Nightfire | The Whispering Wall #1

Eighteen: Nightfire

"I really am sorry," Koen said, for the hundredth time. "I didn't think..."

"I've already said it's fine," Jordan muttered. He was feeling wretched enough, and Koen wouldn't shut up. "Please, can we just forget it?"

Koen's silence made it apparent that he wasn't going to do that, but he at least stopped talking. Jordan bent his head over his knees to massage his throbbing temples, jammed in as he was with two Unspoken on the back of Killian's cart. Hap had taken the space up on the box. Nika perched delicately on a crate reading a book opposite Jordan and Koen, who were wedged together between two sizeable crates of cabbage and a barrel of mead. Every now and then Jordan thought Nika was watching him, but he had no way of confirming his suspicions.

"Are you alright?" Nika said, speaking suddenly for the first time since he had found Jordan in the alley, a thought that still brought blood to Jordan's cheeks. It was bad enough that Arlen had found him like that. It was bad enough that Jordan had almost been found with Arlen. He didn't know anything about the man, but had long since gathered that he was unsavoury company.

"Yeah," Jordan muttered, dropping his hands. "Fine."

He jumped as the cart rattled onto the bridge, and then sighed in relief when he realised how close they were to the inn. He could leave the Unspoken in the taproom and vanish upstairs. Maybe Laurel would join him, or maybe he would just bar the door and not come out for another week. Both options sounded appealing.

That plan was quickly shattered. The door to the inn opened as they pulled up outside it and a fourth figure in a cloak stepped out.

"Of course you're here," Jordan mumbled, hopping down off the cart and having to catch his balance on the edge. "Of course."

Yddris ignored him. "Where'd you find him?"

"Down a nondescript alley in the shambles talking to strangers." Nika stepped off the cart with much more grace than Jordan. His voice was icy. "I believe they're ones you're acquainted with."

"Arlen bothering you again, boy?" Yddris said, finally acknowledging Jordan's presence. "You look like shit, by the way."

"It was a coincidence," Jordan said, apprehensive. He hadn't thought Nika had known; he also didn't want his only thread of hope for a way home to be severed. It wasn't that he was unaware that Arlen could be lying. But if he really did have a way...it was worth the risk, surely? "How the hell did you know who it was, anyway?" He paused. "How'd you know I even left them?"

"I sent a runner to the castle when we didn't find you immediately," Hap said. "And while Nika and Koen went out looking for you in the quarter, Yddris came to the inn in case you made it back here on your own. As for how we knew who it was, we didn't. Yddris, however, did know that this Arlen person had bothered you before and was worried that he'd located you a second time when no one was there to intervene."

"Intervene in what, exactly?" Jordan muttered. "He only talked to me."

"That mark on his head," Yddris said, "is the mark of a Hooded Devil. You see that mark, you run as fast and as far as you can. The Devils are an assassins' guild. They also dabble in thievery, conmanship and bodysnatching. It's unlikely that it was any kind of coincidence that Arlen was in the same place you were, and it's naïve to think he would bat an eyelid before killing you if he thought he needed to."

"How am I supposed to know this stuff?" Jordan snapped, on the verge of yelling. Yddris's calmness was infuriating. "I don't know bugger-all about any of you, either, and I'm supposed to believe everything you say." He turned away. "You couldn't even tell me to my face how likely it is that I'm gonna get lumped with this stupid Gift you keep going on about."