Jordan was listening to the fire.
He wasn't sure what it meant, but unlike normal fire, the one burning in the grate now seemed to have a rhythm to it, one that timed itself with the beating of his heart. It was hard not to listen to it; his own magic responded to it. Though Yddris had set the fire, the man seemed unperturbed. Jordan wondered if he was used to it, or if he couldn't hear it and Jordan was out of his fucking tree.
He blinked and looked round when he heard Yddris's footsteps on the stairs. The Unspoken had disappeared to the attic for several minutes, but Jordan hadn't cared whether he was there or not. He felt numb and hopeless, with no idea what to expect. No idea how he was going to get out, or what to do about this Gift when he was home. Whether getting away was even possible; though he hadn't dwelled on that.
Yddris, if he had any words of comfort, hadn't said them. Sometimes wondered if the man forgot Jordan was there until he said something, as that was the only time he spoke. Nika had still not arrived, and if no one intervened soon in the stoic silence of his tutor and the sinister rhythm of the fire, Jordan was going to start pulling his hair out.
The Unspoken paused in the doorway, as if surprised to find Jordan there.
"Nika's coming," he said after a minute. "He'll be here any second."
Jordan nodded and tore his gaze from the fire. The dagger Yddris had given him sat heavy in the sheath at his hip. He was too aware that it was there; that he might have to use it someday.
He was trying not to think about it too much.
Yddris looked at him for a moment, before he sighed and joined Jordan on the floor by the fire. He smelled like he'd been smoking upstairs, and Jordan was glad he didn't have to sit in a cloud of it over dinner. Whatever was in the pipe made him go all weird at the knees and gave him the strangest urge to laugh at nothing.
"I suspect that I don't need to ask how you're feeling," Yddris muttered. "But out of courtesy, I'm going to ask you if you want to spit it out."
Jordan snorted softly. "Like shit warmed up."
"Thought as much."
Jordan glanced at the Unspoken sidelong. "Do you ever take those off? The cloaks?"
"Yes," Yddris said. "It's quite hard to bathe with it on, believe it or not. And they need washing from time to time. But in any situation where someone else might catch us without them, no."
"Is it so bad if people can see the marks?"
"It's not just that." Yddris sniffed. "Part of it is tradition. Part of it is caution. It's a trip to the scaffold to cause any kind of harm to Unspoken, but that doesn't mean that people don't want to. If somebody knew you or recognised you, there's no capital punishment attached to making life miserable for your loved ones."
Jordan's thoughts went to Grace, and he shuddered. It had nothing to do with the draught coming up through the floor. He hadn't felt properly cold since his magic manifested itself, but now he felt like he'd been dunked in ice. Already, people all over the city knew who they were. Half of them thought he and his sister were some kind of blessing from a god. It wasn't a stretch to imagine that someone from the other half might go after Grace to get to him.
He pushed the image of Arlen's face from his mind as it rose unbidden.
But the idea that no one would ever see his face again was disturbing. That nobody he met from here on would know him by sight, and as he got older, only he would know what he looked like. It was a terribly lonely thought.
"How long have you been Unspoken?" he asked Yddris, to distract himself from those thoughts.
"Lost track," Yddris said indifferently. "Stopped counting when I stopped giving a shit." He got to his feet and went to the window. "Here's Nika."
He went out into the hall. A breeze rolled in as the door opened and Jordan heard voices there, but no one came inside. The voices rose to a pitch before stopping. He frowned, and was about to get up and see what the matter was when the door slammed. One figure entered, and he presumed it was Nika judging by the amount he was carrying. Yddris didn't come back in.
"He'll be back," Nika said. His voice was oddly hollow. "There's an emergency at the castle."
Jordan got to his feet and watched Nika with uncertainty from a distance. Something was wrong. The man was moving slowly, vaguely, as if in shock. He fumbled and dropped one of the bags and cursed, and Jordan stepped forward to help.
"Put these..." Nika pushed a bag of small, round objects into Jordan's hands, "...in the pantry cupboard. It's under the stairs." He swallowed audibly. "You can have one if you're hungry, I won't get dinner until Yddris comes back."
Jordan peeked into the cloth sack. Several deep purple fruits glistened in the bottom. He picked one out and gave it an experimental sniff and a squeeze. They looked and felt like plums, and seemed innocuous enough. The pantry cupboard was a small hatch in the wall under the stairs. It was empty aside from three shrivelled potatoes that had grown into a leafy, anaemic bush, and Jordan was about to call to Nika to ask whether he should clear them out when he heard a loud bump and a gasp.
He abandoned the bag of fruit in the cupboard and dashed back to the front room. He found Nika sitting on the floor, head in his hands. A sheaf of wavy white hair had broken loose from his cowl.
Jordan froze in the doorway, his nervousness around Nika warring with his urge to do something helpful. He took a tentative step forward, opened his mouth, closed it again. Nika sniffed and looked up, and Jordan jumped.
