"If you can't concentrate with her in the room, Jordan, you're going to have to put her out."
Koen snorted as Jordan looked up at Nika, cheeks heating, and then back to the work spread out in front of him. Ren continued to roll around under the paper Jordan's cloak had come wrapped in, making rustling noises and squeaking.
He scowled. His studies of written Nictavian weren't going well; he had never been a natural at languages and it was showing. He'd been trying to write the alphabet for hours, but every time he tried there was something wrong with it, some line out of place or a missed letter. Hap was out on a job, and Nika was presiding over both Koen and Jordan's studies in his absence. Jordan wouldn't have minded if he hadn't become very quickly aware of how little Koen needed correcting on his work, which was much more advanced than the alphabet.
Deflated, sore from sitting on the floor for so long, he felt he'd at least earned the right to a break, but Nika had picked up on it the moment his mind wandered.
"I'm no good at this," he protested. "I've been trying for hours."
"Do you want to learn it or not?"
"Yes." Though he was having second thoughts at this stage – only Arlen's note kept him from lobbing his work across the room.
Nika sighed. "Once more, and we'll pick it up again tomorrow."
"Can I pee first?"
Nika chuckled. "That depends on if you plan on coming back."
Jordan was already getting to his feet. "Don't give me ideas."
He escaped through the corridor to the back of the house. Yddris's toilet was a bucket in the yard, but unlike the inn, it had all the Nictavian mod cons – a little shed, complete with a roof and a plank of wood with a hole in it to sit on. It smelled exactly like one might expect an old privy shed to smell. Though Yddris inhabited the house infrequently, the privy had history, and Jordan emerged with watering eyes moments later. Blinking and wiping them on his tunic, he went to the only other piece of furniture outside, a stone bench that was covered in greyish algae, and sat down.
Wind whistled through the eaves of the house. It was light enough outside that it didn't carry the screams of demons on it, but the daylight hours were becoming so short that it wouldn't be long before it did. Most nights it kept Jordan awake, and when he did sleep he dreamed about demons. The pounding in his skull was a constant companion, reminding him endlessly that he was supposed to kill those massive, deadly creatures that howled and screamed at night. That he might someday be the only thing between life and death, someone's only hope of survival.
He had never thought he would think with longing of that checkout job back home in Oxford, where the worst he had to contend with was crowds. He thought of sunny days in the city centre, swarming with tourists, and couldn't help comparing it to the chilly greyness of Shadow's Reach, couldn't help a pang of homesickness so strong it winded him.
"You alright, boy?"
He jumped, viciously scrubbing at the tears on his face and glowering at the ground as Yddris sauntered out of the house, blowing out a long column of smoke. The Unspoken sat down on the bench beside him with a heavy sigh.
"Didn't know you were back," Jordan muttered, sniffing.
"Just got here," Yddris replied. "Nika told me you were taking a suspiciously long piss so I thought I'd check on you."
"It's not cuz I'm shit at writing," Jordan said abruptly.
"What isn't?"
Jordan's face heated. "Why I'm out here." He shrugged. "Even though I am. Shit at writing, I mean."
Yddris chuckled and took another drag on his pipe. "You'll get there. I'd be willing to bet you aren't shit, Nika's just got notoriously high standards." The man shook his head. "Kiel's teeth, you should've seen him when I was teaching him. Burned through every book I bought him in a matter of days and could answer any question on its contents. Bit embarrassing, if I'm honest."
"Wasn't that a good thing?"
"Well, yes, it was for him." Yddris shrugged. "It's not exactly a pleasant experience to be shown up by your apprentice."
Jordan frowned. "So can you not..."
"Read? No. Never learned, but I survived this long without it. Plenty do. Just saying, boy, and it probably won't be this way, but if you never manage to drill a single letter of Nictavian into your head you're not the only one. Anyway," he got up, "I've convinced him to let you go for the day."
"Thank god," Jordan said vaguely, still processing what Yddris had told him.
"Because it's about time you started your lessons with me."
"What?" Jordan sharpened up, and realised Yddris was serious. "But it's late."
"Exactly."
"Don't demons...."
"Yes."
"Oh." It dawned on him at that moment what Yddris was referring to. "Oh."
"Come on. It might take your mind off things."
Jordan doubted that very much, considering that what constituted 'things' was exactly what Yddris was about to take him out to do. He sighed, ignoring the tight ache in his throat, and got up off the bench to follow Yddris inside.
"Demons do come out primarily at night," Yddris said as they went, "but you can relax for now. We're starting small." He led Jordan to the bottom of the attic stairs and pointed up them. Jordan frowned. He hadn't had occasion to go upstairs, though he'd been staying at Yddris's house for a week. The attic had gained an eerie mystery in his mind, and he couldn't help the thudding of his heart against his ribcage as he ascended into the semi-gloom.
