Eighteen: Preparations

He wasn't ready.

He wasn't sure he ever would be.

Jordan blinked. He didn't know how long Arlen had been trying to get his attention, but his tutor had a dangerous scowl on his face and it was hard to know if it was his fault or the world in general.

"Take this," Arlen said, thrusting something into his hands. "No arguments this time. Not while there are idiots in armour running about."

Jordan swallowed, drawing the hunting knife from its leather sheath. It was similar to Arlen's, but new and glinting sharp, with a varnished handle wrapped in cord. It was more practical than aesthetic; it had none of the grace of Yddris's gifted dagger, but twice as much menace. It glinted in the light from the brackets in the middle of the beer hall.

"I don't want..."

"I said no arguments," Arlen snapped. "If I had my way you'd be rattling with blades for this fuckin' thing, but I only had time to grab that for you and you're going to take it. Raziel's also going to give you smokes and belladonna bombs. If he offers you anything that smells like shit, don't take it."

"Why not?"

"Because it'll be literal shit," Akiva said cheerfully, coming up behind them. "Brews it himself. I'd let him handle those if I were you."

"...Noted."

Jordan inched away from Akiva, hoping he was subtle about it, but he knew Arlen noticed. His first lesson with Akiva had involved an axe and a highly decomposed corpse, and since then Jordan had been wary of him, praying each time Arlen switched his tutors around that it wouldn't be Akiva again. Ironically enough, the grave robber was the most affable of all his teachers from the Devils and if he'd taught literally anything else Jordan might even have conceded to liking him.

"You remember everything?" Arlen said to them both. In the early hours of the morning, they had discussed the results of both of the meetings and made a plan of their own. Jordan was now juggling three plans in his brain, and his nod was somewhat strained. It could have been worse, he supposed; Arlen had at least managed to get rid of Silas before Jordan's return so they didn't meet, but the look on his face suggested that Usk had been right about the high cost of the favour.

"You any good at improv, kid?" Akiva asked, as Arlen limped away to talk to Usk. "Plans never go smoothly."

"I can't say I've needed it before," Jordan mumbled, fervently wishing he had.

"Stick with Usk. He knows where it's at, though it's a shame you don't get to see Arlen in action on one of these gigs. Pure style, that bloke." A scratch and a hiss, and a cloud of blackweed drifted around Jordan's head from the cigarette Akiva had just lit. "He's not second-in-rank for nothing."

Jordan wasn't sure Arlen was in the frame of mind to take that as a compliment, so he only shrugged.

"Does...does that help?" he asked. He gestured at the cigarette.

"With the job or with the feeling that you're going to shit your pants?"

"I don't..."

"Everyone can tell when you're nervous, kid. Save your breath." Akiva chuckled. "I'd be concerned if you didn't feel like shitting your pants. Cockiness is a sure way to get fucked over." Unless he was imagining it, Akiva was looking at Arlen as he said this, but then he winked and handed him a cigarette. "First time?"

Jordan nodded. He was already regretting it.

"Only a couple of drags, first time. Takes the edge off without sending you over it."

"Thanks." Jordan allowed Akiva to light it for him, too nervous to attempt any magic more controlled than a small inferno.

The first drag dried out his throat, forcing him to cough. Then a strange fuzzy calm flooded through him, undoing some of the knots that his guts had tied themselves into. His knees weakened as they always did, but he held still and waited, and to his surprise it passed. He supposed spending so much time with chain-smokers like Usk and Yddris had got him used to it. He took another drag, and the frantic pounding of his heart slowed and quieted the rush of blood in his ears. The nerves remained, hovering on the periphery of his thoughts but no longer occupying centre stage. He was able to remember the plans more clearly, which was an unspeakable relief.

"Better?" Akiva asked, grinning. He had burnt halfway through his own.

"So much better."

"Oh, so you accept his offers?" Usk's hand landed on Jordan's shoulder with a force that almost knocked him flat. "I'll have that off you, kid, if you're not finishing."

