"You're not gonna like this."
Usk levered himself through the window with a thump that rattled the bottle of nettle wine Arlen had open on the table. Arlen glowered as he steadied it.
"What am I not going to like?"
"The boy's manifested," Usk said, "And Yddris has taken him on."
Arlen scowled. "How do you know?"
"Was in the area, saw them go past." The barbarian sat down in the vacant chair at the table and took a long swig of wine. "Boy's eyes were glowing like torches and they were heading to the witch man's place."
Arlen snatched the bottle back and took a long drink himself. It was just his luck; it had to be Yddris to take the boy, of all the dark-damned Unspoken out there.
"I heard a rumour that the kid's sister was there during the whole clusterfuck with Silas," Usk continued. His tone was pointed.
"You think Faellian threatened her and signed him on with Yddris?" Arlen asked. It was no big secret to anyone in castle politics that Harkenn had been scouting around for a replacement Unspoken ever since Yddris had put forward a date for his intended retirement. It was also no big secret that Harkenn was desperate for Yddris to teach his own successor.
"I think that's exactly what happened," Usk said. Arlen suddenly noticed that the brute stank. "From what you've said, the two are close. He wouldn't let her die if there was something he could do about it, and nothing else would have out-bargained Ethred."
"True." Arlen sighed. "Where've you been, anyway? You smell like a sewage pit."
"It may surprise you to learn that I've been in a sewage pit," Usk said, unfazed.
"What for?"
"My mark jumped into one trying to get away," Usk said. He picked something out of his teeth and flicked it away. "Stupid, really. Could've had a nice, dignified death on a blade and instead he forced me to drown him in shit."
Arlen snorted. "What a way to go."
Usk shrugged.
"Marick won't be happy about this," Arlen finally said. "I don't think he was expecting Silas to even stand trial. He can't pay off his debt if he's dead."
"There'll be a meeting called," Usk said, "You wait."
The signal came a few hours later. Through the haze of Usk's blackweed smoke, Arlen saw the flash of a saltpetre flare outside the window, coloured red with powdered bloodroot. Similar flares would be going off all over the quarter, calling in the Devils.
"There's the signal," Arlen said, snatching his travelling cloak off the back of his chair. Usk, hazy with blackweed, got ready at a more leisurely pace, only speeding up when Arlen kicked him in the shins. "Come on, you great lump."
"Your mother's a lump," Usk muttered, Varthian accent more pronounced in his grogginess. Arlen scowled.
"Your mother should have eaten you when you came out the womb."
"The tribes don't eat their own kids, you piece of shit."
He didn't wait for Usk to get into a rant; they didn't have time. He hooked himself out of the window onto the roof of the adjacent house, pulling his scarf over the lower half of his face as he did so. As he raced over the roofs, two more flares went off in different parts of the quarter.
He dropped to ground level only when he reached the beer hall. He was one of the first to arrive. Usk rounded the corner not long afterwards, argument clearly already forgotten. They entered together and took their usual seats near the front, with a good view of Marick's vacant chair on the dais. A stream of criminals made their way in after them, vanishing into the shadows as per their usual habit. The susurration of hushed conversation soon rose to a widespread hum.
"Seems like he went round everyone," Usk said. The flares were only lit outside the hiding holes of those Marick wanted present, and Usk was right; there did seem to be an inordinate number of Devils here, even some faces whom Arlen had never seen in the beer hall before. Either Marick was particularly upset about Silas, or something even bigger had happened.
When the hall was so full that some Devils were even standing in the light of the burning brackets along the middle of the hall – a place no one with any sense of self-preservation wanted to be – Marick made an appearance. His presence, once noticed, sent silence washing through the room.
Marick showed no sign in his expression that he wasn't calm, but Arlen had been with him many years and saw the storm coming; the tic in the jaw, the knuckles gently cracking behind his back.
"I have called you here today," he began. He needed no introduction; he had the room's full attention. "With three things. One, information." He began to pace the dais. "Two, a question. And three, a warning."
