The Noble and the Nightingale, page 8
Adella hastily explained before the two could get in another spat. When she’d finished, Zara insisted that Adella and Gisele wait in the kitchen while she took the light and her saber and searched the house. Adella was more than happy to let her, though she demanded regular shouts to confirm that everyone remained unhurt.
After the house had been cleared, they regrouped in the kitchen for a cup of coffee. Adella curled her fingers around her mug. The house was always cold, but the stove would soon warm this room, at least. They spent most of their evenings here, sitting at the high table that had stood in this house for generations. On really chilly nights, they sat in front of the massive fireplace at the far end of the kitchen, but it remained dark tonight, too much of a fuel-hog to be lit every day.
They chatted as Zara set out some scones she’d made the night before, along with a pot of jam from the larder. Her orderly mind had taken well to cooking, and she’d been making most of their meals since they’d let the cook go five years prior. With Adella’s limited ability in the kitchen, she was fine with eating whatever Zara made. She was just happy the food was usually tasty.
As expected, Gisele grilled Adella about Bridget, and for once, Adella was happy she knew so little. She’d never been good at keeping things from the two family members she had left.
“That’s all you know?” Gisele said when Adella was through. “A nightingale who lives at some bar called the Donkey?”
“The Donkey’s Rest.” Or that was what she remembered.
“Why were you out so late last night if that’s all you talked about?” Gisele’s cheeks went a bit pink after she asked the question, and she dropped her jam-slathered scone. Her eyes were delighted, and her mouth became an O of surprise. “Adella, you didn’t!”
Adella felt some heat in her own cheeks and was happy she hadn’t been taking a sip of coffee at the time. “We just met.” The feel of Bridget kissing her returned, but she banished the thought before her face could catch fire. “Mind your own business.”
Zara looked between them. “I think I know what you’re talking about, but—”
“Stop right there,” Adella said. “I don’t need either of you commenting on my love life.”
“Love life,” Gisele said with a grin.
“Enough.” Adella cleared her throat. “We talked of various things, nothing you need concern yourself about. Now.” She set her cup down, hoping that was enough of a signal to change the subject. To make sure, she changed it herself. “Why are you home so early, Z?”
“Maneuvers finished early.” She sounded disappointed, and she hadn’t bothered to change out of her uniform when she’d been upstairs. The dark brown trousers and high-necked jacket with double buttons up the front suited her, especially with the gold epaulets to set off her tan. She’d undone the top button, allowing the left corner of the jacket to fold down and not look as if it was choking her, but she hadn’t taken off the wide belt or shaken loose her dark, tied-back hair, and her saber and helmet lay within easy reach on the table.
Adella sighed as she stared at their middle sister. People said Adella didn’t know how to relax, but no one was as uptight as Zara. She didn’t wear her plain cap in the city, favoring the ridiculous golden helmet she was entitled to as a scout commander. Too many people saw her youthful face and didn’t treat her like an officer.
And she couldn’t have that. She was only twenty-six, but as Gisele liked to joke, she’d been born stuffy.
“And you aren’t at work because of fatigue?” Zara asked Gisele, but she clucked her tongue without waiting for an answer. “Now, if you were in the military—”
“Someone would have lit my trousers on fire by now.” Gisele squinted as if thinking. “Hang on. That was you!”
Zara’s mouth turned down as she trotted out one of her favorite phrases. “If you weren’t my sister…” When Gisele mouthed the words in unison, Zara puffed up even more.
“Enough,” Adella said, saddened that their only conversational options seemed to be Adella’s personal life and fighting. “I do not need a headache to round out this awful day. Zara, Gisele is a mage, and that’s that. Gisele, no more throwing magic around.” She raised her voice and stomped her boot over their chorus of accusations and arguments. “And both of you, stop antagonizing each other.”
They didn’t appear too chastened, but they shut up, and that seemed the best outcome to hope for.
After a moment, Zara set her mug down. “I’m sorry you lost your friend, Del.”
