“You looked pensive,” she said.
Cassian raised a brow. “Now more than any other time?”
“Yes, actually. You have for the past few days.” She settled herself on the edge of the desk, one leg swinging. “You always do after Roget’s been and gone, but this time it’s lasted longer. You didn’t come to the morning meal, nor the noontime. It’s not like you to miss meals.”
He broke off another piece of simplebread and buttered this one thickly before biting. “I’ve been busy. No more than that.”
Her wordless murmur didn’t sound convinced. Cassian forced himself to meet her gaze so she couldn’t accuse him of looking away. Serenity looked back.
“Roget has ever been my friend,” Cassian said at last.
“Friends are those who feel comfortable in telling us what they think we need to hear, not always what pleases us.”
Cassian scowled. “At what point are you pressing?”
Serenity smiled at his irritation. “I believe you’ve spent so long in the company of women whose duty is to not pluck that you’ve grown too accustomed to never being so poked.”
“I assure you, I’ve plenty of thorns pricking me on a daily basis.”
She laughed. “Ah, but a flower is made more beautiful by its thorns.”
A sharp crack against the glass turned both their heads. He was at the window before she could get there. The glass hadn’t chipped but rattled a little more loosely in the wooden frame than it might have moments before. He saw naught but the kick of small feet and dust as whatever creature had lobbed the ball ran away, leaving it behind. Serenity peered over his shoulder and stayed at the window some moments longer as Cassian returned to his desk.
“Was that Kellen?”
“I would guess so. Him or his conspirator.”
She laughed gently. “They’re hardly that. Lads only, and young at that. They’ve little enough time to play, much less conspire. You should talk with them about the consequences of carelessness.”
He sat back in his chair with a lifted brow. “I wasn’t aware they were my responsibility.”
“Cassian,” Serenity chided and returned to her spot on his desk’s corner. “I love to dance as much as any, but the steps of this gavotte are tiresome.”
He pushed the basket of simplebread back toward her. “Did you come to bribe me into giggling over my secrets with you? Because it won’t work.”
“Because you can’t be bribed?”
“Because,” he said, “I have no secrets.”
Serenity shook her head. “How long have I known you?”
“I don’t keep count of such things.” He crossed his arms and put his feet up on the desk, already knowing her reply.
“A long time. Since before you were a priest and I a Handmaiden. Do you forget we have also been longtime friends?”
“As I said. No secrets.”
“Not from me. Not from Roget. But . . . there are others from whom you’ve kept much.”
He looked toward the window without meaning to and bit down on the inside of his cheek at Serenity’s triumphant look. “You speak of the boy.”
“I do.”
He shook his head, silent.
She sighed and pulled a hunk of simplebread from the loaf. Forgoing butter, she bit, then winced and swallowed. “Invisible Mother, that’s dry. No solace to be gained from that, to be sure.”
“Butter helps.”
She put the bread down and hitched closer to him. “Would it be so difficult for you to acknowledge him?”
“To what end?”
“A boy needs a—”
“Hush,” Cassian ordered. “If you would seek to truly be my friend, hold your tongue.”
“The influence of a man,” Serenity said. “Kellen is a bright lad, with much promise. A true Blessing, Cassian.”
She knew as well as he the boy might not be a Blessing, really, for any reason other than fortuitous timing. Cassian closed the text he’d been pretending to study when she came in. Serenity stared at it, then him.
“Have you no desire at all to know him?”
“I know him as well as I need to know him.”
Serenity sighed again. “She’s not coming back, you know.”
At this he stood so suddenly the chair flew back and hit the wall behind him. “You and Roget! Are you in league with him?”
Startled, Serenity hopped off the desk and landed on her twisted leg. She almost fell but righted herself with a grip on the desk. Frowning, she focused on him.
“If he said the same, it’s because we both speak the truth. Bertricia isn’t coming back to the Motherhouse. Kellen needs a parent. You’re the one he has!”
