Jack choked out a laugh. "Stupid question. Yes. It looks bad." Jack set the basin on the stool and crouched beside it, unfolding a clean muslin towel over his knee. He glanced at the half-open curtain and switched from Spanish to Greek. "I thought these would do for bandages. The ship's medic was significantly absent from the surgery. If you still need bandages, after—how much do you need?"
"No, Jack."
"It's not open for discussion. I'll be fine—"
"Jack," Sebastien said, softly, "you were beautiful down there. You were fierce and wonderful and I in no wise deserve you"—Jack snorted, in that inelegant manner he reserved for Sebastien alone—"and I will not risk you that way. Two days is too soon."
"You haven't another option," Jack said. He tore a strip of toweling and folded it in a pad. Leptodactylous fingers broke the surface of the water in the basin as he wet it. "Come here into the light, so I can see what I'm doing."
Sebastien came forward and dropped a knee beside the stool. Jack tilted his face up left-handed and dabbed with the cloth held in the right. The cool water was soothing, though Sebastien winced as ruined flesh rubbed free of raw new skin. "I do have."
"Have what?"
"An option," Sebastien said. He paused, too long. Jack was already tensing in protest when he finished, "Will you take a message to Miss Meadows for me, Jack my love?"
Silence.
"Jack?"
"Damn you," Jack said, and wet the cloth again.
* * *
Perhaps Sebastien had been foolish in expecting Miss Meadows to meet him alone. Instead, she came to his rooms attended not just by Jack-as-guide, but also in the company of Virgil Allen.
Sebastien was warned of their arrival by brief, firm words exchanged with the ludicrous corridor guard. He didn't catch what was said, but the tone in Miss Meadows' voice was enough to coerce her way through, Jack and Mr. Allen beside her.
Allen entered the cabin without knocking and took a post in the corner by the foot of the bunks, stern and glowering under his moustaches. Sebastien was cognizant of the bulky weight in the South Carolinian's coat pocket. A revolver, no doubt, suitable for a well-armed American gentleman.
The advisability of carrying firearms on a hydrogen-filled airship aside, Sebastien could muster no more than an inward shrug for the weapon.
If Allen felt the need to shoot him, it would sting less than Korvin's sun-charged lens.
"Señor de Ulloa," Miss Meadows said. She paused with the curtain in one hand, Jack behind her in the hall, and framed herself in the doorway with an actress's trained unconscious grace. "I am sorry for your injury." She eyed his face. "Although it seems much improved."
"Not without cost," he said. He swayed when he stood, and steadied himself against the bedframe. He was lightheaded, his stomach cramping. Behind Miss Meadows, Jack shifted from foot to foot, barely restraining himself. "Miss Meadows," Sebastien continued, "I am uncomfortable in bringing this up again, especially in the wake of my earlier refusal. . .."
She stepped into the cabin, holding the curtain until Jack relieved her of it, while appearing not to notice him at all. Sebastien swallowed on a growl, but made a point of meeting Jack's eyes over her shoulder. Jack bit his lip and turned away.
As for Miss Meadows, she stripped her gloves off with a negligent
gesture and shrugged under her jacket. Gracious in victory, she smiled. "I understand," she said. "Our needs may change unexpectedly."
She turned to the left and Allen was there, waiting to take her gloves from her hand. She laid them across his palm, and began unbuttoning her collar as Jack stepped into the cabin and let the curtain fall.
It was crowded and close, four people in the tiny room, and Sebastien considered himself fortunate that he did not require breath except for speech, or to detect scents.
"Would you prefer privacy?" Sebastien asked.
Again, Miss Meadows deployed that studied shrug. "Señor, as long as the cameras are not rolling, this is privacy."
She slid her jacket off and gave that to Allen as well. His face might have been a plaster mask; his expression was frozen in lines stretching from the corners of his nose to the corners of his mouth. Even Jack's irritated frown was more mobile.
"And you are not new to this?"
Jack made a small noise of protest and folded his arms, turning to face the door like a eunuch guarding a harem. The set of his shoulders said everything he bit