Yddris's house was a hive of activity, and Jordan had never felt so alone.
Since Kolter's death, Yddris's house had become the place to return to after patrols to exchange news, sightings, and affirm that everyone was still alright. The atmosphere was deadly serious, but the sense of community was stronger than Jordan had ever seen, and he felt like a complete outsider. He wondered if he'd feel like this for the rest of his life now, because the thought of seeking out Grace was almost a daunting as trying to join in with the Unspoken.
He'd considered asking if he could go to the Demon's Brew to see Laurel – the Hallow Festival felt like a lifetime ago, and she never expected him to explain himself more than he wanted to – but even that was a terrifying prospect, as if she could work out what was weighing him down if she looked at him long enough. Besides, she'd been tangled up in this business far too much already. He'd hate himself even more if something happened to her that he could have prevented by staying away.
"Being an antisocial turd isn't going to help anyone, boy."
Yddris appeared in the doorway to his bedroom, where Jordan had sequestered himself since they returned from the castle the previous evening.
"I feel like I made the wrong choice," Jordan said. In his lap, Ren chirruped and rolled over, allowing him to rub her belly. She had lain beside him all night, even though he must have annoyed her with all his nightmares and sweating and bouts of crying. "But I also feel like I made the right choice."
"You made a choice," Yddris said shortly. "It's been made, past tense. And people will be less inclined to mind their own business if you start acting like a mopey bitch for no apparent reason."
"Not a mopey bitch," Jordan muttered, but conceded the point. The last thing he wanted was to get cornered by Nika again. He didn't trust himself to hold it in this time.
"Anyway, speaking of social," Yddris said, "You're coming to the tavern tonight. I signed you up already."
"Why are we going to the tavern?" Jordan couldn't think of anything he wanted to do less, and then remembered there would be booze. He could do with a few drinks, to get some sleep if nothing else.
"Because Koen just received his acceptance for graduation," Yddris said. "And it's about as close to a cause for celebration as demon hunters ever get. He'll be returning to the Guildtown at the start of the light season to take the black. Seems like a good opportunity for you to see it, too."
"He's...done with his apprenticeship?"
"Aye. He'll stay with Hap for another year or two, in all likelihood, but he can take jobs for himself, charge his own rates, so on, so forth."
"I didn't realise he was so far ahead."
"If anything, he should have received that letter weeks ago," Yddris said. "Don't look so put out, boy, the only practical difference as far as you're concerned is a change of clothes."
"What about Oloe?" Jordan asked, skirting around the question of Astra, though he was now terrified he'd be left as the only apprentice in the guild before long. He felt incompetent enough as it was.
"He's only a year or so ahead of you. Don't worry, boy, there'll still be three of you for a good while yet, I should think."
"I guess I should go and say something," Jordan said. He couldn't help feeling sullen, and he knew it was unfair – but Koen had gone his whole apprenticeship without the lord of the city and the king of the criminal underworld playing tug of war with him in the middle, and an uncharitable part of Jordan resented him for it.
"Before you do." Yddris held out a slip of paper. "Every damn merchant I could find who makes prosthetics. Scraped together a few physicians as well, just in case."
Jordan stared at the piece of paper, and then at his tutor. All he could force out in response was "Why?"
"More than one guild member is missing a few chunks," Yddris said gruffly, "Would've looked much less strange for me to be asking. And I also knew where they were. Got 'em to write their quotes down, pretty sure a few of 'em gave a discount so they didn't get undercut. Not that that shithead needs the help, but it'll get him off your back."
"Thank you," Jordan said, hoping he sounded as grateful as he felt. He'd dreaded tackling the task. "Really." Yddris just bobbed his head in awkward shrug and turned to leave, but then Jordan blurted, "I saw Ortin a couple of days ago. I didn't get round to telling you."
"Oh?" Yddris paused in the doorway, then stepped backwards and closed it. "For certain, or are you trialling?"
"Trialling." He took a deep breath. "I though...Thorne would fit."
He hadn't realised just how nerve-wracking it would be to say it. There was something so simple about a given name. A name he'd chosen for himself was a much more weighted introduction than had thought it would be.
"Thorne, huh?" Yddris said, thankfully with no trace of disapproval or mirth in it. "Good choice."
Jordan released all his breath in a gust. "Really?"
