Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Sixteen: Deception

Jordan had faced a Death three times in the last few months and almost been crushed to death by a Listener twice. He had pulled a child out of the path of a Fleshmonger and torched four Bone Wights at once.

Somehow, the leader of the Hooded Devils brought him as close to shitting a brick as he had been in any of those life-or-death situations.

Arlen wasn't being much help. It wasn't clear how he expected Jordan to conduct himself, and when he did fidget or lean over, he was only met with a tight-lipped glare. Arlen didn't look much more comfortable than Jordan felt, and hadn't said a word since he had mentioned the plague – a decision he was already starting to question.

Across the table, Marick's icy blue gaze caught his, as if reading his thoughts. The Devil leader already had the whole thing planned out, and worst of all he expected Jordan to participate. There was going to be a reckoning when he got back to Yddris's already, and he hadn't the faintest idea how he was going to get out a second time, let alone during the day. He hadn't been entirely truthful with Arlen about how he'd been able to get here at such short notice, partly because it would get the Devil's hackles up and partly because he had found it so unnerving himself. The fact was, Nika had seen him leave; he had been watching from the back door when Jordan turned to drop down to the other side of the fence.

"Please be careful," he had said, in a voice Jordan had never heard from him before, and then he had turned around and gone back inside.

Jordan had a hard time believing that Yddris would have said anything to Nika, and Jordan certainly hadn't. Even if the Unspoken had known it was Jordan out in the city that night he'd met with Darin, he couldn't have known the reason – could he?

A hard jab in the side from Arlen's elbow brought him back to the cramped little meeting room at the beer hall.

"How well do you know Harkenn's grounds?" Marick was asking him. His eyes had narrowed a little.

"Barely at all," Jordan said, seeing no point in lying. It was better to sound incompetent than to show it by fucking up a job. "I don't go often, and haven't been round the grounds themselves."

He left it there, sensing it wouldn't help matters if he admitted he hadn't known there were grounds beyond the walled gardens he'd been in.

"You'll have to brief him," Marick said sharply to Arlen, whose jaw clenched as he nodded. "He'll have to know where everything is, where all the escape routes are."

"If I could suggest that he has one of his mentors with him," Arlen replied. "Usk, perhaps. Or Akiva. They could ensure things go more smoothly, considering we are running on a tight schedule."

"Usk is a little...obvious, is he not?"

"You'd be surprised," Arlen said, and Jordan silently agreed. The giant had a knack for hiding that would have been impressive in someone half his size.

Marick thought for a long moment, looking between them. "Fine." He looked back down at the crude chalk map he'd scrawled over the desk. "Would it be at all possible for you to keep your tutor out of the way, boy?"

"Yddris?" Jordan swallowed. Might as well ask me to move the whole castle a few inches to the left.

"I clearly didn't mean Arlen," Marick said shortly. "Can you do it or not?"

"I..." He paused. Yddris was about as likely to stay out of the way as a Death would be to volunteer at a community shelter, even if Jordan was honest with him about why. "I don't know. I can try."

"And try gets you where you want to go, does it?" Marick asked, an edge in his voice. Despite the two men being on polar opposite sides, he was reminded strongly of the talking-to Harkenn had given him after the siege on the castle. "I need better than try, boy."