Behind him, Yddris lit a torch of green flame in the palm of his hand, throwing odd shadows over the crossbeams of the room above. The space was larger than Jordan had expected. As he clambered out of the trapdoor, Yddris lit a lamp that sat on a hook beside it on the low ceiling. More were ranged along the beams at waist-level, and Yddris went around lighting them all until the attic glowed green. It was barren aside from a white chalk circle, faded with age, on the floor in the centre.
"I've been told that the noise has been a problem for you," Yddris said. When Jordan frowned, the Unspoken tapped the side of his head with a finger.
"Oh...yeah. It has." He fidgeted and shivered surreptitiously. "I hear it in my sleep. All the time."
"Magic runs closer to the surface at night," Yddris said, sounding pleased, as if Jordan had answered a difficult question. "Which is why we are doing this now." He chuckled. "You might want to start getting used to the idea of training at night."
Jordan groaned. "But you sleep at night...don't you?"
He thought about it for a minute, and then realised that he had nothing to back it up. He had never come across any of the Unspoken except Koen sleeping at night, and even then the other apprentice had gone to bed much later than he had.
"We sleep when we get the chance," Yddris said. "Demons are active at night; most of our jobs take place then. For a new apprentice just starting out in understanding the Gift, there's no point making it harder by training when the source of the Gift is harder to reach."
"I suppose that makes sense," Jordan muttered, grudgingly. The attic had a single window; through it, the night sky was now almost pitch dark. He imagined the kind of horrors crawling around out in that darkness, and then tried to imagine ever being as offhand about these 'jobs' as Yddris was. All he could summon was that same image of home, where he didn't have to think about things like demons and magic.
Yddris snapped his fingers, a surprisingly sharp sound for a gloved hand. Jordan started, blinking. His eyes were burning again.
"Focus, boy," Yddris said, not unkindly. "Come on."
"I didn't ask for this," he said.
"None of us did." Yddris turned abruptly solemn. "But you don't always get to choose."
"What would happen?" Jordan pressed, "If I didn't train? Would it stay how it is?"
"No. It would run rampant and unchecked until you burned something down or hurt someone and got yourself arrested." Yddris cocked his head. "And that's if nobody's run you out of town before then to starve in the mountains. In your particular case, of course, there's the little problem that is your contract with Harkenn, breaking which would mean your sister's death, your incarceration, and me getting a bollocking that would leave me on the streets. If that's not motivation enough, boy, I don't know what to tell you."
Jordan scowled. Seeming to take that as a kind of acknowledgement, Yddris continued.
"It's easier to think of Nictaven as a current than anything else. It flows much like a river does, and you can think of yourself as a pail; there's only so much of it you can hold at one time or it spills over. Part of your training is working out what your capacity is, so you never go over it by accident. You only ever have one accident like that."
Jordan shuddered, but wasn't going to be deterred. "Do you think earth has magic?"
"Your world?" Yddris said, resigned. "I wouldn't know, boy. Why do you ask?"
"Just wondering."
"Just wondering whether if you found a way to get back there, it might go away?" When Jordan hesitated, the Unspoken chuckled but it was hard and short. "If you're going to beat around the bush, at least don't make it so obvious. Truth is, I really couldn't tell you. I can tell you what I do know, and that is that the portal you came through was the first in two centuries. There is no living memory of a man-made portal." His gaze, though invisible in this gloom, was searching. "None whatsoever."
Jordan couldn't hold that gaze for long. He dropped his eyes to the floor.
"I still don't see why we...you...need to do so much. To...kill those things. Isn't there another way?"
"No." Yddris shook his head. "Demons aren't like other animals. They're durable. They've survived Nictaven for much longer than we have. No invention can match it for cruelty, and they have survived that much. Which means that we possess the only weapon they can't handle; the world they have already fought to survive, used in ways it has never been used before. Our magic keeps civilisation alive. That is why we need to do so much."
"And people still treat you like shit?"
"Think about it from the perspective of someone who has lived here all their lives and have no Gift. They have probably seen what demons can do, if not been personally affected by it, and they will have at least heard stories of the land beyond the settlements, if not been there themselves. They have seen Nictaven kill, and then they have seen people defy death itself just by existing. They have seen it used in war - in terrible ways. They cannot defend themselves against magic any more than they can defend themselves against demons, and yet they have to trust us not to abuse it, to hold their lives in our hands and not throw it away, and to keep them safe." He paused. "Would you not be cautious of someone with that much power over you?"
Jordan swallowed. At some point his gaze had moved back to Yddris, and now he couldn't wrench it away. His hands tingled, as if he really were holding those lives in his palms at that moment. He wasn't sure if Yddris was trying to make him feel better; if he was, it was doing the opposite.
"I've changed my mind," the Unspoken said abruptly, and Jordan jumped. "We're changing the itinerary. Go and get your cloak on."
Jordan didn't move. He hadn't touched his cloak since the trip into the city for his supplies, and hadn't wanted to. It felt like a prison; at best, like acceptance of a fate he didn't want. He had no burning desire to go into the city at night, either – this lesson had taken a direction he didn't like at all, and he regretted his eagerness to get away from practicing his letters.