“Thank you.” Adella squeezed her hand, thankful for the words and also for the fact that if Gisele had something mocking to say, she kept it to herself. And Zara hadn’t tutted over the fact that she’d left work early, so part of them was on their best behavior, it seemed.
Silence fell for a few moments before Gisele leaned back, smacking her lips noisily. “Let’s all go out and have some fun.”
Adella sighed yet again, about to plead exhaustion, but Zara beat her by bemoaning the cost.
Gisele huffed. “I’m not talking a five-course meal. There are some great street vendors near the constabulary on the river side of the ward.” As Zara took a breath, no doubt to argue further, Gisele started counting reasons on her fingers. “It’s cheap, it’s safe because the thief catchers are right there, and it will cheer Adella up.”
Zara shut her mouth, looking almost pained as she nodded. Gisele met Adella’s eyes and raised her brows.
Adella chuckled. She couldn’t pass now that these two actually agreed with each other. She nodded.
Gisele whooped. “Just give me a minute to change.” She was off toward the stairs with a brightness to her step that cheered Adella even more.
She stood. “Come on, Zara.”
“Why? I don’t need to change.”
“Yes, you do. You’re stepping away from that uniform for a while, and I’m going to wear something simple.”
Zara frowned and let her shoulders slump, looking eerily like Gisele for a moment. But unlike Gisele, she put the tea things away before she walked with Adella upstairs.
✥ ✥ ✥
Bridget wanted to kick herself as she walked home. She’d promised not to leave Adella, they’d had their first tiff, and she still had a funeral to help plan for someone she’d never met.
And if anyone learned her identity, the next funeral would be hers.
And she seemed determined to admit everything to the ambassador to her former home.
Baxter would be torn between hanging his head in shame and laughing himself sick.
When that last problem had reared its head in front of Adella’s house, her libido had done its best to power through. She might have agreed to stay if Adella had asked, but Gisele’s arrival had squashed that. Stupid as Bridget seemed to be of late, she possessed enough reason to not spend more time in a spy hunter’s presence than necessary.
Gods, she hoped it wouldn’t be necessary that often.
Maybe she could avoid Adella’s home until the murderer was caught. Her libido died a little at the idea. But she couldn’t very well have Adella back to her shared room at the Donkey. Adella’s office had seemed a promising spot for a rendezvous, but it would have another occupant now and was located in one of those “only as necessary” places.
For the devils’ sake, this was getting complicated and difficult. The beginning of a relationship was supposed to be fun, not filled with the danger of execution.
As she passed some food vendors and breathed deeply, Bridget tried to tell herself not to be maudlin. She’d known she was going to come up against the problem of her past ever since she’d escaped. The lies followed her into the truth. She’d thought she could create a new past to fit the truth she was living now, but it felt like just another cover story.
She’d heard of spies getting so deep into their new lives that they began to believe those cover stories were real. They’d been waiting in position for some occurrence or signal that had taken decades to come, and when it came, they’d been too confused to act. If all they’d been doing was gathering information, they could be abducted and eventually debriefed in the empire. But if they had a job that went undone, the empire couldn’t just let them go after they’d rediscovered their purpose and failed.
Baxter had only spoken of those dead spies when drunk, and even then, he wouldn’t speak of all of them. Bridget suspected she’d killed one once, but she couldn’t be sure. She didn’t want to be sure. It was best if that particular assignment remained just like the others.
And her killing days were over.
When she reached the square, Bridget tried not to dwell on the idea that someone from her old life could be tracking her now, but the idea made her pull her coat tighter around her and scan the lengthening shadows. Well, she wouldn’t be like those spies who’d forgotten who they’d been. She remembered. She was confident in her abilities.
Until now, when she seemed close to telling someone the truth.
If Baxter was still alive and the empire dragged her home to be debriefed before dying, he would probably kill her himself. “Fifty years I been in this game, ducky,” he’d say, “man and boy, and thirty years a trainer, and you’re the only one I helped sneak away, and you go and get yourself caught.”
