Angelfire | The Whispering Wall #3

Forty Seven: Anger

"Usk."

The Varthian glanced up from patching a hole in one of his trouser legs. "Mm?"

Arlen glowered at him. "Why is Silas doing my laundry?"

Usk paused with his darning needle hanging out the side of his mouth. "He's what?"

"Silas is outside," Arlen growled, enunciating every word, "with the water barrel and my bedsheets, and he is washing them."

Arlen didn't consider this development at all amusing, but Usk just burst out laughing.

"Arl," Jes interrupted, appearing at the top of the stairs looking bemused, with Leon in tow. "You know the kid's outside doing washing, right?"

"Yes," Arlen growled. "I'm aware."

"They're his bedsheets," Usk said, still laughing.

"No way." Jesper's face lit up and he let out a delighted crow of laughter. "Oh Arl, he is stuck on you, huh?"

"I'm glad you're finding this hilarious." Arlen took the spare seat at the table. He'd complimented the kid once; surely that couldn't account for all of his bizarre behaviour over the last few days. Even for Silas, things were getting strange. "He's been acting all kinds of odd."

Usk glanced at him and then returning to his patching. Jesper strolled inside and took up a place by the wall, already rolling a cigarette.

"Are you sure you don't know anything about it?" Arlen asked, catching Usk's look. "You look like you suspect something, at least."

The Varthian sighed. "He may be hoping that you will value him enough to let him live."

If anything, that confused things further. "What cause does he have to think I'm going to kill him?" He narrowed his eyes. "Has someone said something to him? Because whoever did..."

"No one has said anything along those lines," Usk said in a hard voice, giving him a long-suffering look that Arlen ignored. "But he is aware that he is alive on your sufferance, and that is about all. If you choose to oppose any efforts to keep him alive despite Marick's orders, he likely knows that it would be the final word."

"Efforts." Arlen glared. "What efforts?" He inhaled sharply. "What crackpot idea has Calder come up with, Usk? Spit it out, or so fucking help me."

The brute sighed. "He plans to take Silas with him on this expedition."

"Absolutely not," Arlen said. "Is he cracked? Marick has men in the travelling party, how the fuck does he think that'll work?" He fumed. "It's one thing to make the kid quietly vanish, but if Marick discovers Calder trying to hide him to avoid a non-negotiable task, all our heads are on the block. I've endangered our necks enough allowing him to stay here, and he's out in the fucking street, washing my dark-damned sheets." He rounded on Leon, who quailed at the look on his face. He'd barely had anything to do with the boy since Calder had brought him into the fold, but he suddenly regretted speaking so candidly in front of him. "Go and get that little shit back inside. And if you breathe a word of anything we just said to him, I'll give you an eye to match mine, aye?"

Leon nodded and hurried back to the stairs. Arlen watched him go, trying to remember if he'd been that fucking small when he joined the Devils; they'd been of an age. Perhaps that was why he'd had a moment of unforgivable softheadedness and allowed the boy to join his group. This late in the game, he was hardly in a position for allowing strangers into his close confidences.

"Don't be a dick to the kid, Arl. He's young." Jesper scowled at him.

Arlen snarled at him. "He's just joined the biggest assassin's guild in Nictaven, Jes, he can handle a hard truth. You'd better not be teaching him to be soft, you won't do him any favours." He took a turn around the room, restless, remembering too late that he could no longer move so spontaneously as his false leg twisted and sent shooting pain into his hips. He let out a string of curses that stopped Silas and Leon in their tracks as they returned, both holding handfuls of wet sheets at the top of the stairs.