Chapter 4: The Marquise and I
“Stop doing that,” snapped Clev. “That thing where you arrange things.”
“You’re welcome to sort it all out with Raffertys before we get back,” replied Aaron, who remembered another conversation with Clev. They’d been on a pew up in the church to Man’s God, and there’d been Clev’s feet in his lap, and Clev had been talking about how someone needed to take charge down here. He certainly seemed cozy with Twokin’s best healer and their only blacksmith, which was a decent enough start to controlling the things that mattered. If he’d followed through, though, there’d likely have been fewer guards with the Raffertys’ colors knifed into their backs.
“Is that a thing he does often? Arrange things?” asked Lochlann, who may have been thinking of certain recent arrangements between the Lord of Seasons and the enclavers, which Aaron had only hurried along.
“He’d tell you no,” the stoat doppel said.
“Can we focus, here?” said Aaron. “We need the rats to work with us. And they will, if we get to them first.”
Clev was smiling so broad it looked like his jaw had locked. “They haven’t been working with the Raffertys. But you always were the peacemaker. Glad to be back, Aaron?”
“Not particularly.”
And why the stoat doppel looked stung at that, why he tsked and turned his gaze to the side, Aaron didn’t want to know.
Things would be easier if Rose didn’t care about her uptowners dying; if he only had to worry about their own little group. But she did, which made this his mess to arrange for her, if no one else was going to.