She’d spit in his face for recruiting her and for likely never telling the truth in all those fifty years, probably not even about her being the first he’d helped to escape. His voice would be with her the rest of her days, and she didn’t even know his real name. It certainly wasn’t Baxter.
Of course, he didn’t know hers, either, but that had been his idea.
Caught in a wave of loneliness, Bridget had the sudden urge to hug her mother’s mandolin case right there in the street. They’d loved each other, but Emma Leir had up and died, and though Bridget had been a pretty good street thief, she would have followed her mother if someone hadn’t taken her in.
Pity that someone had been Baxter, who’d brought his world of lies and murder with him. Maybe that was why Bridget had grown so angry when Adella had assumed her criminal past. To Adella, criminal clearly meant thief.
If only Bridget could have stopped at being a thief.
She paused by the fountain in the square. It seemed to be business as usual now, with people hustling about their day, and cabs and carriages making the circuit. Various nightingales played their corners. Bridget craned her neck and saw Videl, Tomas, and the unknown singer from before spread out to incorporate Bridget’s territory, but they wouldn’t be able to save it forever. She should go take it back before some other nightingale got ideas, but she was too depressed to smile for the crowds, and the fact that she was sinking into her self-pity made her even sadder and grouchier until she felt as if she was on a playground roundabout. She had to either fight to get to the center or let herself be thrown off.
And she didn’t seem capable of allowing herself to be thrown out of this mood, so she’d sink in and hopefully come out the other side.
She went back to the Donkey, ready for a good sulk in her room, which would be blessedly abandoned for a few hours more. Maybe she’d take a shift tonight in the taproom and make some coin. But that would be money she couldn’t even use to escape because she was smitten with one of the worst people for an ex-spy to be lusting after.
The taproom was mostly deserted at this time of day. Serrah Nunez stepped out from the back room behind the bar and put a few bottles away. She wore a new wig, a sparkling creation done in pinks, oranges, and yellows. A topaz sunburst nestled in the braids on one side like a sandbar amid puffy swells of hair. Bridget had to stop and marvel.
Serrah Nunez lit up under the show of attention and did a slow turn, batting her heavily painted eyes when she halted again. “Well, treacle?” she asked, smiling with rose-painted lips. “What do you think?”
“Absolutely marvelous, serrah,” Bridget said, meaning every word. “You’re a work of art, as always. I don’t know where you find the time.”
Serrah Nunez waved a slender hand bearing so many rings and bracelets, it was difficult to spot any pale flesh. “One must make time for the important things in life.” She sailed closer in a dress that seemed made of a great many glittery scarves, the ends fluttering as she moved. It left her shoulders bare, though her skin sparkled with some cosmetic.
Or maybe it was runoff from the wig.
“I sense a bit of sadness in you, pudding.” She topped Bridget by a head and a half, but she was slenderer. Bridget suspected that if one took away all her frippery, she might nearly disappear like a long-haired cat after a bath.
When Bridget didn’t respond, Serrah Nunez put a hand on her shoulder, jewelry clanging. “Whatever’s the matter?”
Bridget’s affliction from before struck her. She didn’t want to lie. “A woman I’m interested in…her friend died today, and I’m not quite sure what to do.” Not the whole truth but not wrong.
“Ah.” Serrah Nunez gripped Bridget’s shoulder and closed her eyes in a pained expression. “The pain of loss, how well I know it.” She shook her head and nodded. “Fetch this woman, my peach. Bring her here among friends, and we will cheer her.”
Bridget had to smile. All those in the Donkey’s Rest were friends to Serrah Nunez. Unless they started trouble, then they were just sorry. With her mean right hook, she used all those heavy rings to devastating effect.
“I think she wants to be with family tonight, serrah, but thank you.”
