“So,” Mortimer said, once he’d finally managed to drag the conversation back around to Viola’s question, “let me double-check this. Someone came to the door with a letter for Viola, right?”
Amelia nodded. “He said he was a courier, but Seb said he wasn’t one he recognised, and he didn’t act like any courier he’d ever seen. Seb thought he might be Order, but he didn’t recognise the passphrase.”
“Sinnlenst, then,” said Viola. She shifted position, rubbing at her injured leg, and scowled. “Avebury did say something about wanting me to deliver some letter or other, now I come to think of it.”
“That’s the thing, though!” Amelia said. “It wasn’t a letter. Or rather, it wasn’t just a letter. It was a whole packet of papers.” She reached into the satchel beside her and pulled out what looked like one of the folders of legal documents he’d seen on his father’s desk in the past. “Here. I’ve already looked through it-“
“You’ve what?”
“It wasn’t sealed, Vi, and the person who delivered it was clearly up to no good. And besides, I didn’t know where you were or when you were coming back, so you can’t be too mad at me for opening your post.”
“That’s not the point!” Viola growled, exasperated. “The point is that if someone had hidden something in there – like, say, a contact poison or a powder or any number of curses – you could have been seriously hurt. Killed, even. You know better than that, I know you do.”
This is between the two of them, Mortimer told himself, sternly, and bit his tongue. He wanted to defend Amelia, of course he did – but then, he also shared Viola’s concern, and gods, but he could wish that she’d think before she acted sometimes, and…
And that’s a conversation we can have in private when we’re both in the same place. Not right here, not right now, and not when we’re trying to work out what in the hells the Sinnlenst are up to, which is a damn sight more pressing a concern than my fiancée’s occasional tendency to leap before she looks.
(more…)