Brimstone Angels by Erin M. Evans Page B

you?”
    “Quiet enough,” Brin said. “Do you think Mehen will like the fact you’re not only a priest, but a spy?”
    “To be honest?” Tam said. “I don’t think he’ll know what a Harper is.”
    “That’s all the worse though. He’s definitely the sort to assume if he doesn’t know it, it’s probably something bad, don’t you think?”
    “Probably,” Tam said mildly. “I’d rather he didn’t think about it at all. You’re rather good at reading people, aren’t you? Did they teach you that in Cormyr?”
    Brin tried to affect the same cool mildness, but inside he was cursing. What had given him away? “Of course,” he said. “It’s practically a requirement for citizenship.”
    “Let’s cut to the quick of it—what were you calling yourself? Brin?” Tam folded his arms. “You want something. Tell me and we’ll see what needs to be done. Less entertaining, I’m sure, than the way they do things in Suzail … but you’re a long way from home, aren’t you?”
    Brin’s bravado collapsed. For the first time, it occurred to Brin that the priest was dangerous. That he did not know where the rules of a silverstar and a Harper lay when it came to lads with sharp tongues threatening their cover.
    “I … I need to travel with the dragonborn too,” he said. “I want you to tell him I’m traveling with you. That I need to come along.”
    Tam frowned, his dark eyes searching Brin’s face as if what he wasn’t saying would be written there. Brin nearly told him too … but without knowing what the priest would or would not do, it was too dangerous. In some people’s eyes, Brin would be nothing but a boy in the midst of some mischief. In others’, he would be a traitor.
    A slow, crooked smile crept across Tam’s mouth. “Oh. I see. Out with it then, which one of them is it?”
    Brin’s heart started to gallop. Tam couldn’t have heard his thoughts. “I don’t know what you mean.”
    Tam chuckled. “It’s all right. I won’t say anything. But let me give you a little advice: make up your mind before we leave. You don’t want to leave two girls wondering, especially when you’re traveling together. More especially if they’re sisters.”
    “Oh!” Brin made himself look away, as if he were embarrassed, and pursed his lips hard, so he wouldn’t grin. The priest thought this was about Brin mooning over those tiefling girls. Blessed, blessed gods—this was perfect.
Anything
odd could be blamed on that. He was almost ashamed he hadn’t thought of it himself.
    “You won’t tell them, will you?” he said.
    “No,” Tam replied. “So long as you don’t discuss what you’ve heard. They’re only a part of my plans so far as I need extra blades to make it through Neverwinter Wood.”
    “Then I will see you tomorrow morning,” Brin said.
    He walked back out into the courtyard, winding his way around wagons and bedrolls and pickets of horses. Everything was going to be all right. Mehen would keep Constancia from catching Brin. Tam would get where he was going and never look too closely at Brin. Now he just had to find somewhere to sleep and not get trampled.
    He took the whiskey bottle out for another tentative, celebratory sip, when someone tapped him on the shoulder. He swallowed wrong. The alcohol burned his throat and lungs, and he coughed hard enough to make his eyes water.
    “Oh good gods,” a female voice said. “Are you still all jumpy? Because I’m not going to invite you anywhere if you’re going to throw up again.”
    Brin blinked away the tears and spun on his assailant. It was the leggy tiefling girl with the glaive. Havilar. Only the glaive was somewhere else. She stood there, just out of the torchlight, with her hands behind her back and the tip of her tail slashing back and forth. Brin didn’t know what that meant. Whether it was Tam’s insinuations or the fact that—this time—he wasn’t trying not to throw up, Brin had to admit she was a little