Click. Whir. Chink. Remy looked up from where he sat blowing on the Sennex’s broth before offering the spoonful of lukewarm stock to the old man sitting beside him.  The man’s pallor was in sharp contrast to the dark discoloration of age blotting the skin. Setting the spoon down next to the bowl of soup, Remy wiped the old man’s mouth with gentle swipes of a silk serviette after which he turned his attention to the large brass door as the last gear fell into place. With an echoing thunk it swung open, and stepping into the room, appeared a Glorin’s Kin.

      Remy stretched out his hand, curling his fingers as he beckoned the visitor closer. When the Glorin’s Kin continued to stand on the other side of the room, he looked up, naked brows forming a subtle ‘V’ between his eyes as they pinched together, imbibing his expression with a gentle inquisitiveness. His words, when he spoke, titled up in a questioning lilt, “Dusty, how can I serve you?”

     Unruly hair, constrained in a plaited crown around her head, Dusty beamed a smile that failed to melt the icy depth of her eyes. Sauntering forward, she fanned herself with a thick sheaf of parchment, the penmanship bold and distinct. Remy shifted his posture in the chair and fiddled with the folds of the Sennex’s eiderdown quilt; tucking it tighter around the old man’s knees and waited for Dusty to stop her effeminate posturing and sing her demands. He began to count down slowly in his head.

      Flourishing a courtesy, Dusty gave one last fan of the sheaf of parchment and from beneath her lashes gave an oblique glance at the Sennex, his rummy eyes never wavered from his contemplation of the opposite wall. Brandishing another bright smile, Dusty quipped from where she stayed poised in polemic genuflection, “Guess who I met on the way to see my father this morning?”

      Remy ran a finger down his nose, a sheen of sweat dewed on his upper lip and he wiped it away with the same finger with a sniff. Concentrating on the sheaf of papers Dusty waved about with childlike glee, he took a deep breath and fought the flush he felt ruddying his skin. Swallowing the stutter he had spent years concealing, he said with slow enunciation, “I can only imagine, my dear.”

      “That’s exactly what I want you to do, Tertian Remy. Guess. Come on. Take a guess. Please…” Dusty set her mouth in a rosebud pout, her strong angular features and stout curves were considered ideal in Kin culture, but Remy found her pleasing form intimidating. He instead focused on the peaked roundness of her ears poking through her hair.

       “If I must hazard a guess, my dear, I’d say a scribe?” Remy folded his hands and let his gaze drift down to where they were clasped in his lap. A steady stream of multiplied numbers drifted through his mind, keeping him calm and centered.

      “Warm…” Dusty said with a jeer.

      Remy allowed his jaw to tighten and through clenched teeth said, “Pigeon?”

      “Warmer!” Dusty clasped her hands together and hopped up onto her toes.

      “Dusty,” Remy leaned over the bowl of broth, uncaring that his robe dragged through the murky liquid, “my dear, can we move this along? I must give the Sennex his bath. Don’t trouble me if this is just a game.”

      Dusty’s lips compressed, and her eyes darkened as she flicked a glance at the Sennex, still unmoving from his contemplation of the opposite wall. Squaring her shoulders, she stalked the last couple of paces to where Remy sat beside the leader of the Order and slapped the sheaf of parchment down on the table that held the broth, causing the soup to slosh onto the delicate needlework tablecloth. Her voice, devoid of pretenses was curt when she said, “Rennin sends his regards, Remy, but you won’t like what he has to say.”

      Remy covered the sheaf of papers with a hand, his gaze locking with Dusty’s when he said in muted tones, “You had no right to read the Sennex’s personal correspondence, Dusty.”