“A blackout? Sir, are you sure that’s—"
“I’m quite sure. We need to keep a low profile until we’re sure the noctis have passed through Gravenburg. Tell all the families with children to report to the underground shelter. Everyone else will remain inside their homes, shutters closed, noise kept down to no more than a mouse’s whisper, until they receive further instruction or are summoned for essential duty.”
Reluctantly, the guard nods, leaving not a moment later.
“He’ll bring you your vouchers once the blackout has commenced. You should stay—”
“I’m good.” I breeze past him, our shoulders almost knocking against each other, but I swerve at the last second, not wanting to start something up again. “When your guard returns, tell him to bring my vouchers to the fletcher. Elison has some bolts for me that I need to pay for, and since you guys will be in blackout, I suppose I should grab those before I get locked out for the week.”
The look he casts at me is one I can’t decipher. At first, I assume he’s simply surprised at my knowing someone’s name other than his in this place. Truth be told, I don’t like that I do. It’s too intimate. Better for them to remain faceless, nameless. But I suppose if I were to know anyone here it would be the master fletcher responsible for replenishing my crossbow bolts.
It’s not until the surprise fades—giving way to sorrow—that I realize the sudden shift in the room. The very air stills, stiffening like hardened molasses.
It’s a long, painful moment but neither of us speak.
I step closer.
Another of our scouting parties hasn’t come back yet…
Hadn’t Elison mentioned something about an excursion last time I saw her?
“Rowland, where’s your fletcher?”
He rubs his temples and strides back to the liquor table to pour himself another drink. Swirling the amber liquid around in the glass, he can’t look at me.
“Elison left two days ago. We haven’t heard from her since.”
The only word that seems to be in my current vocabulary is, “Fuck…”
Then again, what more is there to say? Come to think of it,fuckactually seems to sum it up quite nicely, given that if we had heard about the noctis using Gravenburg as their hunting grounds just two days earlier, she might still be here.
Instead, we have to face the reality that Elison is as good as dead.
There goes my high-quality bolts.
“You know, you might want to think about doing something other than a blackout. If the noctis have already been preying on your people, they might already know where you’re located. Maybe you should take your people and run while you still can—”
His head all but thrashes. “I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
He doesn’t answer. The inside of his lip will soon be raw though, given how much he’s gnawing on it. If his mother were here, she’d scold him and tell him that if he didn’t stop, someday soon he’d find himself with no mouth at all.
But I’m not his mother. And although she always shrugged it off as some petulant pastime, I know better. Something worse than a missing fletcher is at stake here.
“You’re not telling me something.”
He startles as if he’d forgotten I was even here. But he just shakes his head more determinedly.
“Don’t lie to me, Rowland. And quit playing games. What’s going on?”
He tosses the drink down his throat and winces with a breathy burst of air against the astringent alcohol. I’m surprised when he moves for a third drink. We’re similar in our abstention from alcohol, but where I don’t drink because of how it dulls my senses, Rowland doesn’t drink because he has a respectable reputation to maintain.
If he’s indulging now, it must be bad.
Once he’s done breathing fire, he summons me back over to his desk. Behind it, Rowland goes to a cabinet and pulls out an untidied stack of parchment, laying them out on his desk.
“What does this have to do with—"
