Page 80 of The Black Table
I blink. She’s saying something, and I’m not listening.
“Sorry?” I say, my heart hammering at the front of my ribs. The shoe. I finish up the fastenings, quickly and clumsily.
“It’s…nothing,” she says. “A joke. I was just asking if you always take such good care of your guests.”
“I…don’t know,” I say. “You’re my first.”
Heat creeps up my neck before I even realize what I’ve said. What it sounds like.
Oh, God.
But if Gwenna notices it at all, she doesn’t show it. Just thinks for a moment.
“So yes, then,” she says at last. “By definition, you do.”
I hadn’t thought of it that way. But I suppose she’s right.
“If the shoe fits,” I say.
Her whole face lights up when she laughs. “And, in fact, it does.” She presses her lips together. “Thank you, Callahan.”
I nod. Nod again.
Then remember I’m meant to speak.
“My pleasure,” I say.
And it is.
Even if I don’t know what, exactly, she’s thanking me for.
An hour later,the air in the salle is thick and heavy, the stillness only broken with the swipe and clash of metal on metal.
Late-afternoon sun pours onto the piste as we spar back and forth. Lanz’s hits are sharp, aggressive; his footwork quick and deft. My parries are solid, but my feet feel like lead in my shoes, almost dragging along the piste, and my focus is everywhere and nowhere.
En garde, allez, halt.
“All good?” Lanz lunges, thrusts the epee tip right for my shoulder, but I dodge.
“Fine.”
I shrug, deflect a strike. Loosen my sword hand and instinctively rub the rings together—thumb and index finger, trying to ground myself.
It doesn’t work.
Lanz retreats, circles me. He’s breathing hard—it’s been hours now. And I think he can tell I’m wound up.
“Take five?” he asks.
I nod. “Sure.”
I need it, too.
He nods back, and loosens the collar of his lamé, shaking his head to cool off and dragging a wrist over his forehead before peeling off his glove and discarding it. His cheeks are flushed, his lips parted.
I’m staring. The blood pulsing through my whole body like it never has before, so hard and fast I’m surprised Lanz can’t hear it echoing in the salle.
And maybe he does. Because his bright eyes find mine. A knowing furrow in his brow.
