Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Eleven: A Room

"You going to stare out this window all day?" Usk's head appeared below the sill, yellow eyes glinting through the dim light. Arlen shunted his chair back to make room for the brute to clamber in.

"No," Arlen muttered, even though it had been the sum of his day so far. "Just thinking."

He hadn't been doing a huge amount of that, either, but the truth was none of Usk's business. He watched as Usk unloaded food onto the table, chewing harshly on the inside of his cheek to suppress a sudden lurch of resentment. He levered himself up on his stick and began pacing, to give the restlessness somewhere to go and to stop him using it to beat his companion around the head. He glowered as Usk glanced at him.

"I'm not moping," he snapped, which Usk had accused him of that morning and was clearly preparing to do so again. If Arlen had his other leg still he was sure the Varthian wouldn't have become so bold in making comments.

"Sure you aren't." Usk tore off the end of a large loaf that he'd just unpacked and took a bite. "Have you figured out how you're going to do it?"

"Gonna have to go like this, aren't I?" Arlen muttered, anger gone as quickly as it had surged. "Hope they're not looking closely enough."

Even as he said it, he knew Darin would notice the moment he stepped through the door. The bastard was too sharp-eyed to miss it – not that anyone needed to be particularly sharp, he thought, disgruntled - and he'd be looking for the reason why Arlen hadn't been to Wick Row in person for so many weeks. Even with oiling, the leg made too much noise to avoid drawing attention. Arlen just couldn't bear the 'I told you so' look he would have plastered all over his face.

He dragged his chair back over to the table and picked through what Usk had brought back. To his intense relief, there were parsnips and carrots instead of potatoes – a welcome break from potato soup and a new food to get thoroughly sick of.

"What's this?" he asked, untying the string around a damp, lumpy package in the middle of the table. The wax paper fell open, revealing two black and silver striped fish. "Oh, Nict's balls. Where'd you get these?"

"Caught 'em," Usk said. "Spotted them flashing in the reservoir and nabbed a couple 'fore they reached the fishing waters. First of the season, I'm thinking. Haven't seen any in the markets."

"What did you catch them with? Your hands?" Arlen asked, then realised it was a stupid question. Usk was Varthian; of course he'd caught them with his hands.

"Pretty sluggish, to be fair. Water's still half-frozen."

Arlen pursed his lips, staring at the first meal that wasn't root vegetables he'd seen in weeks. Once fish stocks got into the river and the merchants cottoned on he would probably not eat it again for another year, but he'd never seen that as a good reason to put things off. "You hungry now?"

"I would be sorely offended if you didn't cook them straight away," Usk said, grinning. Arlen shook his head, turning away to build up the fire so the brute didn't see him grinning back.

"Have you heard anything else about this store-burning plan?" he asked, which succeeded in bringing his mood back down. He didn't like the silence coming from the beer hall, and a small part of him didn't trust that Marick wasn't keeping him in the dark about something. He had done it before, and that was before Arlen was injured, back when he could go and get information for himself.

"Not in any meetings I've been in," Usk grunted, rolling a blackweed cigarette for both of them as Arlen stoked the fire. "Mind, he knows I'll pass anything I hear onto you."

Arlen grunted, unconvinced. There was one thing you could always rely on with a Devil, and that was that you could never rely on them. Usk could be playing him like an instrument and he'd have very few ways of finding out – best to assume that everyone was trying to swindle you from the start. It was a policy that had got Arlen this far and one he intended to stick by.