She swept off before Vocho could even let out a bewildered “What?” only to stop before she got to the door. Her face went from serene to fake-girlish, and she fluttered her eyelashes most unconvincingly. “I shall tell all my friends about this. The day I met the great duellist! We sat at the same table, and everything.”
Vocho sat for a few moments, trying to think, but he couldn’t make any sense of the encounter apart from that she’d made him uneasy.
She was dangerous, he knew that well enough. As soon as Kacha, Dom and Cospel came back, they were moving to another inn or maybe some lodgings somewhere out of the way or out of Reyes entirely while they worked out how they’d warn the prelate or whether it might be better to just cut and run. Besides he was still feeling as though someone was watching him. Ridiculous because in a city the size of Reyes Egimont would never find them if he searched all year, except he’d found them at the tavern, and how had he managed that? Vocho fought the urge to look over his shoulder every other step as he went up the stairs and only barely won.
It didn’t get much better when he got into his room, because Kacha was there pacing up and down by the lamp, and as soon as he entered she launched into him.
“What in seven hells did you think you were doing?”
He was feeling a bit fragile as it was, and her question only confused him more. “Well, I thought if I dealt with Eggy, you could get away and—”
“Not that, you idiot.” That stung. It was what Da had always called him instead of his name, but Kacha was his daughter in more ways than one. She stalked up to Vocho, her hand tight on the hilt of her sword, lips white with rage. That’s what happened when she was really pissed off. At least she had no belt like Da, and he could take her in a sword fight if he had to, and it looked like he might have to.
She gave him a prod in the chest with a finger like a small dagger and he dropped into a chair. She took a step back and a deep breath, and took her hand away from her sword. It was only then Vocho realised that she’d actually thought about using it.
“Sendoa. Every time I asked, you swore, you swore it wasn’t you. And fool that I was, I believed you, I stood up for you. But you never said exactly what did happen, did you? No, you skirted around it in typical Vocho fashion, and I didn’t push because, well, because I thought you hadn’t done it and I knew whatever you did say would only be a lie. Well, I’m pushing now. Tell me. Everything. And tell it true, or I swear by the Clockwork God’s mechanical heart I will tie you up and take you to Petri myself.”
He looked at her for long ticks of the clock, at the doubt behind her eyes. She’d never doubted him before, not once, and it was shame that had kept his mouth clamped shut.
“I don’t know everything. It’s true – I swear it!”
“Then tell me what you do know. Like about these gambling debts of yours.”
“Ah.”
“Yes. ‘Ah.’ Well?”
Vocho turned on his considerable charm and a smile that could have felled angels at twenty paces. Not that it would get him anywhere with Kacha, who knew him far too well, but old habits died hard. “They aren’t that bad, really. A few bulls here and there. I… Actually that’s another thing I don’t really recall.” Which was odd. He could remember some of it, but bits were missing, big bits too. The weeks before Sendoa were a blurry mess.
“How many is ‘a few bulls’? Because I heard that not only is it a lot more than a few and not only do you owe people who you really don’t want to owe money to, but that’s why you sold out your job, Voch, sold out the guild, your name, everything. Why you sold us out.”
He opened his mouth to say something, though only the Clockwork God knew what, but his left eye started twitching.
“You lied to me the whole time, didn’t you?” Kacha said, her voice cold and quiet now, silent ice waiting for a wrong step to send a man sprawling.