a cell until they needed her to raise the dead. And once that was finished, she’d get a one-way ticket to the Burnt Isle mines.
“No,” Gabe said softly, as if he could read the thought in her head. “No, we don’t need to tell them. Not right now.”
“Thank you,” Lore murmured.
He gave one quick, firm nod.
A stack of envelopes sat on the table before the couch, gleaming bright in the gloomy glow of the fire. They’d been pushed beneath the door when she and Gabe reached the suite, and he’d gathered them up, tossed them all here. Lore picked up a stack and idly flipped through the fine paper.
Invitations. Teas, dinners, dances, even a night of card games—Bastian had declared them relevant by inviting them to his masque, and the court followed suit. Just the thought of so many social engagements made Lore’s head pound. “Surely we aren’t expected to attend all of these?”
“All, no. Some, yes.” Gabe continued his moody survey of the banked fire, pointedly not looking at the pile of envelopes. “And all of them aren’t for both of us, you’ll notice.”
“Is that why you’re in such a sparkling mood? Feeling left out?”
Another grunt. “The court is eager to talk with you. You’re a new commodity. Not as many of them want to socialize with a Presque Mort on hiatus.” He grinned, then, tossing it her way with a sarcastic edge. “A fact that I am thankful for, actually. You’ll be begging for holy orders after two teas.”
“Yes, especially since you make holy orders look so appealing.” She flipped through the envelopes, selecting one at random. The handwriting was thin and flourishing, addressed to them both, but only by first names. Lore and Gabe, with a tiny flower drawn after the last e. Her brow furrowed as she opened the flap, trying her best not to tear it. The paper felt more expensive than anything she’d worn before coming to the Citadel.
An invitation to a croquet game. From Alienor. “We should probably attend this one.”
Gabe reached for the invitation; Lore handed it over. His jaw went rigid, but he said nothing, handing it back with the gravitas of a judge handing down a sentencing.
Lore turned the silky paper over and over in her hands and fought between tactfulness and curiosity. Curiosity won. “How did you two… I mean, what…”
“Our parents agreed to the match when we were both barely untied from leading strings.” Gabe’s voice was low and monotone, his answer coming like something rehearsed. He stared at the window across from the couch without really seeing it. “We were childhood friends, as much as two children can be friends with an eventual marriage hanging over their heads. It ended when I was ten, for obvious reasons. That’s all there is to tell.”
A quick sliver of pain—she’d given herself a paper cut on the invitation’s edge. “Is she engaged to someone else now?”
“Not that I know of. Not that it matters.”
It seemed to matter, if the set of his shoulders was any indication. And it made something unpleasant prick in the center of her stomach, that it mattered to her if it mattered to him.
The connection she’d felt between them had faded, no longer a constant feeling of déjà vu. Faded, but not gone. There was still the disconcerting sense that she knew Gabe, that they were something more than tentative allies thrown together mere days ago.
It didn’t mean anything. When she first started spying on other poison runners, Mari had warned her against trusting feelings of quick closeness born from strange situations. The mind looked for connection in such cases, wanting something to cling to.
Lore placed the invitation on top of the table with all the other unopened envelopes. “Well. I hope you know how to play croquet, because I certainly don’t.”
“I’m rather rusty. We didn’t play croquet much at Northreach.”
“No, you were too busy staring dewy-eyed at paintings of Apollius and reading the Tracts until you could recite them in your sleep.”
“Precisely.” Gabe stood in a flurry of motion, stretching his arms over his head. “Are you as tired of this room as I am? I have a deep desire to be elsewhere.”