“Oh.” She pulled Bridget into a dramatic embrace, enveloping her in a cloud of cloves, oranges, and all the spices of her homemade mulled wine. Then she held her at arm’s length in an iron grip. “You’re not thinking of pouting in your room?”
Bridget sighed. “How do you read minds?”
With an enigmatic, catlike smile, she steered Bridget toward the stage. “Play for me, dear little treacle, soothe yourself with song and cheer all our hearts.”
The three patrons didn’t seem to notice. Only the serious drinkers came in before sundown. But Bridget didn’t want Serrah Nunez clattering around her all afternoon, naming her different desserts and badgering her out of her sadness.
And playing often made her feel better.
She started with a few slower songs of heartbreak or the first bloom of love. As a few more people trickled in, she had to increase the tempo just to be heard. By the time the pre-dinner crowd began to arrive, she was playing something boisterous that people could sing along with and had scored quite a few tips for the communal jar.
She’d paused to take a sip of water and rest her hands when Serrah Nunez fluttered over to her again. “A courier just left a message for you, crumble.” She held out a small note sealed with wax.
Bridget opened it. “Dining at the vendors on Bond Avenue, near the constabulary on the river side of the ward,” it read. “Join me?” It was signed with an A.
Adella? It had to be. Bridget had never dated anyone else who would refer to the Oligarchs’ Ward as simply, the ward, or who would expect everyone to know their way around it.
Luckily, Bridget had memorized the layout of this city in case she ever had to flee.
Like she should be doing now.
Or at least, she should cut ties with a diplomat and her spy-hunting sister.
At the very least, she should not respond to this note.
Serrah Nunez plucked it from her hand. When Bridget tried to snatch it back, Serrah Nunez lifted a perfectly drawn eyebrow. “From your sad lover?”
“Well, not lover, not…” She’d been about to say, yet, but settled for, “Exactly.”
“An invitation?” Her deep voice took on a slight purr.
“Well…” She damned her cheeks for heating up.
When Serrah Nunez offered the note back, she took Bridget’s mandolin with her other hand.
“Hey!”
“Go, peaches. You must go to her when she calls.” She quickly put the mandolin in its case. “Go to her in her time of need.”
“But, serrah, you can’t just—”
“Go to the one you love, tartlet. I will care for your instrument as if it was my own kin.” She hustled Bridget toward the door with an unarguable grip on her shoulder.
“I don’t—”
“You do. I see the fire in your eyes, cherries. Ah, but I do love love! Go.”
Bridget couldn’t even grab hold of anything as Serrah Nunez guided her out the door and pushed a long jacket into her arms, then grabbed her hands and pressed several coins into her palm.
“Take a cab and fly like the wind into the arms of your love.”
Bridget ground her teeth at being pushed around, even from someone with seemingly good intentions. She tried to step back into the bar.
Serrah Nunez leaned close, and her breathless voice dropped to a lower tone. “Step back inside here, and I will break your arm, Bridget Leir. I love a good romance story, and you will not rob me of this one.” She winked.
Bridget sighed, her anger waning. Serrah Nunez was right. It was shaping up to be a damned love story. She’d never felt drawn to anyone like she was to Adella. And it must mean something that even after spending much of the day together and having had their first fight, Adella wanted to see her again so soon.
She wasn’t sure what it meant, but it was definitely something.
Gods and devils, she was doomed.
Chapter Eight
Adella breathed a little easier in the outside air. The evening wasn’t as cold as she’d feared, though she was happy she’d worn woolen tights under her simple dress and a thick jacket on top. Gisele and Zara had opted for trousers, but Adella feared getting used to them and then having to force herself into her opulent gowns for work. Opulent trousers would be nice, but they didn’t seem to exist. The upper classes thought them too common. She’d often wondered if the hose and ankle-length dalmatica favored mostly by noblemen was more comfortable, but it seemed like another dress cast in a slightly different shape.
A slightly plainer, straighter shape meant to flatter those without hips. If she had to deal with the length of a dress, she might as well go as fancy as possible.
