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you
do?” Lash hissed suddenly. “You still do owe me a walk.”
    “That would be nice,” I said with relief.
“Lead the way.”
    The gardens were beautiful. Lash had taken my
suggestions, all of them. Being so late in the summer, most of the
flowers were up and blooming, though the early ones like the tulips
and pansies had faded. But I’d chosen carefully to ensure there
would be some flowers blooming all summer. The white and red roses
were still going strong. I picked one, and stuck it in the coil of
my hair, its long thorns helping to anchor it. I also picked some
flocks and bee balm for the kitchen table.
    “Do you like everything?” Lash hissed
hesitantly. “Your notes were easy enough to follow.”
    “They’re beautiful,” I said earnestly. “You
did a good job.”
    Lash didn’t reply.
    As we walked back to the house, I noticed six
large trees down near the forest edge, along with many smaller
ones. Some had fallen over a ditch, and broken a small stone bridge
that crossed it, sending some of the stones into the depression.
While two of the trees had been down some time, the other four
looked new, their visible inner bark a bright orange brown
color.
    “What happened?” I asked. “Attack?”
    “Storm,” Lash hissed. “Back two weeks ago, we
had close to tornado-force winds.” He pointed. “See there? The side
of the house is damaged also, though not badly. We are going to
have to erect scaffolding out here to fix it.”
    “You need a spider,” I said
knowledgeably.
    Lash gave me a strange look. “Titus could
probably make a regular one huge, but I don’t think—”
    “I’m talking about a type of one man
support,” I said, trying not to laugh. “It’s called a spider. You
lower down a guy, and he works on the wall. It’s better than a
traditional scaffold, because you can lower it and raise it easily.
It mounts to the roof, so it would be easy to put one up. It would
save you a lot of time.”
    Lash stopped walking, considering me with
tilted head. “How is it you know about this?” he hissed.
    “I worked construction before I met Danial
and retired into luxury,” I teased. “I wasn’t always just a pretty
face.”
    “That may be, but you aren’t physically
strong enough,” Lash hissed, looking me over. “Construction is a
man’s job. Why would anyone hire you?”
    That irked me. “I didn’t build anything,” I
said defensively. “I checked sites for violations sometimes. To do
that, I had to know some of the terminology, and what was best to
use for different jobs.”
    Lash looked at me, incredulous. “You’re
pulling my tail.”
    Now I was pissed off. “It was just an idea,”
I replied, then turned to go. “But don’t take my advice, jerk. Go
figure it out for yourself—”
    Lash reached out and grabbed my arm. “Do you
have pictures of this, so I can see what you’re talking about?”
    “No, but I could find you some on the
Internet,” I offered frostily. “If you are nice.”
    “I’m always nice,” Lash hissed, grinning. “At
least to you.”
    I didn’t think so, but kept that to myself.
“I’ll find you some when I go inside. There must be another
computer at Hayden besides Dev’s laptop, right?”
    Lash nodded. “Devlin has another one in his
study. I’ll take you there.”
    I hadn’t even known Devlin had a study.
“Okay.”
    Lash led me down to the basement. Only this
time, instead of turning left, he turned right towards the dungeon
side. The first door in that hall was huge, made of oak. He opened
it. “After you.”
    I walked in, looking around. Devlin’s study
was larger than I expected. The walls were all bookshelves to the
ceiling. It was surprising to know he read this much. As expected,
one huge section was all poetry. The others were varied, from
Samurai Tactics, U.S. military strategy, and Torture Practices of
the Sudan to How to Make Friends and Influence People, 101 days of
Sodom, and Justine.
    “The computer is there,”