"Go on." Yddris's voice had an edge to it that Jordan hadn't heard before, the sharpness of an order. It had been easy not to think of the man as his tutor up until that point, but that tone made the position very clear. Before he knew it he was scurrying back down the stairs to his room.
"Are you going out?" Nika asked, meeting him at the bottom of the stairs. He was carrying Jordan's study book and the writing tablet covered in his failed attempts under his arm.
"I think so," Jordan muttered, and darted away when he heard Yddris's boots on the stairs behind him.
Just before his door closed on the two Unspoken, he heard Nika say, "You're not being hard on him, are you?"
"If being honest is being hard on him, then yes," Yddris muttered. "I'm not going to coddle him, Nika."
Jordan moved away from the door, heart pounding. His room had a single window, but there was very little light coming through it, so he was standing in darkness. He crossed the room, hissing in pain as he bashed his shin on the bedpost, and stood looking out; the view was unremarkable, only looking into a tiny alley that ran along the back of the houses on Yddris's street. After a split second of thought, he flipped the catch and pushed the window up. He had one leg dangling out into the alley when he realised there was someone sitting on the opposite wall, watching him.
"Well, well," Arlen said, pulling down the scarf around his mouth and showing that awful grin, "At your limit already, are you?"
Jordan froze. All the thoughts of trying to find Arlen early, the ones that had plagued him for the last few days, vanished in an instant as Yddris's words echoed through his head.
There is no living memory of a man-made portal. None whatsoever.
None whatsoever.
"What are you doing?" Jordan hissed. "They'll see you."
"Ah." Arlen face changed. He cocked his head. "What's he told you about me, then?"
"That you kill people for a living," Jordan said, drawing his leg back inside the room. "And that you're lying to me."
"All that?" Arlen feigned surprise. "And here I was thinking he couldn't form full sentences." He grinned again. "What guarantee could he give you that I'm the one who's lying? Has he given you any guarantee that he isn't?"
"No. But killing people for a living and not being in prison yet usually goes hand in hand with lying."
Arlen laughed. "I like you, boy." He settled himself on the wall. Jordan's hand crept to the window, ready to slam it down again. It had been easy to forget the kind of man Arlen was in the face of what he was offering. Now he was in front of him, and it was all too apparent. "Put it this way. Assume, just for a second, that we disregard the portal. Put it aside for now. Yeah?"
Jordan nodded. He looked back over his shoulder, but none of the Unspoken had come to check on him, and the light under the door was unbroken by a waiting shadow.
"Yddris is the lord's man," Arlen said, drawing Jordan's attention back. "You want to get your sister free of him, Yddris isn't going to help you. You won't be getting her out of there unless you're earning enough to keep her, since serving girls don't earn much and she's not married, either. You won't be making that kind of money for a long time." He smiled. "Unless I teach you how to do it. There." He leaned back. "Now we have two solutions, don't we?"
"I think you could still be lying about both of them," Jordan said. "Just saying." He squinted at the man's silhouette. "What would you get out of it? What exactly would you be teaching me?" He swallowed. "I won't kill people for money. Not for anything."
"Who said anything about killing people?" Arlen said with mock hurt, then smirked and shrugged. "Up to you, boy. Feel free to assume I'm lying about all of it. Meanwhile, Grace stays up there with that lecher lord." He laughed. "And she is such a pretty girl."
Before Jordan could say anything, Arlen disappeared over the wall and the bedroom door opened behind him.
"Jordan?" Nika asked. "Are you alright?"
Jordan didn't answer, staring at the empty space where Arlen had disappeared, the welts on Grace's back in his mind's eye. What had that last comment meant? That Harkenn would...that he could....
He jumped as Nika's hand closed over his shoulder, the touch jolting him back to the present.
"Are you alright?" Nika repeated, concern in his voice. A shadow fell over the door, and when Jordan turned he felt the full weight of Yddris's gaze and knew that he knew.
"I'm fine," he stuttered, shrugging himself out from under Nika's hand. "I'm fine."
"Don't take him out like this," Nika said to Yddris, voice hardening. "He needs time."
"Not as much as he needs to know what we're up against." Yddris's voice was like a slow rockslide, gravelly and dangerous, and Jordan shuddered as the man swept past him and pulled the window back down with a bang. "I thought I told you to get your cloak on, boy. You can stare gormlessly at the moon as much as you like when we get back."
"Yddris..."
"He's my apprentice, Nika. I can decide what he's capable of doing."
They watched Yddris go, heard him crashing about in the cellar moments later. Nika sighed.
"If he pushes you too far, Jordan, shove something sharp in something soft and walk away."
Jordan tried to smile. It slid from his face like cold pudding, and he turned again to stare out the window. Out of the corner of his eye, perched on the fence of a building further up the hill, a shadow stretched itself out and darted away.