Chapters tagged detective

by pwizdelf

Chapter 45

===9 Spring 1386========== When I woke for a second time that night to the sound of Curry coughing in the next room, I slipped out of bed and padded barefoot into his room in my pajamas. He sounded much worse than I’d expected for it only being a few hours, and his lungs had tak...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 46

By the time the stove was hot enough to boil a kettle, I had everything assembled and measured out properly. Hoping that the anise wasn’t a critical component, and that the laudanum’s properties might do most of the heavy lifting, I hung the lamp on the hook by the stove and set...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 47

It was cool out when I opened the side door that led to the walk, so I ducked back inside and got my cloak from where Curry had left it on the settee, then shut the door behind me and set out walking, buttoning it around my shoulders as I went. The guard kiosk was only a ten minu...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 48

Much as I didn’t want a protracted eyeful of his private parts, I quickly figured out that if the point was not to make a mess, I did have to watch the whole time, to make sure the jar didn’t tip and wasn’t getting too full for its current angle—_yeah_. Well. When he seemed done...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 49

When I came back from looking for something to read I checked on him, and he was still awake, a little, so instead of taking the armchair I climbed onto the bed with the book I’d picked out. I leaned against the headboard with the fat tome on my lap, holding the book with one han...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 50

A few hours later I woke again to Curry shivering so violently it vibrated the bed. He was too cold to answer me when I inquired what was the worst of it, so I repeated everything I’d done the night before—building up the fire, hot-water flasks, heaping on the blankets, cough rem...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 51

When my surprise kept me from answering right away, he said, “How are we ever meant to get over you if you keep coming back and getting our hopes up, only to dash them every time?” in a tone of such openly plaintive despair that I felt immediately guilty, which was ridiculous, wh...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 52

I woke with a start to the now unpleasantly familiar sound of Curry coughing, more feebly than before, and understood I had slept much longer than twenty minutes. I rubbed my eyes and stood up, squinting at the clock in the dim firelight. One in the morning. “Are you yourself aga...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 53

===10 Spring 1386========== Out of nowhere I shuddered awake, completely awake, unsure what had roused me. Not a dream—I was pretty sure I hadn’t been dreaming. It took me a moment, while my eyes adjusted to the darkness, to realize that in my sleep I’d turned over and curled up...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 54

A long, terrible moment passed, during which nothing at all happened other than my eyes began to water from the sharp, biting stink of fumes, and then Curry’s eyelids fluttered and he made a faint, groggy sound of displeasure. I almost began to bawl again, just from sheer relief,...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 66

Baggett marched down the aisle, also cloaked and shaking off wintry residue, exuding general pique. He stopped next to his desk and moved to pull his chair out, then stopped, surveying the lame chair irritably. “Bersk, where is _my_ chair?” “Bag, the fact that you’re asking _me...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 67

Outside, I pulled the heavy wool around me against the snow and tried to decide what I wanted to do. Curry would probably show up at my door sooner or later tonight, since I’d stormed out of the watch house without uninviting him. I was still undecided as to whether I wanted to b...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 68

I’d left the door to my tiny water closet—which wasn’t even a bathroom in the sense that there was no tub, only a bit of a bathing area with extremely limited duration hot water—shut that morning, with the result that it was on the chilly side now. But I hadn’t peed since before...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 69

===63 Winter 1395========== “Oh, _Bersk_!” Baggett crowed, leaning over from his bar stool and half-colliding into me with silly enthusiasm. “Look who it _is_! Perfect Hair Guy is _finally_ here to see you!” “You are _drunk_,” I informed him, then with faint surprise suddenly p...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 70

Scarcely ten minutes later Roland was letting us in through his kitchen door, which he barely got shut before I’d removed my cloak and tossed it on his kitchen table. “Can I—” he began, but I cut him off with a kiss and he wisely shut the fuck up. His lack of experience was evide...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 71

I stood frozen a long moment while the unbearable remorse over my blatant irresponsibility stole over me and while I mentally backtracked to everywhere I had been tonight and where I could possibly have lost Curry’s token of Rava. I had certainly had it at the pub, since I’d take...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 72

I kept my eyes to the ground all the way home, straining to make out any little glint lit up by the street lamps, in case I’d lost it between his place and mine after I left. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t turn up. I undressed again and crawled disconsolately under the covers in just...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 73

“It makes enough sense,” I said. “But I won’t lie, that sounds a little alarming.” “Yeah. I know. And it’s not just _my_ life, I have you to think of.” “Well. I’d be bullshitting if I pretended this didn’t make me _even more_ curious what these things are you’re afraid to think...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 74

“Are we having some kind of… cards on the table moment we weren’t planning on?” Curry asked after neither of us said anything else right away. “I don’t know. We might be?” I replied, after considering it, and trying to decide how I felt about it if we were. “Why, what’ve you got...

by pwizdelf

Chapter 75

===29 Spring 1395========== “Don’t look at _him_, look at _me_,” I ordered the young dwarf across the interview table, when he threw Curry a pleading glance. He wanted very badly to be saved from the bad lady cop. “You told _him_ you didn’t even know Tessia, or her brother. Imag...