Draskell's Runic Manual was exactly what it sounded like; it was a vast slab of a book, filled with image after image of runes, from the most basic to the most complicated, with any number of different combinations for different uses. It was bewildering, like learning another language, and it didn't help at all that the annotations were also in another language. It was all so confusing.
Jordan looked at the rune on the page, and then the rune in his sketchbook. He hadn't had high hopes, since his dominant wrist was still the size of a small fruit and protested at the slightest movements. Somehow he was still disappointed.
He didn't even know what the rune was for, because he couldn't read the notes.
"You got any ideas?" he asked Ren, who was sitting on his desk playing with a ball of twine he'd found in Yddris's cupboard. She glanced at him as if to ask him what he was asking her for, and then continued to tangle her claws into a knot.
He sighed, and reached over to help her extract herself.
His self-defence training was out of the question while his wrist healed, so Yddris had started him on the basic principles of magic. His tutor was in the front room with the five Unspoken strangers who were staying with them, while Jordan grappled with the easiest of runes on his own, trying to draw them left-handed.
Worst of all, he was still in trouble.
Yddris hadn't said it, but Jordan could tell. He would never say he knew the man very well, but the clipped tones and passive-aggressive approach to teaching would have been a giveaway in a complete stranger. Nika had put it aside, and Koen and Hap hadn't mentioned it; neither had any of the Unspoken he didn't know. Jordan had given up wracking his brains for a reason why Yddris had reacted so much worse. He had put it down to embarrassment and then tried not to think about it.
At least he had a new pencil. Nika had visited the stationer's during the festival and returned with several. They were fairly crude; the wood was thin and clearly just to prevent breakage, but it was better than nothing. Jordan had commandeered a cracked stone pot from a mucky corner of Yddris's yard, washed it out and stuck them in it. There was a lot of time to explore the house, he'd found, while his tutor was pissed at him and he was trying to dodge awkward conversations with strangers.
"Any progress?"
Jordan turned. Yddris stood in the doorway with his arms crossed. He thought about slinging back some sharp retort, but thought better of it. He didn't want this to last even longer than it already had.
"Minimal," he muttered, turning away again. He eyed the huge chunk of the book he hadn't even touched yet.
He felt his tutor stop at his shoulder, and reluctantly nudged his sketchbook over. Yddris was silent for a moment, and then he picked up the book and started flicking through it.
"You do all these, boy?"
"Yeah."
"They're good."
"Thanks."
"This is a good start," the man said, putting the book back down open on the page where Jordan had attempted to copy the runes.
"Hardly." A tiny thread of hope filtered into Jordan's thoughts. Yddris's voice was several degrees warmer than it had been for a couple of days. "Maybe I'll do better when my wrist heals."
"That's not your dominant hand?"
Jordan glanced round, frowning. He couldn't decipher Yddris's tone. "No."
"Night take me." Yddris hovered, still looking at the page, and then said, "When your wrist heals we can start with practical magic. Looks like you'll pick up the runes quicker than anything else, but they're useless if you can't use the magic."
Jordan blinked. He hadn't realised the two were ever separate. "Is it hard?"
"Mastering the basic principles of magic is the hardest thing you'll ever do."
"Oh."
"It's all much easier from there."
"Oh."
Yddris snorted, and then cuffed him on the shoulder. "Come out and sit with the rest of us, you've done enough for today."
Jordan got up, holding his hand out for Ren to clamber up his arm and onto his shoulder. She squeaked at him, and he pulled out his knife to cut the twine so she could take a length with her. It was a relief to get away from the desk, but he was apprehensive, not just because he barely knew anyone in the house, but because they all knew he was heading to the Nict temple that afternoon. No one had said anything about the temple, reassuring or otherwise, but the silences in the conversation about it had seemed ominous.
The front room looked like a grim reapers' coffee morning. The Unspoken were ranged around the room. Yddris had found stools in the cellar, though there were still a few people who had to sit on cushions on the floor. There were eight Unspoken, not including Yddris or Jordan, and the air was almost humming with the concentration of magic.
