“I’m not your lord, but I could be.”
He said it like a come-on, but there was a threat wrapped in that smoldering voice. The faster we got down to the city, the safer Lute and I would be.
“What were you doing at the Harzi house?” I kept my voice light.
“They have something that doesn’t belong to them. I came to retrieve it.”
“In the middle of the night?”
“It seemed like the best option at the time.”
“You’re clearly a man of some means, although the quality of your wig and beard says otherwise. Why not simply bargain with them for it?”
He smiled. “I see my disguise has failed to impress.”
And he had ducked the question.
“It would be better if the beard matched your eyebrows.”
He chuckled softly. “Do you prefer me clean-shaven, my lady?”
I had to string him along until we reached the main street. “I do.”
He peeled the beard off and tossed it aside. “Better?”
He was a dangerous, scary bastard, but damn, that face. “Yes.”
“What were you doing at the Harzi house?”
“Buying a mordok.”
I pointed at the beast perching on the pauldron on my shoulder. The mordok promptly bit my finger.
“Ow!” I jerked my hand back. Blood swelled on my skin. That was the second time she’d bitten me today.
The man from the Garden laughed. “Adorable. What’s her name?”
“Tzeri.”
“How in the world did you convince the Harzi to sell you an animal? They do not trade with the likes of us.”
“They do if the price is right. The beastmaster was overjoyed to be rid of her. He told me not to bring her back.”
“I can’t imagine why.”
We were almost to the main road. I could see it below us. People walked across it, heading to the bridge connecting Old Town with the rest of Kair Toren.
“Every time we meet, you’ve risen in station,” the man said.
“How so?”
“In the Garden you looked like a beggar, then a servant; in the market like a merchant’s wife; and now you look like a noblewoman. I can’t wait to see what will come next. The colors of a Great Family, perhaps?”
“Perhaps.” Keeping it cool and noncommittal, that’s me.
“And then there is the other thing,” he mused.
“What is it?”
