Lupi 04 - Night Season

fiercely. That kind of thinking would make her crazy. Well, crazier.
    Besides, elf-woman had drifted away after greeting Cullen and ignoring the rest of them.
    â€œHmm.” Cullen studied the dress, moving around as if he needed to see it from every angle. “I see,” he said, nodding mysteriously, and told Cynna, “Go see Ruben. He wants to talk to you. I’ll take care of this.”
    Lily could have helped with a wardrobe problem, but Cullen? Still, just thinking about Lily, picturing her reaction if she’d been told to wear that dress, made Cynna feel better for some reason. “I want pants.”
    â€œTrust me.” Then he startled her. He brushed a kiss across her cheek. “Go.”
    The doors were the most ordinary thing about this place, being the right height and nicely rectangular. They didn’t lock, though—didn’t even latch. Either gnomes had no concept of privacy or they didn’t want their guests indulging in it.
    The hall was emphatically not normal. The floor tilted. So did the ceiling, which varied from a comfortable ten feet here to maybe six feet at its other end, where three stairs took it around a corner. Which was not a right angle. She took a deep breath, but that didn’t help. The air felt oozy, as if the walls were breathing out oily vapors. Cynna gritted her teeth against the sensation.
    They had this section of the Chancellery to themselves, eight little suites like Cynna’s with a common room at one end of the hall and the bathroom—sans actual bathtubs—at the other. Presumably Steve and Ms. Wright would be moving into two of the suites eventually.
    Ruben’s door was a few feet down the hall from hers. She knocked softly—a hard knock would open the door—and spoke her name. He told her to come in.
    Ruben’s room was laid out like hers, but the walls were purple and the floor was a mosaic of orange and yellow. His table was pale blue and held a bowl of fruit and nuts. His air felt oozy, too.
    He was sitting on the wall-bench, propped up by pillows and with his splinted leg stretched out. The wooden wheelchair was an arm’s length away. The scruffy look didn’t suit Ruben the way it did Cullen, but beneath his whiskers his color looked good. If he was in pain, it didn’t show. “You should see this dress they wanted me to wear. Ugliest thing I’ve ever seen.”
    â€œYou refused it?’
    That wasn’t criticism. Ruben had had one of his feelings as they were disembarking from the barge. He wanted them to refuse to wear what they were offered at first. “It wasn’t hard. That is one ugly dress.” She moved restlessly around the room. “I wish we had windows, don’t you?”
    â€œMy office in Mr. Hoover’s namesake lacks windows. So does yours, as I recall. I’d ask you to sit,” he added dryly, “but you might explode if you tried to be still, and then we’d have bits of burst Cynna all over. It wouldn’t improve the color scheme…if we can call the random assault of color a scheme.”
    She managed a grin. “I wouldn’t. Gan might.”
    â€œAre you all right, Cynna? The meeting wasn’t too difficult?”
    He’d surprised her, though maybe she should have expected this. Most of the time she was Agent Weaver. Now and then she was Cynna, and then it was okay to tell him things, if she wanted to. Personal things.
    She did. “He didn’t know about my mother.”
    â€œThat she was dead, you mean?”
    She nodded, though that was only part of what her father hadn’t known. Why did it matter so much? Did she think he wouldn’t have gotten himself lost if he’d known he was leaving her with a woman who’d die young?
    â€œYou told him. That was hard.”
    â€œIt was like I’d hit him somewhere inside…he didn’t stay after that. He said he’d be fine, he’d be all right, only he needed a little time to adjust to the news, but he meant he needed to be alone so he could cry. I took something away from him. Something important.”
    â€œNot you. You are not responsible for his pain.”
    Cynna knew that, but guilt was a familiar pit, one she’d long ago dug deep. One she’d learned to climb back out of. “I guess my mother took it from him. Or God. Or the disease that killed her.”
    â€œDid you tell him how she died?”
    â€œHe