He let that settle in, sweeping them all with an icy gaze.
"I have intelligence," he finally continued, "that the body of an Unspoken male was recovered in the south end of the steel district. He was strangled, beaten, and laid open, before hanging by his feet from a lantern bracket in a vegetable sack."
Arlen tensed. An Unspoken death was unheard of – it hadn't happened in decades. Unspoken were untouchable; even the Devils didn't mess with them. It was death to kill a witch man; if the law didn't get you, karma would. In all the folk tales of the Unspoken, those who harmed them fell on misfortune and woe and died a grisly, lonely death. Some variations left the perpetrator in eternal shackles at the feet of the gods to pay the debt in labour and pain. In every folk tale there was a grain of truth, and that one was a tale nobody with any sense wanted to try. This belief was apparent in the room in the absence of smirks and joking; the atmosphere was more solemn than Arlen had ever known it.
"Naturally, the first suspects are the Devils," Marick said coldly. "And before I make any claims to contrary or make myself look a fool for defending the sorry lot of you, I will ask this once. Did anybody present commit this crime?"
Eerie silence. Every face Arlen looked at was struck dumb with shock.
"And I come onto my third message of this evening," Marick said, when still nobody said anything, "If I find anybody has done this, if anybody here has lied to me, they will be punished. Death will be the least of it."
He looked around them again before his eyes settled on Arlen. He gestured. Arlen got up immediately and followed him into the office.
"Are they sure it's Unspoken?" he asked, the moment the door closed behind them.
Marick just sighed. He suddenly looked very tired, and that alarmed Arlen most of all.
"It's very hard to mistake the Gifted for anything else," Marick said. "They're sure. So was my source, when they laid eyes on the body." He considered for a moment. "I know there are some in our number who prefer to display their kills in the same manner."
Arlen cocked his head. "You think a Devil did this?"
"No." Marick shook his head. "I don't. But if it was not a Devil, then we have a bigger problem than an insubordinate agent."
"And what's that, sir?"
"Very dangerous competition. Potential enemies that we do not know. If their agents have the ability to subdue and kill a Whisperer, then we need to be sure they are not gunning for us as well."
"You have no idea who it was?"
Marick's look was sharp, and Arlen got the abrupt sense that he was toeing a line.
"No one could have predicted this would happen," the man said, turning away. "I haven't kept tabs on anything of this nature because I didn't believe anyone was mad enough. That aside. It's not what I wanted to talk to you about."
Arlen waited.
"If Silas is sentenced to death," Marick said, satisfied that Arlen was listening, "I want you to retrieve him before he hangs, by whatever means possible."
Arlen squashed a rising sense of annoyance. "And what then, sir?"
"I think you can guess, Arlen. Don't make me spell it out for you."
Arlen thought for a moment. He didn't want to take the brat on; he didn't think Silas would make it past a year with the Devils, let alone last long enough to learn the trade.
"If anyone can teach him, it's you," Marick said.
Arlen knew that Marick was showing an uncommon amount of trust in him, not only assigning him to the task but letting him know why. If it had been for any other reason, he would have been honoured. When Arlen said nothing, Marick's expression hardened. He walked slowly around to the other side of the desk and leaned over it towards him, icy blue eyes trained on Arlen's face.
"Problem?"
"I think..." Arlen began, gaze kept respectfully and resolutely on the floor. This required delicate handling. "I think the otherworld boy would be a better candidate, sir." When he dared to glance up, he was relieved to see that Marick only looked curious. He elaborated. "Usk spotted him earlier today. The boy has manifested a Gift and apprenticed to Yddris, as we feared, but I believe he will come to me, given time. And I believe he would be an asset to the Devils, given the opportunity."
Marick sat in his chair. His eyes didn't move from Arlen's face. "The plan wasn't to train him."
Arlen risked a glance at him. In truth, Marick had not confided to him why he really wanted the boy so badly, and had only assigned Arlen to retrieve him. What he planned to do with Jordan after that was a mystery to everyone but Marick. He had suspected it had something to do with the boy's magic, but it didn't go further than speculation.
