I wisely decided not to ponder that question. The answer could've been scary.
I went through the door. He pushed the door shut and caught up with me.
"Are we busted? Did you make them pack up and go home?"
"You're definitely busted. And no. I'm fighting with you."
I stopped and looked at him.
"With us? In the Pit?"
"Yes. Not good enough for you? Would you prefer Saiman?"
Mmm, Beast Lord the God Killer versus the hysterical Frost Giant. Was that even a choice?
"But what about Andorf and the first law?"
"What about Andorf?" he asked.
"Did you really take him down at fifteen years old?" I just blurted it out.
"Yes."
No smart follow-up came to mind. We turned the corner, and I saw Cesare at the end of the hallway.
I stopped. I wanted Cesare so bad I could taste his blood on my lips. Curran looked at me.
"He supervised Derek's beating," I said softly.
Curran's eyes went gold.
If we went after him now, we'd be disqualified. Oh, but we both wanted to kill him. Very, very much.
Cesare turned, saw us, and stumbled. For a moment he froze, caught like a deer in the headlights, and then he ducked into a room.
I turned and went into our quarters. Curran didn't follow.
Andrea greeted me with a wave. She sat on a bench, a variety of strange mechanical parts, which no doubt combined into a deadly firearm, spread before her on a white towel. I sat next to her.
"Where is everybody?"
"Hiding," she said. "Except for Doolittle. He was excused from the chewing-out due to having been kidnapped. He's napping now like he doesn't have a care in the world. I got to hear all sorts of interesting stuff through the door."
"Give."
She shot me a sly smile. "First, I got to listen to Jim's 'it's all my fault; I did it all by myself'
speech. Then I got to listen to Derek's 'it's all my fault and I did it all by myself' speech.
Then Curran promised that the next person who wanted to be a martyr would get to be one.
Then Raphael made a very growling speech about how he was here for a blood debt. It was his right to have restitution for the injury caused to the friend of the boudas; it was in the damn clan charter on such and such page. And if Curran wanted to have an issue with it, they could take it outside. It was terribly dramatic and ridiculous. I loved it."
I could actually picture Curran sitting there, his hand on his forehead above his closed eyes, growling quietly in his throat.
"Then Dali told him that she was sick and tired of being treated like she was made out of glass and she wanted blood and to kick ass."
That would do him in. "So what did he say?"
"He didn't say anything for about a minute and then he chewed them out. He told Derek that he'd been irresponsible with Livie's life, and that if he was going to rescue somebody, the least he could do is to have a workable plan, instead of a poorly thought-out mess that backfired and broke just about every Pack law and got his face smashed in. He told Dali that if she wanted to be taken seriously, she had to accept responsibility for her own actions instead of pretending to be weak and helpless every time she got in trouble and that this was definitely not the venue to prove one's toughness. Apparently he didn't think her behavior was cute when she was fifteen and he's not inclined to tolerate it now that she's twenty-eight."
I was cracking up.
"He told Raphael that the blood debt overrode Pack law only in cases of murder or life-threatening injury and quoted the page of the clan charter and the section number where that could be found. He said that frivolous challenges to the alpha also violated Pack law and were punishable by isolation. It was an awesome smackdown. They had no asses left when he was done."
Andrea began snapping the gun parts together. "Then he sentenced the three of them and himself to eight weeks of hard labor, building the north wing addition to the Keep, and dismissed them. They ran out of there like their hair was on fire."
"He sentenced himself?"
"He's broken Pack law by participating in our silliness, apparently."