"Don't need me to tell you that," Yddris said with a snort. "I was worried you'd come out with something otherworld that'd give you away to anyone who ever bloody asked."
"I'm not that thick," Jordan said, grinning despite himself.
"You make me wonder sometimes."
To his own surprise, he laughed. "Yeah, me too. Should I tell Nika?"
Yddris opened the door again. "Up to you. He'd like it, though. Man's soft as shite, he'll probably blub about it and all. Well met, Nika."
The Unspoken standing on the other side of the door managed to make himself look mightily unimpressed without the help of his expression. "I hope you weren't talking about me."
"I would never," Yddris pushed past, "you know I wouldn't."
"You would," Nika muttered, but Yddris was already gone. Jordan stifled a rogue chuckle. "Was he talking about me?"
"Couldn't say," Jordan replied, and quickly changed the subject. "Are you coming to the tavern tonight?"
"Aye. For a while, anyway. Patrols still have to run."
Some of his hard-won good humour faded at the reminder. "Are you on for long?"
"Three hours. Not a long one tonight."
"That's good, right?"
Nika just sighed. "Depends on how you look at it. Anyway, I just came to say that there's half a hog roast in the front room. Hap bought it to celebrate. You should come and get some before they eat it all."
Jordan had had half a mind to tell Nika about his name there and then, but doing it again after spending so much time building up to telling Yddris filled him with dismay. He could smell the food in the front room, too. He was halfway down the hall before he'd given it a second thought.
The celebration had a hint of the kind of party the Unspoken might throw if the circumstances weren't so dire, and for a group of sinister-looking demon hunters the atmosphere was surprisingly warm and welcoming. Vaguely Jordan wondered if it would feel quite so welcoming if he couldn't sense it, but pushed that thought away before he chickened out and ran back to his room. He had a chance to stop thinking about how bad things were, at least for a little while, and he didn't know when he'd have a chance like this again.
"Congratulations," he said, as Koen pushed his way through the crowd to see him.
"Thanks," Koen said. He sounded distinctly overwhelmed. "I can't believe it myself. Didn't think it would ever really come, you know? And how Hap got this organised in time is beyond me. I swear he hid it from me, I only read it this morning."
Jordan looked around the room at the surprising number of gathered Unspoken and found himself suspecting the same thing. Over Yddris's hearth, a golden-brown side of pig dripped hissing fat into green flames. His tutor was engaged with a group of three others over near the window, the first time in days Jordan had seen Yddris stop in his house for more than a handful of minutes.
"Do you get presents for this sort of thing?" he asked, suddenly worried he was supposed to have sorted something out already. He had money – the gold coin Arlen had given him, the money from the wights he'd killed, and his first monthly allowance all sat in a leather pouch on his belt, and he hadn't the first clue what he was going to do with any of it.
"You can do, typically at the ceremony in the Guildtown," Koen said, rubbing the back of his neck, "but please don't feel like you need to. I'm not, you know, expecting anything."
A small part of Jordan was gratified to know that other people with much more experience than he had could feel just as overwhelmed by the whole thing. Another part despaired at the realisation that it never really went away.
He clapped Koen on the back with a bravado he hardly felt, but Koen seemed to appreciate it. "I think you'll do great."
"Thanks," Koen said, shoulders relaxing a little, "You'll come to the ceremony, won't you?"
"'Course," Jordan said. "I think Yddris was planning to go anyway."
"You'll like the Guildtown. For me it was the first time it properly sank in. It got a lot easier after that visit."
"Sounds good to me," he replied, because he could hardly tell Koen everything else that had to sink in as well. And just like that, the wall came back down between him and the rest of the group, and he found he had no appetite after all.
Jordan was still mulling over it in the tavern later that night. He was halfway down his second pint, and he was feeling distantly woozy. All around him on the long benches were hooded figures laughing and talking. Koen was at the head of the table, chatting with Nika.
The only other person who wasn't joining in was Astra, who he had expected – and guiltily hoped – wouldn't come, and he was absolutely certain she was watching him.
Jordan Haverford, demon hunter. Jordan Haverford, assassin's apprentice. Thorne, demon hunter.
He picked over the words in his head until he was sick of his own name, unable to make any of them feel like him. It was a strange, out-of-body experience to so fervently wish he was someone else, but it didn't make him want it any less. He would have given anything to have never met Arlen that day. Anything not to have tried to use the outdoor privy the night he manifested.
