He woke up very slowly. His head was throbbing, blood pulsing behind his eyes as he struggled into consciousness.
The first thing Jordan became aware of was the candle. It sat in front of him on a table, and outside its halo of light the room was pitch dark. He couldn't hear anything, but he couldn't determine whether it was because the room was silent or the knock to the side of the head had damaged his hearing. He groaned; he heard it, and sagged with relief. The movement drew his attention to the rope binding his wrists.
"Ah," someone said, somewhere in the darkness, "You're awake."
Jordan tried to swivel in the chair to see who had come up behind him. His back felt horribly exposed and he couldn't feel the weight of his knife against his hip.
He guessed by the total blackness that his magic was still off limits, too.
Whoever it was took their time in walking around his chair. They carried a lantern, which they set down beside the candle, and then they leaned against the table, bringing their features into the light. It was a man with dark hair and blue eyes, and he was smiling, but Jordan wasn't set any more at ease by it; it was a sharp smile, cold. He felt judged rather than reassured.
He wasn't going to be the first one to speak; he wouldn't have known what to say anyway. He sat frozen in his chair, and his thoughts were racing too fast for him to pull together any kind of escape plan that might actually work.
"Not talkative, are you?" the man said. It was hard to discern what he thought about Jordan's silence from his tone. "Most people are struggling and begging by now."
"Don't know what I'd be begging for," Jordan said, willing his voice not to break. "Until I know what you want from me."
The cat-like smile was back. There was something wrong about this man, something off – something, other than the fact that he was shackled to a chair in a dark room, that told Jordan he should really be running away as fast as possible. He was aware now that the room smelled old and disused, and he could've sworn he heard the steady trickle of a water leak onto hard flooring somewhere behind him. In sharp contrast, his companion was dressed no less elegantly than Lord Harkenn, in clothes that were clearly expensive.
"Where's Laurel?" he asked.
"Oh, the girl?" the stranger said, and as he shrugged away from the table Jordan saw the edge of a scar cutting his collarbone in two. "She's alive."
Ignoring the thudding of his heart, and the fact that it felt like it had moved up to beat against his skull, Jordan said, "Good to know. I asked where she was."
"Don't make assumptions about your position here, my friend," the man said. His smile had frozen. "You are very much on the wrong end of the stick to be getting smart with me."
Jordan fell silent and willed his shaking to his stop. He didn't feel like crying, though he thought it was because he'd already gone past the point of crying into numbness. It hadn't sunk in yet. He didn't know where he was, he was unarmed, he was tied up, and in the back of his mind he could so vividly remember the night Nika had returned home after the murder of the Unspoken. At the time it had felt so distant from him, but it was currently feeling very immediate.
"That's better," the man said, when the silence stretched out. He made a gesture.
There were the sounds of a struggle; two sets of footsteps behind him and a muffled shriek. Aware of his captor's eyes on him, Jordan didn't try to speak or turn around, but strained through the gloom to identify the two figures that had just arrived as they stopped nearby.
Laurel's silver hair was ruffled and knotted; she was gagged and held from behind by a large man whose features Jordan couldn't make out. She fell still, outwardly calm, and met Jordan's eyes as she shook her head minutely.
"If you make any attempts to escape," their captor said, and a blade flashed in his hand. "Or otherwise fail to hear me out, I'll cut her throat. Do you understand me?"
Jordan nodded. The man holding Laurel also had a knife pressed to her neck.
"There's no way of getting to her faster than that knife will," the man said with a pleasant smile, "So you may as well sit back and listen. Take her into the next room," he gestured sharply to his companion, "if he gets uncooperative, make her squeal. If you talk back to me again, boy, I'll let my men have her."
Jordan watched out of the corner of his eye as Laurel was dragged away. The rope around his wrists burned with how hard he gripped it, and he couldn't have stopped shaking with all the will in the world.
"Now we have that established, we can talk."
Jordan waited. He wondered if Yddris had got his signal; if the Unspoken could track him by his aura. He hoped so.
"You've been in sporadic communication with one of my men, haven't you?" the man said, polishing the knife as if disinterested, but Jordan couldn't shake the feeling that it was a threat. "You know Arlen, don't you?"
"I met him," Jordan said. His heart had fallen into his stomach; this was Arlen's employer? He should have handed that note over to Yddris in the first place. Why had he kept it secret? Would it have prevented this happening if he hadn't? "I wouldn't say I know him."
"You don't trust him, then."
"No."
"He tells me you've expressed some interest in what he was offering to you," the man continued thoughtfully, "but you don't believe he will deliver?"
"No, sir." Jordan swallowed.
"Because it seems so improbable?"
"Yes."
"And because everyone else has been telling you it isn't possible, no doubt."
"Yes."
The man nodded. The smile was back. "He made that offer on my behalf. Making portals is perfectly possible, you see, but you do have to go through channels that are not strictly legal." He spread his hands. "And so you see, a guild like mine is in a position to offer such things."
"Because you're a bunch of criminals?"
The man snapped his fingers. In another room, Laurel screamed.
