Wally’s lips twitched just once, then he schooled his expression into a stern scowl. “What did you catch him doing, Skeeter?”
“Lassoing tourists.”
Wally’s eyes glinted. “Assault with a deadly weapon, huh? Okay, short stuff. Let’s go. Maybe you’d prefer a night in jail, if you don’t want to sit through your classes.”
“Jail? You can’t put me in jail! Do you have any idea who my daddy is? When he finds out—“
“Oh, shut up, kid,” Wally said shortly. “I’ve hauled crown princes off to the brig, so you might as well give it up. Thanks, Skeeter.”
Skeeter handed the wailing brat over with satisfaction and watched as Wally dragged the kid away, trailing protests at the top of his young lungs. Then Skeeter shoved hands into pockets once again, feeling more isolated and lonely than ever. For just a moment, he’d felt a connection, as though Wally Klontz had recognized him as an equal. Now, he was just Skeeter the unemployed mop man again, Skeeter the ex-thief, the man no one trusted. Unhappiness and bitter loneliness returned, in a surge of bilious dissatisfaction with his life, his circumstances, and his complete lack of power to do the one thing he needed to do most: find Ianira Cassondra and her little family.
So he started walking again, heading up through Urbs Romae into Valhalla, past the big dragon-prowed longship that housed the Langskip Cafe. Skeeter tightened his fingers through the coils of the plastic lasso in his pocket and blinked rapidly against a burning behind his eyelids. Where is she? God, what could have happened, to snatch them all away without so much as a trace? And if they slipped out through a gate opening, how’d they do it? Skeeter had worked or attended every single opening of every single gate on station since Ianira and Marcus’ disappearance, yet he’d seen and heard nothing. If they’d gone out in disguise, then that disguise had been good enough to fool even him.