Kre returned to his in-tub fetal position and swore, slightly louder than before. “Nobody believes in privacy anymore I take it?”
Kitalia shrugged. “Privacy is a luxury that neither of us can afford at the moment. You shared quite a bit of information with Red that would have been wiser to keep to yourself or, at the very least, to get something of equal value in return.”
“What do you mean by equal value? I thought Red was your friend?”
The rapid shake of her head caused her hair to flip from side to side. “Red is an ally. I trust her only so far as she is useful to us. She is an information broker. She deals in secrets and breaking news. She lets folks stay here as they bring her all sorts of tidbits from across the realm.”
Kre pondered that for a moment, forgetting for a time that he was bathing in a tub in front of Kitalia. “What were you going to sell her?” he asked, cautiously and worried that he would not like the answer.
“Nothing related to you,” she responded. “I only dangled your court records in front of her to try and get her to stop questioning you, but damned if you could not help yourself taking her bait every time.”
“So…” he said resignedly, “you’re not going to tell me what you were doing with those Rangers or of your business with Red.”
She didn’t bother to answer, which was pretty much the confirmation that Kre needed, although it would have been nice of her to at least acknowledge that she wasn’t going to answer him. He sighed, realizing that this was pretty much how things were going to be with her.
“Okay,” he said, breaking the silence, “if you’re not going to tell me that, at least tell me what sort of information I should not have shared with Red.”
“Quiet,” she hissed, holding up her hand and cocking her head to the side. “Something is not right.”
Kre looked around at himself sitting in the tub. “There’s a lot not right about this,” he muttered. “Maybe we can continue this in the morning? Preferably when I’m dressed?”
She made a sharp hushing sound at him and bound across the small room in a single stride. Kneeling down in front of the tub with her back to him, she grabbed a towel and held it aloft behind her.
When he didn’t take it immediately, she gave it an angry shake. “Do not make me get you out of the tub myself,” she said in a soft yet menacing tone.
Somehow, he knew that she would do exactly as she threatened if necessity demanded it, so he grabbed the towel and used it to awkwardly cover himself as he rose from the water. He stepped gingerly from the tub, trying to keep himself as wrapped up as possible without either dropping the towel in the water or revealing himself too much. Thankfully, Kitalia kept her back to him, though he wasn’t sure if it was out of consideration for his modesty or because she was keeping an eye out for something.
As Kre’s trailing foot crested the rim of the tub, a loud crashing sound thundered from somewhere upstairs. His head snapped up, trying to identify the source despite the ceiling being in the way and, as he did so, he completely forgot about his act of climbing free of the tub.