Koen was present, as was Astra, the only female apprentice, but they were the only two Jordan could identify on sight. The namekeeper Ortin was staying with them, as was Astra's tutor, and two others Jordan knew nothing about. He went to sit with Koen. Astra shifted as he sat down next to her; Oloe had been mute, but Astra just chose not to talk to him. So far it hadn't bothered him too much, only he was sure it would eventually cause problems now she was staying over. Koen said it was because he was otherworld, and Jordan was quite content to leave it there as long as she didn't ask him to bless anything.
One Unspoken, whom Jordan guessed was most likely Nika, was stirring a vast pot of stew over the fire. Several of their guests had brought contributions of food; sacks of vegetables, fresh bread and grains. Yddris had it all stacked in the corner. It was quiet in the room, but Jordan couldn't shake the strange feeling that there was some kind of interaction going on that he was missing.
He reached up to pet Ren, but removed his fingers when they were mistaken for extra playthings. She'd been in an antsy mood all day. He couldn't help but think that she was pissed at him, too, for leaving her for almost two days.
"So," said one of the Unspoken Jordan didn't know. He had a feeling the man was looking at him, but couldn't be certain. With a sinking sensation in his gut he realised that was probably what things were going to be like until all these strangers left. "Still early enough not to have a name yet?"
Jordan swallowed, and then nodded, not knowing what to say. He'd been reassured multiple times that he wouldn't have to take a new one, but he had worked out by now that it was expected. He suppressed a shudder. It felt like he was being slowly eroded; first he was forbidden from showing his face in public, and now he was expected to discard his name.
He looked over to the window and found Yddris watching him. The glass pane was cracked open, and the man had lit a pipe, but he wasn't smoking. For once Jordan wished he was adept enough at magic to guess how his tutor was feeling. He found it hard to believe he'd been forgiven just like that.
"I suppose you won't know any of the old Nictavian stories," the stranger said. His voice suggested he was older. "Or I would say you could take inspiration from those."
Nika, who was at the cooking pot, said, "We'll work something out."
"Can you read Nictavian?" the older man pressed.
It took Jordan an embarrassing amount of time to find his voice. Coming in here had been a mistake. He had spent a good two days avoiding this exact situation, and then he had dumped himself in the middle of it. "No. Trying to learn."
"He's doing well," Nika put in. Jordan snorted.
"You're being very generous."
A few of the Unspoken chuckled. Yddris finally took a drag of his pipe and turned to stare out at the darkened street.
Nika doled out stew to everyone, and the conversation steered into lighter waters which were, to Jordan's relief, not about him for once. Koen talked at him, and he nodded and made the appropriate noises of agreement or disbelief, while Astra listened over the top of his head. His thoughts kept drifting away. He didn't remember when Koen started talking about the runework he'd done on the castle. The last he'd heard, the other apprentice was arguing light-heartedly with Astra about the pros and cons of tomatoes.
He was dreading going to the temple. He didn't know why the idea frightened him so much, but Callan had given him the creeps and he didn't think anyone else in House Nict would be that much better, judging by what he'd seen at the Hallow Festival – and that was before Marcus's cohort arrived. Sorting archives didn't sound too terrible, as far as community service went, but with Yddris acting so strange and not elaborating on anything, he wondered whether it was as simple as it seemed.
Several Unspoken left after lunch to attend to jobs or patrol the city, and it wasn't long afterwards that Yddris put out his pipe and shrugged away from the wall. Jordan put down the bowl of food he'd only picked at and got to his feet as well. Despite being annoyed at him, Ren wasn't annoyed enough not to want to come along. She dropped the twine and clambered into his hood, a reassuring weight against his neck.
"You haven't eaten much," Nika said immediately.
"He'll eat on the way back," Yddris said. It closed the conversation before it started, and Nika continued tidying up with an air of distinct disapproval.
"You're not eating it?" Koen asked.