There it was between them. Cassian sewed his mouth closed on a retort and jerked away when Serenity came ’round the desk to touch his sleeve. He refused to look at her, as well, no matter what she might accuse.
He moved from her to stalk toward the closet at the back of the room and return the text. “You can’t know it.”
“
She
believes it.”
This stopped him, and he turned. “She’s been in contact with you?”
Serenity nodded after half a breath. “She writes to me upon occasion.”
“What does she say?”
“What do women say when they write to each other?”
He kept his mouth from a sneer only by forcing himself to blankness. “I’m not a woman beginning or end, Sarenissa. I don’t know.”
If the use of her name from before her life in the Order startled her, she didn’t show it. “She writes of daily charms. Of the weather, of conversation. Of her life, Cassian. Her happy life.”
He swallowed a rush of bitterness. “Not of . . .”
Me
, he’d almost said and choked it back.
“Not of the boy? No. She knows he is in good care, here. And she has . . .” Serenity hesitated for longer this time.
He turned to face her. “What? Don’t call yourself my friend and then not finish. Tell me.”
“She has someone, Cassian.”
“Yes. A patron. I know.”
It was Serenity’s turn to shake her head. “Not only a patron.”
He could no longer keep his neutral mask. The sneer twisted his mouth, and Cassian covered it with one hand, but only for a moment. The taste of simplebread crumbs turned his stomach.
“She’s not coming back, and even if she did, what would you do?”
“I would . . .” He cleared his throat and then again. The chime had sounded for the afternoon lesson. They wouldn’t be alone for much longer.
Serenity gazed at him overlong before she sighed again. “You would what?”
“I would ask her to forgive me.”
She showed no surprise at his words. She nodded as the door opened and young women, led by their chatter, began to enter. She moved closer to touch his sleeve only, knowing him well enough not to try for a more intimate embrace than that.
“How could she, when you won’t forgive yourself?”
Then with another tug on his sleeve, Serenity moved through the gaggle of novitiates and out of the room. Cassian watched her go. He folded the towel over the remains of the simplebread. He smoothed the front of his jacket, though nary a wrinkle dared mar it.
He faced the room.
“Good afternoon, Master Toquin,” Wandalette said cheerfully.
“Good afternoon, Wandalette.” His voice, steady, betrayed nothing, yet she looked at him with some astonishment. “Yes?”
“You . . .” she hesitated.
Cassian, having no more patience today than any other, and in fact in possession of rather less, raised a brow. “Yes?”
“You never say good afternoon, or call us by our names!”
“Pull out your texts,” came his reply. And then, spying her at the back of the room, “Ah, Mistress Marony. I believe I’ve a chore for you today, after class.”
She nodded. Neither of them gave any indication they noticed the low buzz his words had produced among the other novitiates. Annalise looked at him from across the room, her pale eyes heavy lidded and thoughtful, and then she turned her attention to the book in front of her as though she might study the words he knew full well she’d long ago memorized.
Roget’s accusation that he never faced temptation had shamed Cassian into asking Annalise to assist him, and now Serenity had forced him to thinking of much he didn’t wish to know. He was in no mood to parry with Annalise, but it had been done and there was no going back now. Roget would be back again in a sixmonth or so, on his rounds to serve at all the Sisterhouses. By then the woman would be gone, one way or another.
Cassian had meant what he said when he told Annalise he didn’t believe she’d ever be granted a patron. She was not the sort to bend. The question, therefore, was would she break, instead?
Chapter 13
T
heir time with him ended, the other novitiates left for the afternoon service with backward glances and hushed speculation Annalise ignored. Only when the door had closed behind them did she move to the front of the room, where he sat behind his desk. He’d been staring out the window the entire time.
“You needed me?”
“I need your assistance.” Toquin gestured toward the closet at the back of the room. “We have texts to sort, I believe.”
Annalise looked toward the closet, then at him. “Why now?”
His brow furrowed. “Plead your mercy?”
“Why do you want to sort them now, when you did not before?”
“Why do you question what I want and what I don’t?”
