Total pages in book: 142
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 134898 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 674(@200wpm)___ 540(@250wpm)___ 450(@300wpm)
Sure enough, she gets flustered, her face turning red. “Oh. I just…” She waves a hand at her own eyes. “I just recognized that the skin around your eyes seemed pinker than the rest of your flesh. I assumed it was a burn.”
I grunt, on edge. “My, you are observant.”
And I wonder what other secrets she’s keeping. All my suspicions are focusing on her. If it turns out that Gwenna’s the thief, I’m going to be truly disappointed because I actually like her. It’s impossible not to like her. Perhaps that’s how she’s slipped under the guild’s noses for so long.
But the thief has been murdering other repeaters. Does Gwenna have what it takes to murder? I don’t think she does, but the more agitated she gets, the more I wonder. If she’s not the killer, it’s possible she knows who it is.
Either way, she bears closer watching.
Eleven
Gwenna
Iwant to kick myself as I go to visit Sparrow the next day. Me and my big fat mouth.
I can’t stop thinking about how I let my stupid guard down, and I let myself relax with Raptor. I let myself tease him back and then I tripped all over myself. He’s never mentioned that he was burned across the eyes. He’s never even acted as if he was injured. Now he’s going to wonder how I know. It was obvious he didn’t buy into my excuse.
If he knew it was me in the hospital, he’d want to know why I fucked him, and I can’t tell him the truth of it. Worse, what if he tells the others? Arrod would never leave me alone. Master Jay might remove me from the team for my relationship with Raptor, even if it was before we fledged. No one can know at all. That’s safest.
Sparrow is at her station in the archives, which is completely unsurprising to me. Forcing her to take a day off would be like punishment. She brightens at the sight of me walking up to her desk, a cat perched on a stack of books next to the parchment she’s writing on. “There you are! How has the first week back as a fledgling been going?”
“It’s interesting,” I say. “Master Jay has a very different mindset compared to Hawk. Did you know he leaves the city every weekend?”
She pets the black cat that walks across her paperwork. “I’d heard something along those lines, aye. Hawk says that the other masters aren’t thrilled that Master Jay abandons his students, but they watch them for him on the weekends. It seems that Master Jay has a long-standing relationship with a farmer’s widow who lives just outside of town. She won’t give up her land because she wants it to go to her children when they’re old enough, and he won’t leave the guild. So they meet up on weekends.”
It changes my opinion of Master Jay, which, up to this point, has been rather sour. “That’s sweet. I like that they both have a life of their own but manage to make it work together.”
She nods, putting the cat on the floor, only for it to jump back onto her desk again. A moment later, a striped tabby joins it, followed by a big black-and-white cat with a stump of a tail. The black-and-white cat takes one look at me and hops into my lap, and I’ve no choice but to pet the beast. I scratch at its ears idly, thinking about guild relationships. Would I be able to only see my husband (if I had one) on the weekends? I suppose if there are children, it’s different, but it makes the week long and lonely.
Sparrow pets the cat closest to her and glances at me. “How is your Five this year? I heard that Lark and Mereden weren’t even at recruitment day. What’s going on there, do you know?”
It’s just the right thing to say to distract me from my troubles. I tell her about Lark and Mereden opting to remain as repeaters, and how they want a baby. How Mereden is going to try to get a position at the healer’s guild. Finally I get to the makeup of my new team. “At least Kipp is with me. It doesn’t feel so strange as long as he’s here.”
“And Raptor,” Sparrow enthuses. “He’s a good friend of Hawk’s and very skilled. Hawk speaks very highly of him.”
Yet Hawk didn’t take Raptor onto his team this year. He said he was supposed to pick new students, but Raptor would have been new, wouldn’t he? Perhaps he felt Raptor didn’t need his help. Whatever it is, I’m not going to complain to Sparrow. She adores her husband, and both of them have always been nothing but fair to me. “Raptor is a shameless flirt,” I tell her, scratching the chin of the cat in my lap. “But he’s also excellent at all the tests Master Jay has set before us. I suspect if we pass this year, it’ll be thanks to him.”