“Please,” Sithe said, gesturing to a round table in one
corner of the room, “would you care to sit?” She was now fully in Miss Sithe mode, gracious and
accommodating, the dutiful matron with every social grace and nicety intact. “Ricker,”
she said, to a small boy hiding underneath the table and playing with wooden
soldiers, “get out from under there, please. Please, Sentinel Ulridge. Sit.”
Ulridge, pleased at the use of his title, grinned widely and
sat.
“Would you care for a drink?” Sithe asked, because it was
expected.
“Won’t be necessary, Missus,” Ulridge replied, because it
was expected.
“What’s happened to the poor girl?” Sithe asked, glancing
sidelong at Breanne, who had taken up a position at Ulridge’s side, one tiny
hand clutching his shirt of chain-mail. “She looks frightened out of her wits.”
Ulridge cleared his throat. “Found ‘er on the street,
Missus,” he said, gravely, shaken by whatever he was currently recalling. “Wearin’
naught but a cloak too big for ‘er. No smallclothes, no dress. Scars e’erywhere.
Fresh’uns, too. Dunno where this mite’s been, but she’s none for bein' treated
right.”
The man’s dialect seemed to thicken, the more uncomfortable
he got.
Sithe pursed her lips, shut her eyes for a moment, and
summoned a touch of the anger that possessed her when she’d looked at Gregor
Abney. A tingle of fear ran up her spine, as she remembered what else she’d seen that night, and then she
wondered where Sythius was. Likely enough he was in the back gardens. He
seemed to like it there.
Too little emotion, Sithe reminded herself, and he would
wonder why she wasn’t more concerned for the state of a lost child. Too much,
and he would wonder just how much she knew. It was a rope she was used to
talking, but there was always a thrum of anticipation, whenever she did it.
The thought crossed her mind that, if ever an interview like
this happened with Sister Dalton, Sithe’s secrets would likely bleed out of her
like oozing wounds.
Outsmarting a Sister of Ulria, after all, was never easy.
* * *
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