Page 27 of The Second Death of Locke
“Send them in,” Leonie said, poking her head out from behind a curtain.
Grey made her way through the beds to the room where Leonie waited, sitting on a little stool, reading a recipe for an herbal concoction. She patted the nearby bed without looking up when they came in. “Who’s first?”
“Don’t you need to know what we’re doing?” Kier asked, pulling off his cloak and folding it neatly over a chair.
“Chappelle got word he’s taking the company. You’re moving?”
“Something like that,” Grey said, folding her arms over her chest, leaning against a cabinet of medication. God, how she missedleaning. Solid walls. A floor that wasn’t constructed from packed dirt, waterproof padding, scratchy rugs, and the tears of those who came before.
Leonie poked and prodded at Kier, checking inside his mouth andears, looking at his eyes, listening to his heartbeat and the sound of his lungs as he breathed, testing his reflexes. She also examined his mostly healed wound, blowing a low whistle. “That’s some Hand of yours,” she said.
“She’s too good for me by half,” Kier confirmed.
“At least you know it. You’re good to go, Seward. Flynn?”
Grey hated these examinations, even though nothing ever came up. She endured Leonie’s prodding. “When was your last monthly bleed?” Leonie asked while she checked on an old wound on Grey’s right arm, a slash from a skirmish weeks before.
“Uh…”
Leonie sighed. “Have you had recent relations of a sexual nature with anyone with the ability to produce semen?”
“That depends on your—” Kier started.
“Gods, no,” Grey said, cutting him off before she could think better of it.
“Interesting,” Leonie said clinically, very careful not to look at Kier. Grey kicked her shin and pretended it was a reflex.
“Can’t say the same for the captain,” Grey said, because if he was going to tease her about Leonie, she was more than capable of firing back. Kier only shrugged.
“That is none of my business,” Leonie said. “Presumably you’ll be due for your monthlies during your travels—I’ll grab you a pack.”
She disappeared through the thin corridor that went between supply rooms.
“Sheispretty,” Kier said with a glint in his eye that Grey couldn’t quite read.
“And too good for me by half,” Grey said, repeating his earlier words so she didn’t say,So are you—by chance, are you interested in relations of a sexual nature?
“Doubtful,” Kier said. “I can leave, if you want to say goodbye to her properly.”
Grey rolled her eyes at his wink. “What, so you can go say goodbye to the dozen paramours you’ve acquired at this camp?”
“You wound me, Flynn.”
“I know you, Seward. There’s a difference.”
“If only any of them were enough to steal my heart, but I fear I’m too much a fool for that,” he lamented, his gaze lingering on her for a moment too long. The words sent a pang to her stomach, but she had no idea how to respond. Then, quieter, “I didn’t speak for you, back with Attis, did I? Make an assumption? I know I do that sometimes.”
“What do you mean?”
He moved across the room, draping his cloak over her shoulders—he must’ve seen the goosebumps rising on her arms. “I’m not forcing you into an early retirement against your will?”
The laugh that bubbled out of her was half hysteria, half exhaustion. “Me? Stay here? Without you? Not a chance.”
But that uncertainty hadn’t gone. He picked up the little hammer Leonie had used to check their reflexes and fiddled with it, his thumb rubbing at a ridge in the metal. “Six months would’ve been nice,” he said doubtfully.
She laid a hand over his, releasing another pulse of power that made his eyes flick shut. “Forever will be nicer.”
His eyes opened, hazy and indistinct. “Grey, when I said—”
