“Don’t give me the eyebrow!”
Rico started to say something, but then Rhea came in, and he pulled her down out of harm’s way just before a spray of water sailed overhead.
“What’s happening?” she asked as somebody squealed and somebody laughed, and Tami yelled, “I’ve got ’em. And you’re all getting one!” from what sounded like the walk-in pantry.
“They are playing their little games,” Emilio said, passing by with some clean dishes.
He paused and blinked at me. “Hey. What are you—”
“Never mind!” I told him, and looked at Rhea. “I need to talk to you.”
We ended up in her room a few minutes later, which got us both out of mop duty. We’d even managed to snag some tea on the way, because it was in the butler’s pantry, where the chaos had yet to spread. Sometimes, things worked out.
Like the living quarters for the court, which were even more spacious than those at the old Pythian Court, where everybody except the acolytes had had to double up.
These bedrooms had been designed for the consul’s servants—ostensibly—so of course they were nice. Most of the girls had a decent-sized bedroom and an attached bath of their own. Rhea’s was bigger still, and also boasted a small sitting area. We sat there, in front of a dark fireplace over which a mantle was strewn with pics of the girls and one of Agnes in a garden, laughing over some roses. And I guess she wasn’t the only one who liked flowers, because Rhea had added some watercolor prints to the walls, and a vase of preserved, pale pink specimens, the old ruffly kind, sat on a side table. They looked like the ones as in the photo, but I couldn’t be sure.
Otherwise, it was the same tasteful beige and white room it had been when we moved in, either because she liked it that way or because none of us had had much time for decoration.
Well, with one exception.
I’d brought a mug of tea along, and almost spilled it all over me when my feet abruptly went up. “What the—” I said, staring down in the darkness between the chair and the coffee table. And saw not someone but something. The little hassock from this morning.
“Oh, how cu—” I began, when something wonderful happened. “Oh my God. Oh, oh, oh my God.”
“What is it?” Rhea asked, sitting forward and looking concerned. Probably because I sounded like a dying water buffalo.
I didn’t even care. Because the small thing was massaging my feet. How, I didn’t know, since it didn’t have hands, and I didn’t care. I lay back against the cushions of the overstuffed wing chair and decided I’d died and gone to heaven.
Best. Purchase. Ever.
“It was running around all over the place, tripping people up, so I shut it in here,” Rhea said. “I hope you don’t mind.”
“Ngghhhh.”
We sat there in silence for a moment, Rhea drinking tea and trying to hide a smile, and me thinking about just sleeping here. My libido was battling a full stomach and a seriously fine foot massage. My libido was losing.
But I had a job to do, and after a while, I managed to woman up. “Rhea—” And then I stopped again, because I didn’t have Hilde’s gift of the gab and wasn’t sure how to phrase things.
And because we had more than a training issue to discuss.
I hadn’t said anything before, because Rhea had had a pretty hard recovery from her injury, having lost a lot of blood, and like the rest of the girls from Agnes’ old court, she’d been thoroughly traumatized lately. I hadn’t wanted to add to it, but at the same time, there were things I needed her to understand.
I sighe
d.
I hated this kind of thing.
“Lady?” Rhea had started looking a little concerned.
“You know I’m not good with diplomacy, right?” I said.
It was why Mircea’s vamps and I got along okay. He’d sent me his blunt, hopeless causes, the kind who sucked at tact on their best day, but who could still handle themselves in a fight. It had been good for them, giving them a renewed sense of purpose after feeling like the odd men out in his otherwise suave, urbane family. And after a lifetime of vampire misdirection and out-and-out lies, I’d found them oddly . . . refreshing.
And maybe because I was kind of like them.
“I don’t like to hurt anybody’s feelings,” I said now. “But—”