(Untitled)
Havelock Vetinari makes a habit of lurking in shadowy corners of the rafters.
It's a convenient one, at the moment. For one thing, carrying on a known habit is generally unremarkable. For another thing, it allows for excellent surveillance of the bar.
And for a third -- well.
It's discreet. And Trowa is finding that he doesn't really mind ( Read more... )
It's a convenient one, at the moment. For one thing, carrying on a known habit is generally unremarkable. For another thing, it allows for excellent surveillance of the bar.
And for a third -- well.
It's discreet. And Trowa is finding that he doesn't really mind ( Read more... )
As it is --
X is watching him.
From the ground.
For now.
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If he were, he wouldn't be in the main room of Milliways. Rafters or not.
He accepts the surveillance placidly.
And, at length, glances down at her.
X senses things he can't. He's a little curious.
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Because it looks like Lilly's husband's boyfriend, and it smells like him, but --
The movement is wrong.
Or maybe it's the quality of the stillness.
"You are not okay," she says at length.
It's about 75% question.
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Because it's X:
"I'm not Havelock." Calmly.
The voice is Havelock Vetinari's in tone and timbre; the accent is decidedly not.
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Not yet.
"He is not dead."
This is 25% question.
Shockingly.
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Gosh, Trowa. Good job on the reassurance!
"I'm Trowa," he adds.
It's like an explanation.
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X absorbs that.
Then --
"You did not mean to be Havelock?"
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Well. Havelock's head.
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"It was magic?"
X is suspicious of magic.
Unless it is Constantine using it.
Mostly.
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They have an annoying paucity of details on the subject.
Trowa's frustration at the situation is very well repressed; it leaks out only in how very level his tone is.
"The method's hard to confirm."
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She aborbs that, too.
And then, of course, she makes her way up into the rafters.
"You will need help?"
Beat.
"With the investigation."
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(But relaxes almost imperceptibly when she's up. Conversation is -- easier, when there's not the rafter-to-floor distance to project across.
Especially conversation about facts like these.)
"If you get any leads, I'd appreciate it."
It's true.
"We're not sure how to reverse the switch."
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Carefully.
"Here."
Beat.
"Tom is okay."
It is -- very disconcerting. To see both Havelock and Trowa like this.
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Havelock's balance is excellent, and his body is fit; his face lends itself well to impassivity, even if the eyebrows keep wanting to lift. But it's all subtly off. He's taller and slimmer and his center of gravity is different. It's a constant, if subtle, battle between one set of instincts and another.
Trowa accepts the suggestion, and the vouching, silently. It can't hurt is not really in Trowa's mental vocabulary, but all the same an X-approved wizard's not a bad thing to know about.
"It might be related to that," he says, with a slight nod to a colorful pad on an isolated table below. Someone's put a ring of chairs around the table, blocking it off from at least a casual approach. "We were near it. But the mechanism's not clear if so."
And it's only one hypothesis. It's just that the others are even vaguer.
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Then she drops from the rafters again, pacing around the table.
Carefully.
She is also scenting the air.
Just in case.
You cannot be too careful.
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He'll drop down with her in a minute. (More carefully than he would in his own body; it would suck to fall back on the wrong sense of balance at a key moment.) But he'll let her do solo reconnaissance first.
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