Kvothe really hated cleaning. His hatred and dislike of his mop was second only to his violent disgust for poetry.
He dwelt upon his situation as he mopped furiously, like a janitor possessed. He was lying low in this inn for a reason, after all.
"I shouldn't have called Devi a jerk," he said, after a long, introspective pause. "It was a bad idea." After all those times Devi had mentioned how she had ways and means with that sinister glint in her eyes, he should have known better, but it had seemed a reasonable sort of yelling match at the time.
"You could also have apologized," said Bast, who was dedicatedly not reading his textbook nearby. He was used to his teacher's spontaneous outbursts during the mopping. Of all household chores, the mopping seemed to get him the most riled.
"I couldn't!" said Kvothe, dunking his mop into the bucket as though he was impaling an enemy through the heart. "It had gone too long. It would have been awkward to apologize after she sent the first three assassins." He didn't want the situation to become more awkward than it already was. Imagine, your moneylender trying to kill you. What was the world coming to? Other than a long and terrible war with the Scrael, obviously. Maybe he should do something about that, but Devi would definitely find out. No, it was safer to stay put, lie low, and pretend to be an innkeeper.
Devi had sent him a detailed diagram of everything she intended to do to him. Sometimes he still saw it when he closed his eyes. Devi had majored in scientific illustration back in the day, and she'd been very precise. He mopped the mental image away, shedding a few unintentional tears of terror into his masculine new beard. He had grown it because he didn't think Devi knew what he looked like with a beard, and that was his life now.
In his fear, he tipped the mop bucket over. Its splash was the patient, cut-flower sound of a man waiting to die.