“Oh.” Rue tugged on one hot ear, crestfallen.
“I believe there is a great deal of wagering on the subject. The decklings and sooties have a pool going. Did you say it back? I believe I’ll be in for two crowns if you did.”
“Does it count if he was sleeping?”
Primrose frowned. “Excellent question.”
Rue sighed, letting everything go and bowing to the inevitable. “Why didn’t you tell me he felt that way? I might have been nicer to him. Why didn’t you tell me I felt that way, for that matter?”
“I tried. You didn’t want to hear it.”
Some day, thought Rue, I’m going to be saying those words to you. I hope you don’t bungle it as badly as I did.
Primrose looked smug. “Apparently it takes a bullet wound to bring you to your senses.”
Rue hung her head, ashamed.
“So, it’s done now. You’ll have to accept your fate, Rue.”
“Why must you be so logical all the time?”
“You know my mother and brother.” Primrose’s voice held a wealth of familial responsibility.
“Ah.” Rue nodded her understanding and left the sickroom.
Perhaps there was a little more bounce in her step than there had been before. Why not just let herself be in love with Quesnel? Seemed silly now, to bother to fight it. Of course, he could still go and die on her and cock it all up. Rue chose to believe he would heal nicely. It was only his right side, after all. Rue knew from intimate experience that Quesnel was left-handed.
Quesnel didn’t die.
They set up a rotation of personnel to tend him, with each visitor training the next in keeping his injury clean, changing the dressings, checking for infection, and allowing him the cheat at piquet.
Rue came in one evening to find Aggie, a fireman, a greaser, and two sooties all smoking and dicing with the invalid. The room was full of pipe smoke and laughter. Quesnel had a little colour in his cheeks. Rue had never seen Aggie cheerful before. She might even be called pretty. Although the moment she saw Rue, she scowled.
Rue shook her head and tutted at them for the smoke and the dice because she felt it her role to do so, and then left them to it.
The Spotted Custard was six days following the White Nile southwards ever further into uncharted territory. All the while Quesnel steadily improved. It would take him months to completely mend, and he wasn’t out of danger until his wounds sealed over. Anitra worried he’d never regain full use of his right arm. Although by the fourth day he could squeeze Rue’s fingers softly when she placed them in his right hand. They chose to be optimistic. Tasherit said that there might be a healer of some kind among her lost pride.
“Why would they have need?” Primrose asked.
“Oh, you think we do not have… what do you call them? Clavigers.”
“A pride lives alongside humans?” Primrose was fascinated.
“We call them our Chosen Ones.”
“You make it sound so noble. One step from being a drone.” Primrose had grown up in a vampire hive. She was odd about the whole food-source arrangement. She could recognise that werewolves were different, but it still made her twitchy.
Miss Sekhmet looked down her nose at them both in a regal manner. “It is an honour to be one with the Daughters of Sekhmet, to have the option of becoming a cat. Who would not want such a thing?”
Primrose answered, without pause, “Me! Why is it immortals always think everyone else wants to be immortal?”
Rue hadn’t given the matter much thought, as by her very nature she would never have the option.
“Lady Primrose, you’re an odd duck.” The werecat’s tone was condescending.
“Not that odd!” Rue leapt to her friend’s defence. “Countess Nadasdy had Mabel Dair, the famous actress, in her stable for years. She never asked for the bite. And there’s Quesnel’s mother, indentured to a hive and never considered metamorphosis even though there’s a good chance she has extra soul. She’s awfully creative.”
“And Quesnel, too, I’d say.” Primrose looked at the werecat with sudden intensity. “Would you have bitten him, if the bullet necessitated it?” Her dark eyes were fixed on the werelioness.
Tasherit dipped her head, embarrassed. “Don’t be silly. I’ve no breeding bite. I’m female.”
That surprised the two girls.
Rue narrowed her eyes. “What do you mean? Female vampires are always makers. Female werewolves are always Alphas. It’s much harder to survive a bite if you’re a woman, but you’re awfully powerful once you do. We assumed, you being female and immortal, that it was the same.” She looked to Prim for corroboration. Her friend nodded vigorously.
Tasherit gave them the kind of head wiggle that implied they were both insane. “Lioness, remember? Can go up high. Not as badly affected by aether. My kind is as different from werewolves in this as in other things. Prides are usually made up of one male lion and several lionesses, whether in natural or supernatural form.”