'That's not it at all.'
'Then what?' she demanded.
'I'm not Alister.' His voice was cold and dispassionate. 'I don't need a friend who only tolerates me because I'm the last link to her lover.'
Taya scrambled to her feet.
'Is that what you think I'm doing?'
'It's obvious.'
'Well, you're wrong. First of all, Alister and I never even kissed, so we're hardly lovers, and second of all, you're no link to him at all. Alister might have lied to me, but he was never rude.' Taya jerked around and stormed out of the room, throwing the door open as she went.
'He told me you were lovers!' Cristof shouted, behind her. She ignored him and clattered down the stairs, heading for the foyer and her floating armature.
Like him? Pity him? What in the Lady's name was I thinking?
She grabbed her armature. Forget it. She'd made a heroic effort to be diplomatic, even to be friendly, but she wasn't going to be a masochist about it.
'Icarus?' The servant appeared, hesitating. Taya snapped the keel shut over her chest and began running straps through buckles.
'Tell the exalted I'll meet him at the dock gate at dawn,' she snapped. She heard Cristof descending the staircase. She gave her shoulder straps a yank, eager to be gone.
'What about the University?' Cristof asked, standing in the hallway facing her. His voice was tight. 'I thought we were going to talk to the programmers.'
'Talk to them yourself.' She fixed the last of her buckles and gave him a withering look. 'You don't need me to be your voice, your counselor, or your friend. So I'll give you exactly what you want, exalted. Nothing.'
Cristof gestured to the servant to go. The wide-eyed famulate darted away.
'It's clear I didn't have all the facts. I spoke poorly.'
'Yeah, you've got a real knack for that.' She turned and pushed the doors open. 'Dawn. By the dock gates. And only because I said I would.'
'Taya, wait!'
'Forget it, exalted. You're not the only one in the world whose pride can be wounded.' She headed down the steps, relieved to feel the crisp, cold autumn air on her face and the familiar brush of wind against her arching wings.
After tomorrow, I'm through with this
Reaching the front gate, she pushed it open.
Pyke was right — exalteds are nothing but trouble. I'll take him to the tower for Viera's sake, but that's the end of it. I've got real work to do.
The wide Primus street was empty. Lights glowed in the windows of the neighboring estates, and the moon was bright overhead. She slid her arms into the uplifted wings and shrugged to unlock them, spreading them wide.
'Taya! Wait!'
She turned. Cristof was hurrying out the gate, his greatcoat askew.
Taya took a step away from him, turning her face into the wind.
'Stay out of my way,' she warned him, fanning her metal feathers wide. He ducked beneath them.
'Would you listen to me, please?'
'I've got nothing to say to you.'
'Please!'
She gazed up at the stars, then lowered her wings, berating herself for being a weak-willed fool. She fixed Cristof with a steely eye as he stumbled to a halt in front of her.
'You've got ten seconds.'
He grabbed her forearm, which was encased in protective ondium struts. 'I'm sorry — Alister told me you were lovers. I thought it was true.'
'We already know he was a liar.' She tried to shake him off, but his grip tightened.
'I shouldn't have accused you like that. I'm sorry. I'm the one who sees my brother, every time I look at you.'
'Why?' Taya regarded him with suspicion. His pale eyes were wide behind his glasses.
'Do you have any idea what you looked like, dancing together?'
'It was just a dance.'
'You looked—' his voice cracked. 'You looked happy. You looked like a couple. That was the last time I ever talked to him. The night I saw you dancing together.'
'Oh, Lady.' Taya's shoulders sagged, and metal feathers clanked against the cobblestones.
'After — I wanted to talk to you about what you'd overheard, but you were on the dance floor and Alister was bragging about how you were going to spend the night with him, so I gave up. I shouldn't have believed him, but I knew you'd been seeing him before the party. And when you were together it was so obvious that you were meant for each other—' he stopped, clutching the ondium struts as if to physically hold her in place. 'Every time I look at you, I feel guilty because he died and I didn't. And I can't replace him for you.'
'Of course you can't.' Taya suddenly felt tired.
I should have left without listening to him. Being angry is better than being depressed.
'There's nothing to replace.'
'You loved him.'
'No, I didn't. I liked him, and I thought it might turn into love, but after everything I've found out about him, I'm glad it didn't. I don't know. Maybe it is better to be rude. You piss me off, but you don't lie to me.'
'Only by omission.' Cristof looked down at his white fingers. 'It's been making me sick, envying my dead brother. I'm sorry.'
Envying
? Taya gave him a searching look. The exalted hunched his shoulders, a picture of sharp angles and shadows, and lifted his hands from her armature.
'Don't worry about tomorrow, icarus. I'll find some other way up to the tower. Maybe Amcathra will let me back in on the investigation if I tell him what I've found so far.'
Taya stared up at the sky again and gave a long, pained sigh.
Oh, Lady. I need to learn how to be hard-hearted.
'You're a real slagging pain in my tailset, you know that, exalted? I don't know how much more of you I can take. I've got lots of other people I could spend my time with.'
'I don't.' The gas lamps turned Cristof's glasses into white flames against the darkness as he pushed them higher on his nose and turned away. 'Fly safely, icarus.'
She stared after him a moment, then lifted her arms and shrugged her wings back into their locked position.
Forgefire
