Sometimes it felt as though people pissed him about on purpose.
Arlen drummed his fingers on Callan's desk as he waited. The low drone of a sermon with its total of three attendees was still audible at the end of the corridor. Arlen thought the idea of a regular service for Nict was laughable, though he was a believer; the god couldn't expect their worshippers to be any less fickle than they were. Nict stepped in when they pleased, which wasn't often.
Their worshippers prayed when they pleased, and it went both ways.
He had escaped his rooms, and Usk's questioning, and Silas's whining, just past full dark. It had been a risk, but the prospect of getting caught by anybody was more unbearable than that of running into a Fleshmonger or a pack of thralls down an alleyway. He might even have welcomed being mauled. It would at least have made his day more interesting than this.
He got up and began pacing the office, looking around but not touching anything. At face value, the office only looked like it belonged to a disorganised clergyman, but in places it looked a little too engineered; a stack of books which were positioned lopsided on top of each other, but all tilted at the same angle, or a pot of quills which had just so happened to fall into the pot with the broken nibs on one side and the unbroken ones on the other. He wondered where all the contracts were kept, the lies and the books of debts and the secrets, but he wasn't stupid enough to look for them.
He turned round when he sensed Callan at the door. The priest entered without looking at him, carrying a prayer book which he slotted into a drawer in his desk. He sat and pushed his glasses further up his nose, and Arlen took his seat again.
"I have something." Callan's expression was inscrutable, but Arlen didn't need two eyes to gather from the man's body language that he was choosing what he said carefully. He steeled himself for being lied to, or at least not told the whole truth. The ghost of a smile touched the priest's lips.
"Hit me with it."
"I have heard some rather convincing rumours that Caelum bankrolled the whole affair."
Arlen resisted the urge to spit. "That's a violation of the treaty."
"Bankrolled, not committed," Callan said, pretending not to notice Arlen's discomfort. "And so far I've only been able to dig up allegations. Not solid evidence."
"Great," Arlen muttered. The scar on his face tingled. "And if it's true then we might end up with a second Annexe War on our hands."
Callan cocked his head. "Some would want that."
"Not me." Arlen scowled. "The last one was a pain in the ring."
Callan remained still, as if waiting for Arlen to elaborate. He wasn't going to give the priest the pleasure. This wasn't a confessional, and there were far worse things he could dredge up worth begging penance for, if begging had ever been his style. And who would be there to forgive him? Callan, the priest with the long history of Devil involvement, or a god who never showed up?
Arlen curled his lip. "Is that what you brought me all this way to hear?"
Callan hadn't, in fact, sent for him himself, but Marick had told him the previous evening that the priest had new information and to come and get it the next morning. If that was the extent of the news, it would be confirmation that Marick was just trying to piss him off.
"No," Callan said curtly. "It's also surfaced that an Angel was found and arrested in the temple of Orthan a week ago and is currently awaiting trial in Harkenn's dungeons. It has not been made public knowledge at the behest of the House. The Angel has been named as Jeorge Nerahardt, a prominent political figure after the first Annexe War, and no claims or ransom offers have been made for his return from Caelum."
"What's that got to do with it?" Arlen said. He hated all this talk of Caelum. He thought it a better policy to pretend the place didn't exist. "Lucifer is constantly booting out vocal politicians, that's not news."
"Make of it what you will," Callan said, "It's what I have."
Arlen shrugged and gestured for the priest to continue.
"I think it highly unlikely that you are dealing with an average criminal," Callan said, clasping his hands in front of him and fixing Arlen with a cold stare. "Backing or no backing, it's no small thing to kill an Unspoken. There are whispers in the shadows of a weapon which can cut their connection to the source of their magic, at least temporarily. Long enough to get under their guard."
Arlen sat up straighter; this was the kind of thing he could engage with.
"Whatever it is, and if it is true, you are looking at someone who is clever enough to devise such a weapon. If it is true, it is also unlikely that they will stop at one."
"Nict's balls," Arlen said, even as he was envisioning shoving it between Yddris's ribs, "Some people have a death wish."
Callan didn't respond to that, only said, "Play carefully, Arlen. Think on what I've said."
But Arlen wasn't thinking about it when he walked out of the house temple and into a day that was already ending. He was thinking about just how much he wanted to throttle everybody he knew. What had Marick expected him to do with that information? He could have found all that out by himself. The idea of the weapon was interesting, but it was far from a lead, and nowhere near specific enough to give him an idea of where to look for one.
He didn't travel along the roofline this time. As if sensing the anger and irritation boiling off him like steam, the shadows kept back as he stormed down streets and alleys and finally came to a stop outside his home. He looked up, and sighed when he saw a candle flickering in the window. Usk didn't bother lighting candles, which meant his rooms' newest and most unwelcome lodger was back.
He considered turning around and spending the night at the beer hall, but the prospect of bumping into Marick wasn't any more appealing; at least if he lost his temper with Silas he wouldn't have his hand nailed to a door. He didn't quite trust himself not to explode with all the anger that he'd been bottling up, and one slip like that would bring everything he'd worked for crashing down around him.