Jordan fidgeted as his stomach gave another unpleasant lurch, and shook his head. "You have it."
"Oh. If you're sure." Koen snatched up the abandoned bowl and dug in.
"Pig," Astra murmured, at the same time as Hap said, "You'll make yourself sick, Koen," in the tone of voice that spoke of hard experience.
The air outside was bitterly cold. It was almost alarming how fast the temperature had dropped over the span of a few days. Jordan knew how cold it was, in a detached kind of way, but it didn't affect him the way it used to. As they passed people in the street, made double in size with extra clothes and fur cloaks, Jordan averted his eyes. It was quiet; after the manic atmosphere of the Hallow Festival, it was almost eerie. Everyone they passed moved with a speed that suggested they were only out because they had to be, and for the first time he and Yddris received muttered greetings, tugged forelocks, or expressions of relief.
"Bit different, isn't it?" Yddris commented. A woman who had just curtseyed at them was now hurrying up the street like something was chasing her. "Everyone suddenly remembers they have to play nice in the dark season. Funny, that."
"Hypocrites," Jordan muttered. On top of his nerves about where they were headed, a hot ember of anger was stirring, stoked by everyone they passed who acknowledged their existence. These same people had avoided them like plague just weeks before, and now it suited them to be polite.
"They're scared," Yddris said, with a reproving air. "There's always something to be scared of in Nictaven. When things are quiet, it's us. When there's war, it's the enemy. When there's darkness, it's demons. You can't blame people for being people."
"That's very accommodating of you," Jordan said dryly. "Doesn't mean they have to treat us like magic is a disease for the rest of the year."
"No," Yddris conceded. "But some of them actually do believe it is. Some of the more archaic holy texts accuse us of getting our gifts from stealing souls."
The family he and Yddris had taken from the wreckage of their home, mouths moving without speaking, eyeless and absent, after having their souls stolen, flashed into Jordan's head so vividly he flinched. "What the fuck?"
"Those texts were written long before we knew there were demons who ate spirit matter," Yddris said. "But some people like to pick and choose how they interpret things. Mistrust of the unknown teaches them to fear us, but the night teaches them to fear demons more. Nika will do a much better job of teaching you the history than me."
They had long since left the line of streets which Yddris's home sat among, and struck off in a direction Jordan had never been before. Normally they took the wide road down the mountainside to the market, but Yddris had taken him to the lip of a valley that hugged the base of Harkenn's castle. The way was steep, and many of the streets had long sets of stone stairs set into the centre of the road, lined with burning streetlamps.
They stood at the top of one of these stone stairwells, and Yddris paused to allow Jordan to stare. The city stretched as far as he could see, glittering with firelight – all aside from one section, in which fires were only sporadically visible. It sat on the other side of a glittering, reflective surface that Jordan belatedly recognised as water. The river had swollen to the width of a lake, and he could only see one bridge.
He jumped as a fireball of green flame erupted from the well-lit neighbourhood on that side of the river, and the distant echo of unearthly screeching reached them even where they stood. His skin prickled.
"Fleshmonger," Yddris said, almost offhand, and began to descend.
"I'm sorry," Jordan said, hurrying after him, "but why's it called a fleshmonger?"
Yddris still didn't sound bothered. "It's the most poisonous breed out there. It wears its prey down by infecting it with venom and then following it around until it dies. Then it butchers it and takes some back to food caches and nests. You want to be very adept at casting runes before you even consider taking on one of those, because you need to cast faster than it can spit or you're fucked."
"Every day," Jordan said, stumbling over a step and almost pitching himself down the rest of the flight. Yddris caught him by the back of his cloak and hauled him back up, and Jordan winced as Ren dug her claws into his skin. "Every day you tell me something about this place that's more bent than the last bloody thing you told me."
"You don't have flesh-butchering monsters where you're from?" Yddris said mildly. "I'd never have guessed."
"We get them if they find their way in from here." Jordan scowled, readjusting his hood. His neck burned from Ren's claws.
"That's a point."
