Arc 7: Chapter 8: The Friar’s Tale
They’d started cleaning up the bodies by the time we returned, piling them outside in the cold where the frigid air would keep them from rotting. I tried not to think too hard about that.
Of Eilidh, I saw no sign other than a pool of blood already drying by the wall. Neither did I find the Keeper or Vicar at first. Many of the guests who’d been present when the attack started and some of the whores and hired hands were gathered in one big group, talking. They quieted when they saw me, and more than a few wore hard looks. Sans was with them.
“Do not mind them,” Saska muttered to me. “They know what you once were, and what you are now, and they feel resentment. They believe you are a threat to this place.”
“Then why do you and Falstaff keep letting me back in here?” I asked.
“The Keeper believes you are useful. He is more wary of the Credo Ferrum and the faeries, and feels your mixed loyalties make you a potential friend.”
“I’ll never be that man’s friend,” I said with more heat than I meant to.
Saska’s eyes danced. “Because you watched him fondle me while you still thought I was a helpless waif? That was a fun day. The look on your face!”
I scowled, which made her grin wider. That disconcerted me. Shouldn’t she be more wary now that I’d caught a glimpse of her true form? But she acted normal, like she didn’t care. Perhaps she didn’t, or simply didn’t fear me.
She’d sent a member of the Choir running, so I highly doubted she feared me.
I couldn’t share in the attempt at humor. I’d just stood by while a Thing of Darkness had wounded one of the God-Queen’s own angels. The ramifications of that…
Saska ushered me into one of the rooms behind the bar. I recognized it as the same private lounge where I’d met her originally. The Keeper waited inside, seated on a couch while Renuart Kross sat on another of the seats arrayed around a low table.