He sighed again, and rounded the corner to find the way up.
Silas was sitting in Usk's chair at the table, an assortment of jewellery laid out in front of him. The brute was absent, which meant Arlen was stuck with the brat on his own. He wasn't sure his day could get much worse; then he checked himself and put two fingers to his chin as a prayer to Nict against it coming true. As he swung himself in through the window, Silas looked up, face brightening, and sat back from his hoard expectantly.
"I did what you asked," he said, as Arlen stalked past and knelt to light a fire in the stove.
Arlen frowned as he shoved in kindling with more force than necessary. He had only wanted the boy to stay out of his way for the day, but he didn't remember exactly what pointless exercise he'd set him to do. "Oh yeah? Remind me what that was again."
"Practise pickpocketing without getting caught." Silas's bright tone had an edge to it, probably as a result of Arlen's continued disinterest. He couldn't bring himself to care. "I got all this. And I didn't get caught."
"I'd gathered that much." Arlen cursed and picked a splinter out of his finger, flicking it back into the fire he'd just lit. He straightened and pulled off his cloak, then went to his bag for the produce he'd lifted from a poorly guarded Orthanian storehouse early that morning, before he'd gone to see Callan. "And good job too, since you might not find yourself broken out next time."
Silas scowled. "So where've you been all day?"
"That's none of your dark-damned business, boy."
"What do I need to do?"
"For what?" Arlen said, digging a dusty bottle of whisky out of the back of his cupboard and settling in his chair with it. He didn't offer any to the boy, and Silas didn't ask.
"For you to agree to teach me."
Arlen finally looked at the boy, and was overcome by a wave of disappointment. Silas was a scrap of a kid, more suited to something quiet and out of the way like forgery. Something you didn't need guts to do, since it was abundantly clear already that Silas didn't have much in the way of guts. Or brains, for that matter.
"If you want my honest opinion, boy, you're not cut out for this," he said, leaning back in the chair and digging out a pouch of blackweed from his pocket. "Not this area of business. I don't deal in the kind of thing you're suited for."
Silas glared. "And what's that, then?"
"Oh, you know," Arlen waved a hand vaguely as he shook the leaf into a rolling paper, "something like forgery, laundering and embezzling for rich idiots, that kind of thing. Plenty of that kind of work going around."
"Can I have one?" Silas asked abruptly.
Arlen glanced down at the smoke he'd just rolled. He looked at Silas, and then handed it over with a smile. "Go ahead. I'll even light it for you."
Silas took the smoke with shaky fingers, eyes narrowing as Arlen continued to smile. He pulled out a box of matches and struck one. He could do with a laugh.
Silas took a long drag – too long – and then disappeared below the table, coughing and spluttering. Arlen reached over and plucked the smoke out of the boy's fingers, taking a drag himself as he waited.
"I think I'm going to be sick."
"Do it out the window."
Silas got up, face bright red and eyes watering, and stumbled to the ledge to vomit into the street. Arlen chuckled and poured himself a cap of whisky, before finally turning his attention to the stash of valuables on the table. A couple of lockets, a promise ring, an iron bangle; it wasn't a promising haul, certainly not lifted from ambitious targets. It would fetch a few Shil at best, not even a Cert, but it was a start, he supposed; especially since Silas would be living off Arlen's money if he didn't make any of his own.
"Maybe smoking isn't for you, either," he drawled, turning a locket over in his hand and inspecting the engraving on the back. In his peripheral vision he saw Silas take his seat again, still racked with the occasional cough. "Niehammer. Not a bad make. This would fetch you about five Shil if you talked to the right people."
"You didn't answer my question."
"This one you might as well keep," Arlen held up the iron bangle and then dropped it on the table with a clatter, "because no one wants iron jewellery. Don't know about the ring, you'd have to check whether the jewel was pasted or not..."
"Arlen!"
Arlen leaned across the table, patience spent. Silas shrieked as a knife plunged into the table between his fingers, grazing skin, and a bead of blood welled in the gap.
"Get wise, brat," he hissed. "And don't push your luck. You're here because I'm allowing you to be here. No other reason. You have no rights, you have no bargaining power, you have nothing. You are nothing until you prove me wrong."
"How do I prove you wrong?"
Arlen's lip curled. He'd never apprentice the boy if he had a choice, but saying anything of the sort would just encourage him. "You can start by not fucking up this job."
Silas turned faintly yellowish and sagged in the chair. Arlen didn't blame him; he didn't want to do it, either.
"It'll be chaos," Silas murmured, "This could start a house war."
"You don't question orders," Arlen said, "You do the job you're given. It's not like Orthan doesn't have a successor. I believe you were quite close to the baron, weren't you?"
Silas just shuddered. "I'd rather kill him."
"Not part of the job," Arlen replied, "Much as I understand the sentiment."