But would anything have changed if neither of those things had happened? After all, he would still be Jordan Haverford, the boy who fell through the portal. And he wasn't so naïve as to think that that night at the Demon's Brew was the only reason he manifested. Perhaps he would be dead already if things hadn't played out the way they had. Perhaps Grace would be.
Perhaps he'd never had any choice in it at all.
"Can I draw something on your paper?"
It took him a minute to realise that Astra had spoken, and another to realise she'd been talking to him.
He blinked; aside from her strange proclamation a few nights before, he couldn't recall that she'd ever said a word to him. Nor had he ever mentioned to her that he carried a sketchbook with him.
"Wha..." he began, like his wits had fled him, before pulling himself together, "What kind of thing?"
"Please," she said, holding out her hand without looking at him. She sat diagonally to him by one space, and no one around them seemed aware of the exchange.
Jordan opened his sketchbook to the last free page and pushed it across to her. She grabbed his pencil and immediately began to draw quick, intense lines across the page. She was still staring straight ahead. Jordan's hairs stood up on the back of his neck. The Unspoken sitting beside her finally twigged that something was happening, and the change in his demeanour was immediate.
"Keep an eye on her," he said to Jordan, "Make sure she doesn't hit her head." He got up and hurried to the end of the table where Yddris sat and bent down to whisper in his ear. Alarmed, Jordan stared at Astra with his hands clasped on the table, ready to lunge if he needed to. He craned his neck to try and see what she was drawing, but as far as he could see it was nonsense. He half got up to get a better look, but at that moment Astra dropped the pencil and slumped forward, and it was all Jordan could do to get his hands under her head in time. He winced as she crushed his knuckles against the table, and then flushed when he realised the sudden quiet meant everyone was watching them, Astra semi-conscious with her face in his hands, and him contorting himself into a human knot to reach her.
Then Nika was there, gently pulling her back by the shoulders. Jordan straightened up, massaging the crick in his spine from lunging. Yddris took up his sketchbook and inspected the scrawls on it. He seemed deeply unhappy about something.
"How long has it been since she had one of these episodes?" Jordan heard Nika muttering to someone.
They replied, "I don't know. Kolter never said much about them so I assumed they were getting better."
"Perhaps he was helping," Nika said sadly, and Jordan had to stop listening as a lump knotted his throat. Instead he edged around the bench and sidled up to his tutor.
"What was that?" he asked, snatching a look at the open pages. They were runes, he realised, scribbled all over the place, overlapping each other in their haste.
"Sometimes the Gift manifests with additional complications," Yddris muttered, "and once in a few decades we might get an Unspoken like Astra. Most of us can write in Nictaven's language, and we can hear its presence, but only very few can interpret what it says. The Gift can send you mad without it trying to tell you everything at once. "
They both looked down at Astra, who had begun convulsing on the taproom floor. Nika kneeled at her side, crushing herbs in a pestle and mortar, while Koen kneeled behind her with her head in his lap to stop it hitting the floor.
"I don't understand."
Yddris grunted, "Think of it in this context. Life depends on Nictaven. It flows through every living thing to some extent, and as a consequence every living thing leaves an imprint. Where it's been, where it is, what it's doing, how it's feeling. Every single living thing. Astra can hear all of that information at once if she doesn't block it out. In some particularly loud instances involving a lot of living things, such as wars or disasters, she doesn't have a choice but to listen." He held up the sketchbook. "We won't know what this means until she comes to. There are at least six runes in here I don't recognise."
"That's if we don't find out about it beforehand," Hap said darkly. Jordan jumped; he had been so transfixed trying to imagine how Astra coped with it that he hadn't heard the Unspoken approach. "Never means anything good."
"We'll ask the next patrol shift if they've noticed anything when they come in," Yddris muttered, putting the sketchbook down. "Don't want to involve the city guard if we don't have to."
"Why?" Jordan asked.
"Because, boy, Harkenn doesn't strictly know Astra has this particular talent. He thinks she's prone to seizure, nothing more. I think you know well enough what Harkenn does when he comes across something he can use, and for the sake of her sanity it's best he never finds out."
Jordan felt vaguely sick. "Oh."
"And also because I've known for two years and never said anything, and if he finds out I'll be hung from the tower by my bollocks," Yddris added.
