Only I stepped on the hem of my skirt coming up, because I’d dressed in one of my more respectable frocks on account of not expecting to deal with Hadamist protesters. It tore and I stumbled, and then the clerk got hold of me in what he probably thought of as a bear hug. So I tossed him over my hip, but by then Hallman had noticed what I was doing, and yelled for everyone to stop me.
I can’t really tell you how I wound up on the ground—it’s all a bit of a blur. I did my best to turtle up like I was taught, but that only does you so much good when half a dozen people are coming at you. I would have been sunk if the Friendship Society hadn’t intervened.
My hand to the sun, I didn’t mean to start a riot. The plan was that I’d get into the building and tell Kudshayn my idea about getting out via the clock tower. It’s high enough to give him a good long glide, and I figured he could either carry me or, if he thought that would strain his wings, leave me in the building while he and Lord Gleinleigh got away. I wouldn’t have minded waiting. But instead I tripped on my skirt and got slowed down, and then some chivalrous soul in the Friendship Society decided he couldn’t stand by and watch a helpless young lady wind up at the bottom of a pig-pile, and, well . . . things got a little out of hand.
But at least it meant I was able to crawl my way out of that whole mess (leaving a shocking amount of my skirt behind) and stagger toward the door, whereupon it opened long enough for a pair of clawed hands to reach out and yank me inside.
Of course it was Kudshayn. As soon as I had my balance I threw my arms around him and said, “Thank the sun you’re safe!”
He extricated himself from me and said, “Your nose is broken.”
(It was only a little broken. But don’t worry: Lord Gleinleigh had his personal physician see to me anyway, so once the swelling and bruising have gone, I won’t have damaged my marriage prospects at all. Such as they are.)
I felt at it gingerly—but not gingerly enough, as it turned out. Broken noses hurt such a lot! My voice was as thick as if I had a terrible cold. “I came to get you out of here.”
Kudshayn cast a glance past me, at the chaos visible through the door’s small window. “I see . . . how do you propose to do that?”
Before I could explain about the roof, the station master began waving his arms and insisting we leave at once—continued waving and insisting, I should say, since I had the distinct impression that he’d been doing it ever since the problems began. He clearly had never laid eyes upon a real live Draconean in his life, and was more than a little unnerved to be faced with a two-meter-tall humanoid dragon creature whose wings, though politely folded, kept bumping against the benches in the close confines of the hall. Compared with that, a half-Erigan young woman streaming blood from her nose counted as an improvement.
Kudshayn handled this in his usual way, which is to say that he did his best impression of a courteous, immovable rock. Since I am not a two-meter-tall humanoid dragon creature who looks like he would be glad to eat a man in one bite, I had the freedom to yell at the station master, demanding to know what kind of person would drive an innocent traveller out into the hands of a hostile mob, and we were in the middle of our own shouting match when noise came from outside. Whistles and someone else with a megaphone—not Hallman this time. The police had arrived.
I gave up on the station master and went to look. Outside, the police were laying about with their batons without much of a care for who had started the whole mess. I was suddenly very glad to be inside the station, as I had taken quite enough of a beating for one day. (Though I prayed that no one in the Friendship Society would get hurt. And I may have craned my neck a bit to see if I could spot anybody thumping Hallman as he deserved.)
At that point there wasn’t much need for leaping off the roof, so we stayed put until things quieted down outside. Of course then the police had to question me, and Kudshayn, and Lord Gleinleigh, and the station master, as well as the Friendship Society and Hallman and quite a lot of Hadamists and various other people, and the result was that we didn’t get back to Stokesley until well after the dinner that was supposed to be waiting for us.
Anyway, you see it was all just an accident. If it hadn’t been for the caeliger engine breaking down, there would have been no trouble at all. But no permanent harm done, as they say, and I promise I shall have a quiet time of it from here on out.
Your bruised daughter,
Audrey
FROM THE DIARY OF AUDREY CAMHERST
10 Ventis
Ugh, my face is throbbing. No matter which way I lie, I can’t seem to get comfortable. Aspirin isn’t helping. I would be tempted to steal brandy from Lord Gleinleigh’s study, but he keeps it locked whenever he isn’t in there, and everyone but me is asleep.
Grandmama tells very frank stories about her adventures, but somehow she always manages to make things like broken ribs or tropical diseases sound not so bad. Did she ever lie awake aching and wondering how she could have been more clever?
Charging that line was stupid, I know it. In the end it did no good at all; one of the people from the Friendship Society had already sent for the police, on the grounds that the Hadamists were unlawfully blocking the station. So help would have been there in a few minutes regardless of anything I did. But all I could think was, Grandmama would have some brilliant solution for this. She’d sneak past or talk Hallman down or, oh, I don’t know, set a dragon on the Hadamists or something. I didn’t have any dragons handy; only Kudshayn, and he is far too scholarly to do anything like scare off bigots. I suppose I am, too, given how badly my distraction went.
And nothing after that went very well, either. At the best of times I am not Lotte, and having a broken nose put a serious dent in my social graces. When I got out of the station Lord Gleinleigh shouted at me, insisting he had the whole thing “well in hand” (my foot!) and I had “needlessly endangered” myself. I didn’t have a good answer to that, and then when I tried to introduce him to Kudshayn, all Gleinleigh said was “At least you’re here” before stomping off. And then there’s Cora, who takes disruptions to routine very badly. She was so upset that we didn’t arrive when we’d promised, she went off in a huff and wasn’t even there to greet Kudshayn. I can’t imagine how she’ll behave tomorrow; I can only hope she’ll have calmed down and we can just get to work on the tablets. Even when those are being intractable, at least they don’t make me feel foolish and guilty.
Bah. I’m being a wet blanket because my face hurts and I can’t sleep. I should tear out this page and burn it, but instead I’ll go downstairs and distract myself with work.
later
What on earth is Aaron Mornett doing here?
I know it was him. He has the most perfectly lovely voice, which is utterly unfair; someone as odious as him should have an odious voice to match. I heard him in the corridor outside the library—
I should take things in order. Otherwise I can’t hope to make sense of them.
It was a little after midnight. I had gone downstairs like I said. Because it was so late, and because I already have a copy written out of the next tablet, I turned on only the little table lamp. From outside the library, I’m sure it looked like the room was deserted, because I had shut the door behind me.