City of Spells (Into the Crooked Place #2) - Alexandra Christo Page 0,86
her anti-black-magic campaigning, I’d think the last thing she’d want to do is team up with people like us.”
Wesley adjusted his bow tie. Played with the newly polished cuff links on his sleeves. He hadn’t felt so anxious in a while, or so desperate to hide any doubts in his eyes.
“You’d be surprised what people agree to when their life is on the line,” he said.
“Like meeting an underboss and a busker who she would’ve thrown in jail just a few months ago,” Saxony said, with a pointed glance at Tavia.
“Or a group of Crafters, when Ashwood’s army is littered with them,” Tavia shot back.
Wesley wasn’t in the mood for more of their sniping and he definitely wasn’t in the mood to ask either of them about their problems. But Doyen Fenna Schulze had to see them as a united front, because trusting an underboss and his new Crafter friends was one thing, but trusting a fractured army who couldn’t even seem to trust each other was even riskier. It was something only somebody very stupid would do.
And Schulze wasn’t stupid.
“For the love of the Many Gods and my patience,” Wesley said, looking between Tavia and Saxony. “Would you two sort out your issues?”
“I don’t have issues,” Tavia said. “I’m just—”
“Pissed that Saxony tried to double-cross us back in Creije,” Wesley finished. “I wasn’t exactly happy about it at the time either, but she was trying to kill me, not you. And it wasn’t her fault that Ashwood intercepted her delg bats or that Zekia took me captive.”
Tavia started to argue, because that was what she was best at, but it was Saxony who spoke first.
“I never wanted any of that to happen,” she said.”But I can’t spend the rest of my life saying sorry.”
“You’re just as bad,” Wesley told her. “You need to stop second-guessing every choice Tavia makes. You’re a Liege now, but you’re not a wise old warrior. You both have the same experience, especially when it comes to getting on my damn nerves. So kiss and make up already.”
Wesley tugged on his lapels, trying to contain his frustration. He’d survived being tortured for weeks and he still forced his chin up. If he could pretend everything was okay, then the least everyone else could do was follow his example.
“I have been trying to fix them for a while now,” Karam said. “But they both enjoy the sound of their own voices. I suppose they learned that from you.”
Wesley touched his chest, affronted.
Tavia cast a glance at Saxony. “I’m not going to say Wesley is right, because I’d never say that. But I know that not everything that goes wrong is your fault,” she said. “And I haven’t exactly been the best company.”
“You’re a busker,” Saxony said, with a playful smile. “You can’t help but be annoying.”
Tavia narrowed her eyes, but she didn’t seem to be offended. Barbs and insults were a language she understood, the same as Wesley. Growing up on the streets of Creije, being vulnerable often got you killed. Being a bastard often saved your life. And so it was easier to joke than it was to bare your soul to someone.
It was easier to be hated than loved.
Wesley knew that better than anyone.
“Great,” he said. “Now let’s present a united front and try to convince Schulze that she can trust us.”
Saxony folded her arms across her chest and reclined back in her chair, to signal how much of a pain in the ass she was about to be. “She should be convincing us to trust her, after all her government has done to fail Crafters.”
“She’s a politician,” Tavia said. “They’re basically crooks in their own right.”
“So we’ll have something in common, then,” Wesley said. “That should help us join together to stop anyone else from being killed. We are all agreed that dying would be bad, right?”
It was supposed to be a joke, but the mood in the room turned even more somber and Karam stole a glance at Tavia that Wesley did not like. Especially since Tavia then looked pointedly away, in a direction that had no chance of meeting Karam’s stare.
Wesley only liked secrets when he was the one uncovering them. And he especially hated secrets when it came to Tavia.
“Yeah,” Tavia said. “Dying would suck.”
She smiled at Wesley, in the lying way he’d taught her to when they were kids and she needed to get one over on the old underboss.
“Thankfully we’re all pretty good at cheating death,” she said.