Rinka made her way to the carriage where she’d thrown her trunk, ignoring the stares and frightened comments of the passengers. She retrieved a clean dress, a pretty yellow number she’d made herself after admiring a similar one in a shop window.
After she had changed in the water closet, she retrieved her sewing kit from her trunk. Mending Drystan’s clothes would give her something to pass the time, and it would repay him for his kindness.
“That’s better,” she said when she returned. His eyes lingered on her, but there was no hint of mockery in them. “Now, off with your trousers.”
“Excuse me?” Drystan’s face registered genuine surprise.
“Your trousers,” repeated Rinka. She shook the sewing kit in its biscuit tin, the notions and needles rattling.
Rinka studied the torn trousers as he considered her offer, assessing where to start. But there was something odd about them. There were rips and small holes, but not in the places you would expect. Rinka had mended enough of Alison’s trousers to know that the fabric usually wore along the cuffs and the seams, and sometimes at the knee. The imperfections in Drystan’s trousers were in the good, strong parts of the fabric that rarely caused Alison trouble. It was almost as if they’d been placed there on purpose.
Almost like a costume.
There was something about him that didn’t make sense. The clothes and the bag at his feet were too exaggerated in their humble appearance to have belonged to someone truly down on their luck. And Rinka had known few of even the lowest stature in society who did not take some pride in their appearance. Especially rare were those who would take the trouble to shave their faces but not wash their hair. “You’re sure you’re not from the picture shows? What about the theatre—"
“Tickets!” Rinka’s line of inquiry was cut off by the ticket taker’s arrival in the carriage. Luckily, Alison had prepared her for this possibility. Rinka reached into her satchel and withdrew her ticket, frowning at the bloodstain.
Beside her, Drystan tensed. He didn’t reach into his pockets or make a move at all.
He didn’t have a ticket, she realized.
Rinka knew she should be suspicious of him. He had jumped onto the rail-wheeler without a ticket, and the handkerchief he’d offered her was likely stolen. She knew exactly what her mother would say: “He’s an unsavory sort, and King Derkomai’s finest will see that he gets what’s coming to him.”
But Rinka didn’t want to see the only person who had helped her thrown off the rail-wheeler. And if that made her naïve, so be it.
“I know,” she whispered to him. “We’ll just say that you lost your ticket when you were helping me onboard.”
“That’s very kind of you,” he said. He smiled at her. “But I’ll handle this.”
Rinka didn’t have time to imagine what he meant before the ticket-taker had arrived.
“Tickets, please.”
Rinka handed over her ticket. “Sorry about the blood,” she began, but the ticket-taker had already marked it and returned it to her.
She held her breath as she watched Drystan slip something to the ticket-taker she could not see.
“Of course, sir,” said the ticket-taker, winking at Drystan. “Have a good day.”
“What was that? What did you—”
Drystan pressed his index finger to his lips. A bribe, perhaps? But if he could afford to bribe the ticket-taker, why not just pay for a ticket?
“Who are you?” Rinka whispered, only it came out so loudly half the carriage turned to look. “Are you a criminal?”
At this, Drystan laughed. “Do you always ask suspicious men if they’re criminals?”
“Only if they’re behaving like criminals.”
He turned to her, his shoulder blocking her view of the aisle. “Is that really your best theory? An actor or a criminal?”
Rinka stared at Drystan for a long moment, failing to understand his meaning.
Then it hit her.
“You really are someone else, aren’t you?”
He shrugged a single shoulder as if to say he could neither confirm nor deny it, but there was a playful intensity in his eyes that gave him away.