She smiled at the rise in his inflection. He was not so cold as he’d like to feign. The question would be whether prodding him to anger would be better than enduring his disdain.
“Because I am insufferable,” she suggested.
Toquin stared a long moment before answering. “You take pride in being so?”
“Should one take pride for what one cannot take credit?” Annalise asked coyly, testing him further with a drop of her lashes, the slightest jut of her hip.
Ah. He noticed that, sure enough, for his eyes narrowed and his mouth thinned just the barest bit. He noticed, and did not like it. It was different, his reaction, not the bored irritation the others wrung from him.
“You claim no credit is yours, yet you could change that quality.”
“Oh, I’ve tried, with little luck. It’s going to be the most difficult task I’ve faced here,” she told him honestly, yet with the intention of teasing. “Perhaps that and . . . humility. Perhaps that, too.”
“So much for proving me wrong.”
Ah, that slap stung, and was well-deserved. “I spoke out of turn that day.”
“Only that one?” He got to his feet, big boots thumping the boards.
He smoothed the front of his jacket, toying briefly with the flash of red at his throat and then at the sleeves, pulling them to fully cover his wrists. He was meticulous in his grooming, but Annalise thought it was meant to distract her more than tidy himself.
Distract her from what?
“Why do you wear that?” She pointed at his jacket.
Toquin looked at himself, then at her. “Why do you wear that?”
“It’s what I’ve been assigned to wear. It’s a uniform.”
“So is my choice of garment.”
She laughed. “Really? A uniform for what? Is that what men would wear if they allowed them to join the Order instead of merely working for it?”
Incredibly, he laughed. So briefly it might have been a sneeze, but nevertheless, a chuckle. Toquin looked as surprised as Annalise felt.
“It could be. I find it . . . comfortable.”
“It’s not fashionable, that’s for sure. Though I’m fair certain you might set such a fashion should you ever present yourself in finer company than what you find here.” She looked him up and down. “It suits you.”
“I find the company in the Motherhouse as nice as any.”
“Ah, you’d have me think you’ve had other company then, sir, and I know for a fact this is untrue.” Annalise leaned against his desk, her fingers gripping the polished wood and the edge of it firm against the backs of her thighs.
“I have company enough. The closet, Mistress Marony.”
She sighed. “It excuses me from afternoon services, yes?”
“Do you wish to be so excused?”
“I do indeed.” She lowered her voice as though to tell a secret, when in fact she meant only to encourage him to lean. “I find myself fair weary of them, altogether.”
He made a noncommittal noise and did not lean as she’d hoped. “Your presence is not required at services.”
“But everyone stares if you don’t attend.”
One corner of his mouth twitched. “How can they stare if you’re not in attendance?”
“They stare later, and drop remarks about how much you were missed. Women have a way of cutting to the quick of things with even a dull blade.”
“Indeed.” He looked over her shoulder. “The closet? Must I remind you of your task?”
“You might show me to refresh my memory,” she said, though she needed no such thing.
Toquin sighed, broad shoulders rising and falling. “You’d have me believe you need instruction now? I am to believe such a charade? Tell me, think you I’m a fool?”
“I think you’d like to tell me how you wish the books sorted, and I fully believe you’d leap at the chance to chastise me for doing it in any way but yours.”
Ah, she had him, now. He bristled for a moment before smoothing his features. He moved a little closer and she kept her smile from giving away the fact of her small victory.
“You cannot argue with me,” she murmured and this time, he did lean. Just a bit. “You know it’s true.”
His fingers twitched, not quite fisting. Annalise bit her lower lip and kept her eyes innocent. He narrowed his. He knew her game, she thought with a small tingle of expectation. But would he play it?
“Come into the closet with me, and I will show you how I wish the task to be completed.”
She nodded and waited until he’d brushed past her before she followed. Inside the closet, he turned to face her. He put a hand on the shelf at the level of her hip. His fingertips brushed the stack of texts. Annalise moved a little closer.