They reached the bottom of the valley. There were only a few streets between the base of the slope and the near end of the bridge, but the contrast between that and the far side was still apparent. There were enough lights to see that there were houses on the far side of the river, but if there hadn't been, Jordan would have assumed the quarter was abandoned.
"Where is this temple?" Jordan asked. His apprehension deepened as he stepped onto the bridge. There were deep cracks between the cobbles, and the balustrade was crumbling. The water seethed at the base; if Jordan had leaned over, he could have put his hand in the river. There were puddles in some places where water had seeped through cracks in the stonework.
"The dead quarter," Yddris said, gesturing at the darkened part of the city they were heading to. "The quarter was evacuated after a flood. The Hooded Devils claimed it, so nobody went back to it. Except the Nicts."
"Why don't they repair the bridge?"
"Because they don't own it," Yddris said. He said it without inflection, but Jordan thought he could hazard a good guess at who did.
He stopped walking. As if he'd been expecting it, Yddris turned and waited, watching him in silence.
"This is why you got so pissed, isn't it?" Jordan said hoarsely. "Because they're here."
Ren whined as his heart started thundering.
"Punching priests doesn't count as playing carefully, boy."
"How was I supposed to know their temple was here?" Jordan spluttered. "I don't know shit about this place! I didn't even know he was a priest. He didn't look like one, that's for bloody sure; he looked like a crazy arsehole with his hands on my sister. I didn't think, 'there's a priest, I'll go punch him and fuck myself over, that sounds fun'. Why's everyone acting like I did?"
"You're already in the spotlight, boy," Yddris growled. "You're the apprentice everyone knows Harkenn wanted me to get, and which no one thought I would get, which is bad enough by itself. Makes it easier for people to keep tabs on you. Add that to the fact that instead of blending quietly into the ranks of the Unspoken, you're constantly throwing yourself in front of your blatantly otherworld sister and basically telling everyone you're the missing brother, and you keep doing that, you're going to attract attention you don't want."
"They're not going to just forget about me if I sit tight and behave myself," Jordan said bitterly, "Arlen pitches up everywhere I go."
"Arlen's not the worst thing out there, boy." Yddris didn't sound angry anymore, just tired. "Trust me, everything is always better-connected than it looks. If you've caught the attention of a man like that already, you better try your damned hardest not to look too useful to anyone more ambitious."
"What aren't you telling me?"
For once, Yddris seemed caught off guard.
"You know the man who's sending Arlen," Jordan continued, voice hard. A cold knot of anger sat in his stomach. "You talk like you know exactly what will happen if I take them up on their offer, and that it will be really bad if I'm not careful. But you're not telling me what it is or how you know." He took a deep breath. "How am I supposed to trust you if you're not telling me any more than they are?"
"I've made my own bargains," Yddris replied shortly. "And I've made more mistakes than you possibly imagine. I'm not telling you so you'll trust me, boy, I'm telling you so you're on guard. This game could land you in a pile of shit I can't get you out of, and you need to be prepared for that."
"Then why don't you tell me?"
"If I hadn't guessed, would you ever have told me Arlen made you an offer?"
Jordan scowled. He wouldn't have, and he knew it.
Taking his silence as an answer, Yddris continued, "Why not?"
"I thought you'd stop me," Jordan said, and then amended, "at first, before I realised who he was. And then...because I was ashamed of considering it."
"Would you have told anyone, if you'd found out who he was after you'd taken him up on it, if you'd never manifested a Gift? When you couldn't back out? If you'd done something you regretted?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"He'd probably kill me."
Yddris nodded. "He would have killed you. Undoubtedly, and without a second thought. If it wasn't for your Gift, you might be in a ditch even now. And for some people, a ditch is better than where they could end up if they don't know when to keep their traps shut."
They stared at each other for a long moment, Jordan in horror, and Yddris as unreadable as ever. Something heavy and terrible hung in the air between them. And when his tutor finally broke his gaze and kept walking, Jordan resolved to never, ever ask what it was.