"I'm sorry," Jordan blurted, and finally found his tears. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Please don't."
"Consider it a warning," the man said. "As I was saying, Arlen made that offer on my behalf, but he was the one who wanted to teach you. He's taken an unfortunate liking to you, and that kind of liking puts you in a certain kind of danger, see. A man like Arlen has enemies. I need something from you and the portal is my payment. I do not want you dead before I get my results."
Jordan tried to sort through the questions buzzing around his head, unsure what to ask first. It made a certain kind of sense; how Arlen had switched from using the portal as an incentive, to using Grace's safety. Why he kept seeing the assassin, even when it was long before any meeting point Arlen had given him.
It terrified him that he hadn't seen it before.
"So what do you want from me?" Jordan asked, but the man only shook his head.
"That's telling. As for what Arlen wants from you, that is very simple. He wants an apprentice and it's about time he got one."
"But...but I can't. I'm already..."
"That doesn't mean anything," his captor interrupted. "It's easy to work around. I daresay it will even help you in the long run. Much as they like to preach their own virtues, an Unspoken's skills are remarkably compatible with that of an assassin."
"Arlen said I wouldn't have to kill people."
"I don't know what he wants to teach you. That may well be true."
"I don't understand what you're getting at. If I train with Arlen...and Yddris...but you're offering me a way home...what's the point in doing any of it?"
The man only smiled. Jordan was convinced he was going to start seeing that smile in his dreams, somewhere among the demons and vivid imaginations of what everyone back home was doing now that it had been so long since he and Grace had left.
"Because you'll have to work for that way home," the man said, "and those skillsets will get me my results faster. There's also the small issue that you and I both want you to stay alive until that time comes. I don't think I need to remind you about certain...recent events."
"Are you telling me it could be years before we get home?"
"Are you telling me you think you're in a position to make demands?"
Jordan tensed, watching the stranger's fingers for that damning snap, but it didn't come and the other room stayed silent. He hoped Laurel wasn't seriously hurt. That scream was still echoing in his ears.
"If the carrot won't get you, maybe the stick will," the man continued, his voice growing darker. "You have a contract with Harkenn to protect your sister's life but you have no such contract with me."
Panic bloomed in his chest. He was here again. He couldn't believe he was here again. "Leave Grace alone."
"I have agents within the castle walls who can get to her quicker than you ever could," the man said, "and you will never know who they are. When Arlen first proposed to me the idea of teaching you, I had decided to use force to get you to work for me. He has offered you a way to do this quietly and without unpleasantness. I'll even throw in additional protection for you and your sister subject to your agreement. People play dirty in Nictaven, my friend, and it's time you get used to it. You have valuable assets, and your sister is the only remaining foreigner from that portal since the other one mysteriously vanished." He broke off to give him a pointed look. "She'll be a target for people you're not even aware of, who you've never met. If you want to protect both yourself and her, how better than to train with someone who can teach you things even the Unspoken don't know?"
"Who are you?" He was sure the man could hear his heartbeat echoing through the room. His thoughts had gone oddly fuzzy.
"My name is Marick," his captor said. His eye flicked to a point behind Jordan's head, and a scowl came and went over his face in the space of a blink. "Well met, Arlen."
A familiar voice ground out from somewhere in the room. "You didn't tell me you had plans for the boy."
"No." Marick sat back against the table. "So who did? Usk, no doubt, that damnable brute." Jordan shuddered involuntarily at the memory and Marick chuckled. "Well, that hit a nerve, didn't it?"
Jordan felt Arlen come up behind him. "Is this a game to you, Marick?"
"Everything is a game," Marick replied. "Some people just don't know how to play. I'm teaching Jordan the rules."
"Think I could do with a refresher, too," Arlen growled. "Callan had nothing I couldn't have found out by myself. You just wanted me out of the way."
"Well, you hadn't found it out yet, had you?" Marick replied, deceptively pleasant. "You may have found it out eventually, but not half as fast as Callan did. Besides, we're done here."
Jordan tensed. "Done with what?"
"Our discussion," Marick replied. "I merely wanted to remind you of your position in this, Jordan. We took you without trouble. We can get to your sister without trouble. So choose wisely. We can help you if you let us. Otherwise..." He trailed off, hissing quietly through his teeth.
"What are you playing at?" Arlen said, as Marick made a move as if to leave. "Just the other day you were insisting I take Silas instead."
Marick's look was unreadable. "Circumstances change. Though you may want to be wary of how you approach this, Arlen, I hear Silas is very eager to have you teach him."
Jordan felt Arlen shudder, but all he could make out of the man was a silhouette.
Marick turned to Jordan and smiled. "Your move."
He swept out, leaving Arlen and Jordan together in the gloom.
"Does this mean I'm not dying?" Jordan asked. He had meant it almost jokingly, but it belatedly hit him again just how close he had come to that possibility. His whole body went cold and he sagged in the chair.
Arlen was silent for a moment. Then he moved behind him and Jordan tensed up all over again, but the man just cut the ropes binding his wrists and stepped away. Jordan wasted no time in getting out of the chair, rubbing the angry marks on his wrists as he moved to put a good amount of distance between himself and the assassin. He heard Arlen scoff.