"But loyalty to us could go a long way," he said. "And I believe he would make a much better student."
"You realise that separating him from Yddris is one thing, and that trying to train him while he is learning his trade as Unspoken is entirely another?"
"I've considered it." Arlen sensed that he was not on such thin ice anymore. Marick looked thoughtful. "But the payoff could be huge. An Unspoken skillset and trusted intelligence inside the castle walls is worth its weight in gold, sir, surely."
"It would be," Marick said carefully, "If you pulled it off. If you can separate him at all, and might I remind you, you were doubtful of even that much when we last spoke on this topic. It's a big gamble, and in the meantime I'd have a stroppy Orthanian at a loose end hanging around."
"Jes would take him," Arlen said. "Akiva has been looking for a while."
"They'd take him," Marick said. "I'm not sure he'd take them. He only knows you. He's comfortable with you. And he's not exactly going to be happy about this."
Arlen thought about Silas's face the last time they'd met. He had his doubts that Silas was anything close to comfortable with him. If a boy couldn't look him in both eyes – his blind one included – he was no use. Jordan had looked him in the eyes. The boy had steel in him that needed tempering, and Silas was simply...wet. Arlen had never liked teaching, had avoided it wherever possible, but there was something about Jordan that made him strangely excited. He wanted to see what could be done with a witch man trained in the deadly arts. It would be fascinating. It would be dangerous.
It would be beautiful.
"He's used to getting his own way," Arlen said flatly, "Perhaps it's time he learned the world doesn't work like that."
Marick smirked. "I think he is learning that as we speak. Very well. I'll give you three months to convince the otherworlder to train with you. If you fail, we use him and then get rid of him, and you will take Silas. Is that a deal?"
Arlen was strongly tempted then to ask what Marick wanted to use Jordan for, but one look at the man's face told him it was not the time. Perhaps it would never be the time. If Marick hadn't told Arlen, he had most likely not told anyone else, either, and he had to be satisfied with that much.
For now, at least.
"It's a deal."
-
The first place Arlen went after he left the beer hall was Yddris's house. He knew it was stupid, knew that any plans he made would be compromised if Yddris detected him hanging around too often, and knew that he was really supposed to be finding a mark so he could sneak into Silas's trial. But he couldn't help himself; his feet turned him that way.
The front of the house was grand but grim – neglected, unclean, the house of someone who spent very little time there. Through the narrow front window Arlen could see green light, which meant someone was in. A shadow moved across the light and vanished again, and he thought he heard someone cussing.
The roof he squatted on was slippery and too exposed for his liking; if an Unspoken glanced through the window and looked up, especially with that freakish eyesight of theirs, they would see his silhouette. He checked the street below to make sure it was deserted, and then jumped down to the next house along, settling with his feet braced between two gables. A thick sheaf of red bindweed, nocturnal white flowers still potent even as the dark season closed in, wound around the guttering and concealed his shape better. From this angle, he could see into the room beyond the window, see the green fire burning in the grate and the figure huddled in front of it. The figure didn't wear a hood, and his short hair was in disarray. Jordan was shuddering, and it was visible from across the street.
Arlen cast his eyes upwards, and froze when he saw a figure in the window of the topmost floor. Arlen's face was covered, and he was unlikely to be visible from above due to the thick bush of bindweed around him, but he still knew that the figure in the cloak knew that he was there.
"Nict curse you," he muttered, slipping between the gables to the street and then darting between the houses. He didn't slow until he reached the castle road. It would be difficult, perhaps more so than he had thought at first, to separate Jordan from his tutor – but not impossible. Nothing was impossible. He just had to bide his time, and Jordan would make it easy for him.
And though the death of the Unspoken was a blight on the Reach's history even from a Devil's point of view, he was already concocting ways to take advantage of the chaos and fear that would reign when the news went public.
Fear always made people biddable, and Arlen knew how to use it.