shirt.”
Only Josette was waiting for me in my room.
“My dear!” Caius exclaimed, but I shut the door neatly before he could get anything else out. Hopefully I got him right on the nose.
“You,” Josette said, “are causing so much trouble.”
“It’s Greylace,” I replied. I didn’t want to be rude, but how’d she got herself in, anyway? Besides which, I needed a new shirt, and I didn’t like the way she was looking at me. Like I had done something wrong, and that wasn’t the sort of situation in which I could feign ignorance. “He’s trouble, that one.”
“So are you,” Josette said. “These are important diplomatic proceedings. I’m not sure if you’re aware of it, but if things fall through here, we’re in a great deal of trouble.”
“Politicians,” I muttered, busying myself with whatever was in the closet. In the time I’d been there, Caius Greylace had slowly been infiltrating my wardrobe. There were all kinds of silks I didn’t recognize. I just wanted a shirt, damn it all, made of cotton, that I wouldn’t feel bad tearing or dribbling on. Something that felt like home and a little bit like me, and if it made the others stare, I didn’t mind one whit. “All this didn’t matter in the field, you know.”
“I wasn’t aware we were in the field any longer,” Josette replied neatly. “Unless of course you are intending to place us back there—but I myself would prefer a bit of peace.”
“Peace,” I said. I didn’t know exactly what I meant by it, though. Peace was supposed to come hand in hand with quiet, but I certainly hadn’t gotten any of that. Peace was supposed to be home: going back to the farm, maybe, and feeding the chickens, who never told you that what you were wearing was “all wrong.” Instead, I’d somehow distinguished myself to th’Esar in a way that stuck me with a vacation across the mountains, and it was really starting to irritate me. There had to be more people than just me with a Talent no one knew about. I was getting really sick of being some kind of ace up th’Esar’s sleeve.
“Yes,” Josette replied. “Peace. Which we haven’t brokered yet. If you’re going to be angry, be angry with our ineffectiveness here, not with the ideal.”
I supposed she was right.
“I’ve got to change,” I said, at a loss.
“Fine by me,” Josette replied. “I hear from Lord Temur that Lord Greylace was very interested yesterday in what performances there were down in the city. Would you know anything about that?”
“Theatre,” I said. “Not my thing.”
If she wasn’t going to leave, I couldn’t just keep standing there doing nothing, shirt in hand, like a dumb ox. If she wasn’t going to leave, I was just going to have to change right here in front of her. She was a fine, strong woman. She could handle it.
I put my hand on the top button, almost a warning, to see what she would do.
“I’m trying to decide,” Josette continued, as though she hadn’t even noticed, “whether trouble follows you around—whether you are the most unlucky man I’ve ever met—or whether you are the one who causes it.”
“I speak my mind,” I countered, lamely. “I won’t sugarcoat who I am for these fucking—”
“Temper,” Josette interrupted. “I understand your position, Alcibiades; I truly do. You were an unfortunate choice for this mission, but that doesn’t mean I will allow you to run amok, like a bull in a china shop, tearing everything down around you. What I can’t decide,” she added, softening, “is whether Caius is the one waving about the red flag. No pun on colors intended, I assure you.”
“Ah,” I said, feeling helpless. I wished Caius were there. He would have done all the talking, and they could have left me out of it. “Well.”
“Not that I believe seeing a play is something to be condemned,” Josette concluded. “I just wished you’d thought to invite me, that’s all. Are you going to change, or are you just going to stand there staring at me?”
Diplomats, I told myself. Politicians. Talents. I’d rather have chickens any day, and I didn’t care who looked twice at me about my preferences.
“Change,” I said. “Right.” Might as well actually use one of the standing screens—even if it did cut off right around my armpits, made for a smaller man than I, and one who liked floral patterns more. I stepped behind it and changed without looking at her—why was she still there, I