of copper and blades

CHAPTER THIRTEEN,

GABRIEL WAS DISAPPOINTED. He hadn't expected it to be easy, but he couldn't stop the disappointment rushing up his lungs as he bid Paquet farewell and turned towards the door in the direction Justine had gone.

And then he saw that she was walking towards him from the corridor as well, and he tipped his head in greeting.

Justine Lan was a strange person. Despite their friendliness, he had the feeling that she hadn't fully forgiven him for their prior... disagreements. It was an ego issue, and to be fair, his personality was sometimes a bit irritating. He could be cold. He was uncomfortable around strangers. But these people weren't strangers anymore.

As much as he despised saying it, they were in this together.

And thus his attempts (successful ones, he rather thought), at making himself more approachable and easy to talk to in their short journey. He thought it was working. Justine had stopped arguing with him almost completely, and their conversations were not filled with jokes and sarcastic banter. Almost the same way he talked to Stephen or Frederick, or when Katharine hadn't turned into the Katharine he knew now, her too.

It was a pity, what had happened to her.

But it really wasn't his fault, he'd decided in the past few days. He had nothing to do with how she decided to handle her jealousy and grief.

He wasn't responsible for her. She was a grown woman who could very well take care of herself. Instead she'd let her envy and anger overtake her and caused herself to do all those idiotic, stupid things.

Justine walked over then, eyes filled with questioning. "Paquet...?"

He shook his head. "I don't think it's him. He's not suspicious at all, and he's been here since last week. He's a bit of a sketchy fellow, but I don't think he's smart enough to do something like... that. He's come along as well."

"Cass ran into one of your Service's agents," Justine said. "She says that Paquet is apparently here to escape from his debtors."

He thought back to how frisky and shaky Paquet had been just now, the way he kept glancing around as if someone would kick him out or beat him up at any moment. "That makes sense." He was probably scared that the Mi twins had heard about his reputation and wanted to kick him out of the club.

To be fair, he himself rather thought it fit what the Mi twins did. Not Adrian, perhaps, but Fayette.

"Not him. I'll bring you over to Cass and Parrish, I think you'd like to meet them."

"Parrish?"

"The agent," Justine explained as she pushed through the crowds of people funnelling through the corridor. "Helena Parrish. She seems to be quite high rank in the Service, but I don't suppose you're very familiar with it."

"No," Gabriel agreed. "The army rarely interacts with the Service. We get our information through the Intelligence Bureau, which is under the eyes of Lord Rochesdale, Farnsworth's father. The Service reports to the Bureau, the Bureau reports to us."

"A rather complicated system."

"You have your Iron Wolves," he said with a nonchalant shrug. "It is the same logic."

"The Iron Wolves do not specialise in information."

"But they do work on that as well," he pointed out as he entered the next room. It was considerably brighter than the one he was just in, and seemed to be for the group of people playing cards in the middle of the chamber. But there were people lingering around, chatting away as well. He spotted Cassalyn Diao immediately, standing next to a woman with slightly greyed hair and cool eyes that surveyed the room.