"Can I do anything?" he blurted.
Nika blew out a shaky breath. "Sorry. I just...I had a moment, that's all." He paused. "I don't suppose you've seen a bottle of whisky or something like it anywhere?"
Jordan frowned. He had seen a few glass bottles in the cellar, but it had been too dim to see what was in them.
"There's bottles of something in the cellar," he said. "I don't know if they're alcohol."
"They will be," Nika said, "If they're in the cellar. I could do with something stiff."
"Right." Jordan turned to the cellar, looked at his hands, and then turned back again. "Do you have a candle?"
Equipped with a candle – burning a reassuring orange in front of him – Jordan went into the cellar. He couldn't help the squeeze of trepidation around his heart as the wall of knives glittered at him. It was easier to see them with a normal flame. He looked around. Lengths of rope hung from the ceiling. Some of them ended in grappling hooks, others were thick enough to use as mooring rope. He spotted more weapons; hooks and spikes, a spear, a scimitar darkened with what he hoped was rust. Behind two saddles, which were badly cracked and stank of old horse, Jordan found the bottles he had seen earlier. When he removed the cork of the largest bottle, which was half full of dark liquid, it smelled like bourbon. He took it back upstairs.
Nika had collected himself somewhat when Jordan returned. He was unpacking his things; laying out a bedroll, crockery, and ingredients for dinner. Several thick volumes sat next to the bed, all bristling with little markers made of paper.
"I didn't see any glasses," Jordan said, handing the bottle over. By way of an answer, Nika uncorked it and took a long swig.
"He won't care," he muttered, and then sighed. "That's better."
Jordan returned to his spot by the fire but settled in it facing the room so he could watch Nika. The Unspoken was unpacking with a feverish preoccupation, and kept glancing at the window.
"Do I want to know what happened?" Jordan asked, when he couldn't bear the silence any longer. The silence with Yddris was different. Yddris was just there, but Nika's frenetic energy made it hard not to get impatient.
Nika stopped abruptly, fumbling with the bag he was holding. "Oh, no, I don't think you do. But you deserve to know. Yddris would tell you." He glanced at the window again, and then seemed to come to a decision. "There was a body found in the steel district. They were Unspoken."
Jordan went cold. "Is that... I mean.... They were murdered?"
"Yes." Nika drew in a long breath. "This is the first time in a century. The last recorded murder of Unspoken on the city records was one hundred years ago. Almost to the day."
Jordan stared at Nika for several moments, mouth opening and closing as he tried to find the right words to say now. What was he supposed to say – that he was terrified enough, and now it was worse? Was he supposed to try and comfort this man whom he'd only known for a handful of days?
"Did...did you know them?" he said in a tiny voice, and immediately regretted it.
Nika was silent for a long time. "Yes."
"I'm really sorry."
Nika nodded slowly and turned away. "Thank you, Jordan."
Appetite gone, Jordan returned to the cupboard to escape the stifling awkwardness. As he pulled out the blooming potatoes and their yards of pale trailing roots, he tried to sort through his thoughts; he ought to feel more in reaction to the news, have said something more appropriate, but he was coming up blank on words and only felt a numb, vague fear. The fear hadn't left him since he had landed in Shadow's Reach what felt like a lifetime ago. The sudden death of an Unspoken seemed distant, unrelated to him, and he felt guilty for it.
His magic was bothering him again. He presumed it was because Yddris was so far away that the pounding in the back of his head had returned and rogue sparks flashed over his skin, leaving raised hairs in their wake. The pounding almost sounded like a river, or a waterfall from far away.
He dumped the potato bush in the large bucket sitting in the hall – judging by the old bits of sacking and venerable carrots in the bottom, it was what passed for a bin. He stepped into his new room, and found that Nika had brought Jordan's few belongings back with him from the Demon's Brew. The sight of his rain-mack on the bed, bright red and artificial, was jarring. It felt like a totally different person had worn that coat last.
He dug in the pockets, and was surprised to find most of his things had survived the ordeal of arriving in Nictaven. His pocket sketchbook was a little forlorn, with the cover bent and the pages dog-eared, and his pencil lead had fallen out, but having it in his hands was comforting. He'd totally forgotten he still had it in the chaos of the fall and the events following.
"What's that?"
Jordan jumped and turned. Nika stood in the doorway; Jordan had been so absorbed that he hadn't registered his approach.
"Oh," he said, swallowing, "Erm. I draw sometimes. It's just paper. Thanks for bringing my stuff, by the way."
Nika tilted his head. "May I see?"
Jordan's cheeks heated, but he handed it over. He didn't feel it was the moment to be refusing Nika anything, since he'd been so useless in every other respect.
"You drew these?" Nika asked, slowly turning the pages.
Jordan's cheeks warmed. "Yeah."
The Unspoken closed the sketchbook almost reverently and handed it back. "You'll have no trouble with runework. You're very gifted."