"You just met Marick and you're warier of me?" he said.
"Marick tied me to a chair," Jordan pointed out. "Couldn't get away, could I?"
Footsteps outside; Jordan turned as Laurel flew into the room and collided with him, her whole body trembling. Her hands grasped his and brought them to her chest, where the neck of her dress was damp. The candlelight picked out the outline of her face.
"Are you okay?"
"I should be asking you," Jordan said, staring at their locked hands in vague confusion, "Is that blood on your dress?"
"Nosebleed."
Jordan looked up. Arlen was no longer in the room, but he knew their conversation wasn't over.
"I'm so confused," Laurel whispered, also turning to scan the room. "Are they just letting us go?"
Not me, Jordan thought, but said instead, "I'm not going to question it. Let's just get out of here."
Before she thought to press him for information, he grabbed her hand again and pulled her into the hall outside the room. It was deserted, a narrow passageway full of cobwebs and damp. He could hear the scratching of shadelings behind the boards. Grey light broke through gaps in the ceiling, falling in thin shafts to dapple the floor. One end of the passageway was a dead end, so he pulled Laurel after him in the other direction, following the faint scent of slow-moving water.
"We must be near the river," Laurel whispered, as the smell became almost overpowering.
Jordan said nothing. A pale mark caught his eye on one of the supporting beams in the wall; fresh cuts in the wood, as if made by a blade. It was an arrow pointing upwards, and when he looked in that direction he saw a ladder starting several feet off the floor, the rungs leading up into light. He wondered if Arlen had left the mark, and then decided he didn't care.
"Up there," he said, pointing, "I'll lift you."
Laurel was lighter than he had expected, which was a relief considering how numb his arms still felt after they'd been tied behind him for who knew how long. He held her around the middle until she grabbed a hold of the bottom rung and began to climb. He watched her until she was halfway up, and then looked around the passageway once more. If Arlen was still there, he didn't show himself.
Jordan braced himself, rolling up his sleeves and jumping. He missed the rung the first time, his fingers only gaining a precarious purchase on the metal before sliding off. The second time, he whispered a prayer that the bar would hold as he leapt, dragging himself upwards before his arms gave way. Once his feet were on the ladder he stopped for a moment, breathing hard.
"Jordan?" Laurel called. He craned his neck. She had reached the top and was staring down at him from the square of light above. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," he called back, and began to climb. He thought he heard someone chuckle below in the passage, but didn't dare look down.
"This is a dockside warehouse," Laurel said, as he pulled himself over the lip of the hatch and rolled onto his back, panting. "They only took us along the river, we're barely ten minutes' walk from my father's inn."
The confusion in her voice was evident, but Jordan wasn't in the mood for problem-solving.
"Can you find your way back?"
"Of course."
"Then let's go."
He headed for the door at the other end of the warehouse, which was propped open with a brick. The grey light came from pale lanterns on the walls, all lit, and though Jordan only spared his surroundings a very brief glance as he headed out, it was obvious the place hadn't been used for a long time. There was no sign of their captors, no evidence that anyone had been there except the lanterns and the brick in the doorway. The sliver of outside visible beyond the door was dark. Laurel grabbed his arm, and he'd been so intent on getting out that he jumped and whirled on her, his magic sparking over his skin.
When he saw her face he instantly felt terrible for not checking on her before doing anything else. Laurel's face was caked in blood. It had dried tacky and dark, a thick crust on her upper lip and several streaks running down her cheek from her hairline. A dark line cut into her throat and both her eyes were bruised, one already swelling.
"Oh, shit," he said. "Oh shit, I'm sorry."
"Not your fault," she said, trying to smile and then wincing in pain. "You're not looking too good yourself." She reached up and touched the side of his head, and he was surprised when pain lanced through it under her finger. A tentative exploration revealed a bruise the approximate size of an egg, the hair around it matted with blood. It was a miracle his skull hadn't smashed.
Again he felt that yawning existential pit below him when he grasped how close he had come to dying.
"What did they say to you in there?" Laurel asked, as Jordan continued to probe the damage and avoid her gaze.
"I..." he began, and stopped. He felt dirty, somehow. This was the second time he was being blackmailed into doing something he didn't want to do, the second time his sister had been used as a weapon against him when he was powerless to do anything to help. Grace had never needed him to look out for her; it had always been the other way around. But she didn't even know she was a target this time, and if he warned her, Marick might make a move. He wondered what she would do if their roles were reversed, and figured it would be a lot more sensible than anything running through his head at that moment.
"There's someone coming," Laurel said suddenly. Jordan looked up, hand flying to his hip, and to his surprise he found his knife was back in place. He pulled it out, a reassuring weight in his hand, and brandished it in front of him as the warehouse door opened.
"There you are," Yddris said. "Kiel's teeth, look at the fucking state of you."
"Yddris," Jordan breathed, and began to laugh even though nothing was funny. It didn't feel like anything would be funny again, but he just couldn't stop. "Thank fuck."