Iron Cast(57)

“You know,” Ada said, shedding her blanket, “Gabriel doesn’t have to help us. He’s not getting paid or anything.”

“Is this the speech about how if I want to have a friend, I have to be a friend?” Corinne craned her neck to look at Ada, then sneezed when a cloud of dust fluttered past her nose.

“I thought it might be overdue.”

Ada was laying out her outfit on the bed—a ritual that always awed Corinne somewhat. When Corinne was getting dressed, it usually entailed digging through piles of clothes for a frock without any noticeable stains and rolling around the floor with stockings. There was often cursing involved.

“For your information, I have not insulted Gabriel in at least twelve hours,” Corinne said.

“In the past twelve hours, you’ve been in the same room with him for about one minute.”

“No one likes a know-it-all, Ada.”

“Yes, I’ve been trying to tell you that for years.”

Corinne considered throwing a pillow at her, but that seemed like too much work at this hour. It wasn’t exactly an insult anyway. Corinne enjoyed knowing it all. And she was already aware that most people didn’t like her. After a few more minutes of crawling around the room, tossing their belongings from one pile to another, she gave up her search for the shoes. If she sat on the cot and looked useless enough, Ada would find them for her.

Once she had dressed, Ada found the shoes without trouble and placed them neatly beside Corinne.

“This room isn’t much bigger than a closet,” Ada told her. “How have you managed to lose everything you’ve ever owned at least once?”

“But you always know where things are, so they aren’t really lost.”

With Ada’s help, she found the other pieces of the evening’s attire and assembled them on the bed in a somewhat orderly fashion. Then Corinne shed a few layers of clothes to make herself presentable for the day. When they rejoined Gabriel in the common room, he was still sitting in the armchair, which Corinne considered his tacit acceptance of the inevitable.

“You in?” Corinne asked, trying to sound friendly for Ada’s sake.

“You’re both impossible,” he said.

“Thank you. You can get a rental tux from Maury’s at Pleasant and Piedmont. He outfits the musicians. I’m sure he’ll have—”

Corinne paused at the faint sound drifting down from above. Someone was knocking on the alley door. Gabriel was out of his chair in an instant, gun drawn.

“We should stay here,” Ada said. “What if it’s the HPA or the bulls?”

“Why would they be knocking?” Corinne asked. “It’s probably a delivery.”

Gabriel, ignoring both of them, was already halfway up the stairs. Corinne followed him. Ada made a noise of protest but stayed at Corinne’s heels. The stale air of the storage room was achingly cold, and Corinne immediately regretted shedding her extra layers. The knocking had stopped, and Corinne was about to suggest that Gabriel go out the front and take a look around when the new arrival called out, his voice easily recognizable through the door.

“Gordon? You in there? It’s Charlie Lewis.”

“Put that away,” Ada said, nudging Gabriel’s arm. She unlocked the door and yanked it open.

Charlie was dusted in snow, the flakes gleaming wetly on his black hat and coat. When Ada moved back to let him in, he stomped his shoes on the threshold and shivered.

“Morning,” he said, his demeanor less chipper than usual.

He pulled off his hat and looked at the three of them. He paused, eyebrows raised, when he saw Gabriel’s gun, still aimed at him.

“Well,” Charlie said.

“Ada, you can’t just throw open doors like that,” Corinne said, pushing Gabriel’s wrist down so that the gun was at least pointed at the floor and not Charlie’s heart. “What if it had been a thespian?”

“It could still be a thespian,” Gabriel said. He gave Corinne an irritated look but kept the gun lowered.

“Are you serious?” Charlie asked.

No one replied. Even Ada was regarding him with a sudden unease. Charlie looked at her, perplexed, then shook his head.

“Our first kiss was the day after we met, by the fountain on the Common.”

Ada winced, and Corinne shot an accusatory glare at her. “You told me that was weeks later!”

“It was an . . . accident,” Ada said.

Charlie grinned at her, but before he could say anything, Ada reached up and grabbed his chin.

“What happened to your face?”

Charlie’s hand went to his left eye. Corinne hadn’t noticed before, but it was swollen and darkly bruised.

“It’s nothing,” he said. “I just came to make sure you made it back okay last night.” He very generously included all of them in the statement, but his eyes flicked toward Ada.

“Why wouldn’t we be okay?” Corinne asked.

Gabriel had put away his gun, but a part of her suddenly wished he hadn’t. They had no way of knowing if Charlie had come alone. He’d never given them any reason not to trust him, but Corinne couldn’t stop thinking about those HPA agents, about how at ease they had been in the Red Cat, like they owned the place.

“Let’s go downstairs,” Ada said.