"Huh." Jordan suppressed a snort. It wasn't funny, not even a little bit, but he couldn't help himself. "Thank you."
Nika turned and left. Jordan put the sketchbook down on the bed, wondering if there would be anywhere he could buy a new pencil; his lead was bound to be shattered. He rummaged in his other pockets, and his hand closed over Arlen's note. He pulled it out and stared at it. He saw Grace's wounds in his mind's eye, and he imagined a man just like him, Unspoken, murdered and left on the street for someone to find. He imagined himself like Yddris, living in an empty home and hunting demons for so long that he lost track of the years.
He shuddered. He didn't trust Arlen any further than he could throw him, but the Devil was his only lead on getting home. His only hope, full stop. He hadn't the first clue what Arlen wanted from him, but surely it couldn't be worse than living out the rest of his days in this hellpit of a city. He felt buoyed by the idea that getting home was still a narrow possibility; how would anyone know what his chances were, if no one had tried for years?
Still cheered by that idea, he went back to the front room. He found Nika standing at the window.
"Is it weird?" he asked, determined to keep the subject away from the murder. He didn't want to think about what it meant. He had to focus on getting home. "Being back here?"
"He told you about that, did he?" Nika murmured. "No, it's not weird. I've been back many times since."
"How come?"
"Tutors and their apprentices tend to stay close," Nika said. "Look at Hap and Koen."
Jordan hesitated. Yddris and Nika didn't seem close at all.
"That doesn't mean they never fall out," Nika added, sounding as though he was smiling.
Jordan thought about asking Nika to translate the address there and then, but thought better of it. He still had just under a month to learn enough Nictavian to translate it himself. Or perhaps he could ask someone random, who wouldn't ask any questions.
Yddris didn't return for another couple of hours. Jordan had worked his way through half of the purple fruits Nika had brought back – sweeter than plums, but similar in other respects, and very moreish – while Nika retrieved a chair from the attic, stationed himself at the window, and ceased to move. Jordan attempted to sharpen what was left of his pencil with the blade Yddris had given him, and then managed to sketch the man a few times before the lead fell out again.
He knew when Yddris returned, because it was the first time Nika moved from the chair in over an hour. He looked up just as his tutor blew through the door on an icy breeze that carried demonic howls on it from the distance. His magic prickled at the sound, but as Yddris came into the room, the pounding in the back of his head faded and his thoughts were left to blissful silence. He couldn't prevent a small sigh of relief from escaping him.
Yddris paused in the doorway. He turned to Nika.
"You alright?"
"I'm fine," Nika replied, with a hint of irritation. "What's happening up there?"
"Uproar," Yddris said. He stepped inside and then sat on the floor by the fire, heavily, as if his bones weighed too much all of a sudden. "Absolute uproar. Everybody's blaming the Devils, but I don't think even they're mad enough."
"You wouldn't think people would be so upset."
"They're not upset." Yddris spat into the fire. "They're just scared that the killer will come after them next. If you can kill Unspoken, you can kill anyone, is probably their thinking."
"What about Harkenn?"
"Furious. I've never seen him so angry." Yddris sighed. "He had the roster for the Guild with him, everyone still alive, including all recruits. It's pitifully short. They're going to push the apprenticing age forward at this rate."
"What does that mean?" Jordan asked. He felt self-conscious when Yddris glanced at him, wishing he hadn't said anything.
"At the moment, Guild law dictates that you cannot take an apprentice unless you have been a practicing, fully-trained Unspoken for ten years. If there aren't enough of us that qualify, Gifted pupils start slipping through the cracks. Get themselves killed. Nictaven can't afford to let the Gift die out. We were already struggling, and now some dark-damned maniac has got it into their head to start killing the rest of us off."
"It's only one," Nika said, though there was a waver in his voice. "It might have been a fluke."
"Only one," Yddris repeated dully. "We can't afford to lose anybody, Nika."
"I know."
"And to think," Yddris said, dark humour in his voice now, "Our first new member in a year is from another world."
"I'm the first in a year?" Jordan asked, not liking the sound of it. He thought guiltily of the note and the plans he had been forming, but pushed it away. He didn't owe this world anything.
"We take an average of ten into the Guild per year, give or take," Nika said. "The Gift isn't common as it is. But this year you're the only one."
"No pressure then," Jordan said. He laughed, but it came out so strangled it made him cringe.
"No pressure." Yddris chuckled without humour. "Anyway, boy, you should be resting. Your sister will have me strung up if you don't."
Jordan swallowed. He still couldn't stop thinking about what had happened in the kitchens. "Maybe."
"I left you a bedroll," Nika said vaguely. He had returned to the window. Jordan got the distinct impression he was being dismissed. "Settle in and I'll bring you some dinner when it's ready."
Jordan left them almost at a run, a weight in his stomach and the pressure of their silence at his back.
Out in the city, a demon howled.