"Yeah, I wouldn't tell him either," Jordan said hoarsely. He eyed the sketchbook with trepidation. Looking at those scrawled runes made his stomach turn; there was something chaotic about them, not like the neat sequences he had seen other Unspoken use. It wasn't the deep-seated feeling of rightness he felt when looking at a rune drawn correctly, or even the vaguely uncomfortable notion that he'd drawn one wrong. He knew these said something, but he didn't know what, and he wasn't sure he wanted to.
Inside his hood, Ren whined.
The door to the tavern swung open, letting in a bitter wind and a messenger in Harkenn's livery. It was a young boy, ruddy-faced and windswept and with the haunted look that reminded Jordan of someone who'd narrowly missed being run over.
"Nict's balls," Yddris growled, stalking over. Jordan followed at a distance, uncertain that he would be any help, but not wanting to get in the way of anyone else - and desperate to put some distance between him and those awful drawings.
"...how many?" He caught the end of Yddris's question as he drew closer.
"Never seen so many in my life," the messenger boy said earnestly, "Right unnatural sir, the staff are locked in."
"Then how did you get out?" Yddris asked.
"Servants' passage and running like the wind, sir," the boy replied, "Almost got my leg chewed off by a wight but I pitched myself onto a rune net just in time. Sir."
"Do you think you can get back in?"
The boy went deathly pale. "I'll die if I try that. You don't understand, it's a swarm."
"Right. We're heading up there straight away. Follow the rune paths and send every Guild member you come across in our direction, will you?"
"Sir!" The messenger nodded and tapped his heels, before barrelling back out into the wind.
For a long moment, Yddris stood stock-still, staring at the tavern door. Jordan edged up to him, and it felt like there was a boulder sitting in his gut.
"What swarm?" he asked. "What's going on?"
"Damn Hap and his big mouth," Yddris growled, before turning to the room at large. The tavern was empty of other customers with so many Unspoken present, and it was unnerving to see the entire group pick up on the change of atmosphere at once. "Message from Lord Harkenn just arrived. The castle is under siege, boys. All hands to the pump tonight, I'm afraid."
"Under siege?" Nika asked. "What are you talking about?"
"Demons," Yddris said. "Fairly self-explanatory, Nika, if it was under siege from poor plumbing or a shadeling swarm, it wouldn't be our problem, would it?"
"By siege, though, you mean..."
"A fuck tonne of 'em. All entrances blocked, apparently. Seems like every demon in the city is trying to get into that castle tonight."
"It can't be as bad as that," someone else said, "Demons don't swarm."
"I'm sure Harkenn would not be preparing to empty his coffers getting the whole Guild involved if we were talking about a Listener or two," Yddris replied in a hard voice. "An order's been given, we're duty-bound to follow. Koen, you and Jordan should take Astra back to mine and sit this one out. Oloe will join you."
"No." It didn't feel like it was his mouth speaking. Jordan's whole body had gone numb with horror. Grace was inside that castle. "I'm coming with you."
"Don't be thick, boy," Yddris said, "This is far too dangerous. Not even Koen's going. If this is as bad as it sounds, and it probably is if Harkenn says it is, then I'd be sending back anyone with fewer than three years' experience under their belt if we didn't need the hands. You haven't got three months to your name."
Jordan met his tutor's gaze with a glare. "Grace is up there."
"Grace is behind the rune net, boy. You won't be. Night take me, but Harkenn's right about you getting stupid over her. Go home. You'll be more use to her not getting yourself killed over a job that's beyond you."
"I'm coming with you," Jordan repeated. "And don't fucking patronise me."
They glared at each other, not even breaking it when Koen said, "This isn't worth it, Jordan. You'll get in the way."
"I'm done relying on other people to tell me my sister is okay," Jordan growled.
Yddris, to his surprise, only sighed. "This is going to get you into trouble some day, boy. But I'll cut you a deal. I'll clear you a route inside on the condition that you do not try to join in. No heroics tonight, you hear me?" He turned to Koen. "You alright stopping here to look after Astra?"
"Of course." Koen offered Jordan an uncertain glance. "Be safe, won't you?"
Jordan contemplated staying, just for a moment, but shook himself out of it. "Always. And thanks."
"Let's go, then," Yddris muttered, "Stay close to me, boy, and no genius little magic tricks like last time."
Jordan swallowed, nodded, and stepped out the tavern door into chaos.