well any man with a microphone
can tell you what he loves the most
can tell you what he loves the most
He wonders what she’d say if he told her exactly what kind of establishment it was. Surely as Warden she would recognize the name The White Scarab, would put it at once with the pale domes, so out of place among the rest of the city’s architecture, nestled on the crooked street like a doorway beckoning another world. In a way it was - a world of shadows and secrecy, great lies and great wealth.
And in another way it’s no different than any other business.
To her look he pauses, raises his brows as though chastised by her sharp look. “Gambling,” he answers her easily, his own words leisurely, unconcerned with her impatience. Like so many other things, he’s well-practiced at making the Scarab sound utterly unremarkable. “Cards, mostly. Drinks, rooms for let. I’m often amazed at how much our patrons will pay for a little exclusivity and elegance and the illusion of danger. We do comfortably.” August smiles again, warmly (so much of his work is done with a simple curve of his mouth) before turning away to watch a group of miniature dragons tussle and chitter like birds over scraps of sweets in the street. How interesting, to tell a truth that still feels like a lie; he wonders if his explanation will sharpen her interest or dull it.
But it’s his own interest that’s caught when she speaks again, and he twists a slim golden ear toward her, for once making no effort to school the distaste on his features into something else. August had no love for Raum, and only pity for Solterra. He knew Raum had been invited to the Scarab, but to his knowledge the visit had never come to fruition; the island had intervened. And for that, at least, August is grateful to the gods.
At the way she bites out colleagues the golden man gives Morrighan his full attention, stopping when she does, something dark uncoiling in him at the implication of her tone and the smirk unwinding on her piebald lips. “We’re as glad as anyone to see the man dead,” he says, and for the first time there is a glimmer of steel beneath his words, something hard and cold as the ring in his nose. But it vanishes again as he weighs her words - and the look she gives him, more measuring than he would have expected from someone so clearly hot-headed.
Maybe their Warden didn’t wear all her thoughts as clearly as the flames that licked at her footsteps.
“I admit, Warden, that I’m a little curious myself.” His gaze slides past her, back to where she’d been walking from, the too-long row of altars he’d visited the evening before. After the fires, only one man had been caught - but three had been started. And though Raum was well and truly dead, neither his ideas nor what followers they’d garnered were. “I’ll see what I can find.”
Normally he’d consider it poor business to wait on his end of the bargain - but for a favor from the Warden of Denocte, he’s willing to gamble.
@Morrighan