"But if it's to send some kind of message, you could send it by killing Ethred," Silas said, almost pleading, as if Arlen could do anything about it. "Killing Eril could collapse the whole house."
"You're making a lot of assumptions about the motivations behind this. I don't know who wants Eril killed, and neither do you, and nor will either of us ever know if that person doesn't want us to. And if you can't cut ties with that dark-damned house you'll never make it as a Devil."
He went to the cupboard and dug out a crude map of the Orthanian temple, the version most people never saw; the one with the hidden passages and the routes through the catacombs. He brought it back to the table and used Silas's iron bangle to circle Eril's chambers.
"Get familiar with it," he said, and then went into the other room and closed the door.
Room was generous; the space where Arlen slept was more of a large cupboard, a remnant of a washroom from the days when these houses had had paying tenants, before the quarter was brought low. He liked it because it had a lock on the door, and because it was a place even Usk didn't invade. Arlen could sleep anywhere if the need arose, but he preferred it here if he could help it; even as he stepped inside he felt some of the tension in his body ease. He pulled off his jerkin and then his tunic, casting them into the corner and digging through his small stash of clothes for a fresh shirt. The scar that ran the length of his face also followed its trajectory onto his chest and down, ending above his hip, a thick corded line, a constant reminder of what he had to lose. Most of the time he avoided looking at it, but today he traced it with a finger and shuddered as Callan's words came back to him.
Caelum bankrolled the whole affair.
Play carefully.
Arlen sat down on his pallet with his back against the wall. He rolled up the corner of the mattress and pried up the floorboard underneath; inside were his longknives, his hunting knife, three jars of poison and an old book of drawings, buried right at the bottom. If he hadn't been so rattled by the idea of Caelum's involvement in an act that could start a civil war he would have passed over the book like he always did, but on their way to the handle of the hunting knife Arlen's fingers strayed to the worn leather cover.
He plucked it out of the space. It was small but well-used; the pages were browning, crinkled with age, thick with leaves that had been added later. A leather tie kept it from springing open, and as he pulled the knot loose it fell flat in his hand, onto a sketch of a boy with both eyes. The drawing brought him back to himself; he cursed. He was letting things get too far into his head.
He snapped the book shut, tied the knot and threw it back into the cavity, shuddering. He had the bizarre urge to scrub his hands clean, remove any lingering, intangible evidence that he'd touched the book. Instead he took up the hunting knife and slotted the board back in. No harm in a little extra protection.
The floor vibrated below him, and a moment later he heard the low rumble of Usk's voice in the room outside. He shuffled back into the corner and closed his eyes, confident enough that Usk wouldn't let Silas burn the building down or fall out the window if he grabbed a few minutes with his eyes shut. He carefully cleared his mind of all thought, grasping the handle of the knife for focus and security as he drifted.
Barely a few minutes had passed when someone knocked on the door. Arlen's eyes flew open, and he swung up into a crouch, the hunting knife already poised. When Usk cracked the door open and peered through, he straightened up but didn't lower the knife.
"What?"
"I disturbed you."
"You're a disturbing person. What do you want?" When Usk didn't crack a smile, he felt something roll in the pit of his stomach. "He's not fallen in the fire or something, has he?"
The brute blinked, and then seemed to realise he was talking about Silas, which meant that the boy had nothing to do with whatever Usk had to say. Arlen narrowed his eyes.
"Spit or I'll poke it out of you." He adjusted the grip on the knife.
"Thought you should know Marick has your man," Usk said. "The kid with magic. Had Jesper and Akiva haul him out the cellar of an inn in the Nictora district, no idea why or where they've taken him."
"How do you know?"
"He sent me to give Yddris a message. Told me Jes and Akiva were there in case things got nasty. Got the feeling after that I was just being used to distract Yddris." It was only then that Arlen noticed the blood on Usk's shirt. "I'm guessing you didn't know about that plan, either."
Arlen pushed past him, already shrugging on his cloak. He had a bad feeling and he wasn't sure why, but his bad feelings had always been worth acting on in the past. He didn't have any sentimental attachment to the kid, but if something happened to him, he was stuck with Silas. "I'm getting fed up with this."
He shoved his knife into his belt loop and clambered onto the windowsill, but just before he swung himself out onto the adjacent roof, Silas appeared at his shoulder.
"What kid with magic?" he demanded.
"What did I say about minding your own fucking business?"
"Is he the reason you won't apprentice me?"
"I won't apprentice you because you're shit," Arlen said, tugging his cloak free from Silas's hand and enjoying a brief flash of vindictive pleasure at the shock on his face. "And if you don't let me go right now I'll take you with me and drop you in a ditch."
"I'll kill him," Silas said. Arlen paused with one leg out the window. "I'll prove I'm better. Tell me who he is and I'll kill him to prove it."
"You're insane, boy. Don't joke around with petty shit like that."
But as he finally pulled himself away, he couldn't shake the feeling that Silas hadn't been joking at all.