Jordan handed over the rest of the cigarette, still savouring a calm that he hadn't felt organically in months. Dimly he wondered how angry Nika would be if Jordan started filching blackweed as well as booze, but the problem might as well have been a million miles away.

"I hope you aren't doping him silly." Arlen joined them again, eyes appraising as he looked at Jordan. "Though even if you have, that's an improvement." Something glinted in his gaze that Jordan found hard to read – relief? Pride? Envy, maybe? "You'll have shakes in the morning, kid, just a heads up. First time always goes down rough."

"No, he won't," Usk said. "This is kids' stuff, and besides, that witch man tutor of his always has a pipe going. He might as well've been lighting up himself the whole time."

Arlen just grunted. "I always assumed Yddris was on rougher stuff."

"Harkenn wouldn't get nearly as much use out of him if he did," Akiva said. "Bootlicker."

"Rich coming from a bloke on the cusp of writing Arlen a love letter a second ago."

It took Jordan a long, tense second to realise that he'd said it aloud. Even through the blackweed, mortification was like ice up his spine and he tensed, expecting a knife to the gut any second.

Instead, Usk just boomed a laugh that drew attention from all sides of the beer hall.

"He has got a bite," he said, and the hand on Jordan's shoulder shook him until his teeth rattled in his skull.

"Something you need to tell me, Kiv?" Arlen said. His grin was sharp enough to cut.

"I'll give you that one," Akiva said, laughing. "Just for sheer balls. Next time, though, witch boy? It's on." He turned as if to leave, but then added, "Also, for the record, Arl, no. You smell like a labourer's unwashed breeches on a good day."

Arlen's grin didn't move, but it hardened somewhat. "So I've been told. Now fuck off, I need to talk to my apprentice."

"Fucking off," Akiva said, turning around and sauntering away.

Usk also shuffled off, sparing one concerned glance for Arlen as he went. Just past the Varthian's shoulder, Jordan spotted Marick on the dais talking to Gelert and looked quickly away before the Devil leader saw him. Arlen followed his glance, then took him by the arm and dragged him to a darkened corner near the door. Once Akiva had drawn attention to it, Jordan couldn't help but notice that his tutor really did smell terrible. He had noticed before, of course, but his brain seemed determined to fixate on anything that was not the job that was about to happen.

"You clear on everything?" Arlen asked. His tone had changed into something Jordan might have considered some distant relative of concern if this hadn't been Arlen.

"I think so."

"If you don't have the guts to kill anyone who gets in the way, go for the eyes."

Jordan swallowed. "Or the balls."

Arlen chuckled. "Or the balls. Preferably both." He scowled. "I'll let up after this, kid. You've earned it."

Jordan chewed on his lip, and then blurted, "There's a Guildtown trip planned."

Arlen's eyes narrowed. "When?"

"Soon."

"Do you want to go?"

More than I've ever wanted anything in my whole life, and I'm going whether you agree or not. "Yeah."

"Then go."

Jordan blinked. He hadn't thought Arlen would let it happen so easily – or at all, for that matter. Even Harkenn had been more reluctant to let him leave. Jordan frowned and fidgeted, wondering where the catch was, what the favour exchanged would be. But Arlen only seemed amused.

"Just don't expect me to go easy when you get back, is all," the assassin said. "I said you earned a break, kid. You want to use it to trek across the Barrens, go right ahead. I have some business to clear up, and when you come back we'll get to the fun stuff."

Knowing Arlen, 'fun' probably meant traumatising, but Jordan was too relieved to think about that now. He was free to go to the Guildtown, to get away from his sleepless double life for a few weeks, and Arlen hadn't kicked up a stink like Jordan had feared he would. He never thought he'd be relieved to get back to being only Unspoken.

"Looks like you're going," Arlen said, gaze slipping over Jordan's head. "Go find Usk and stick to him like glue. I'll see you on the other side."

For a moment, he looked so disappointed to not be going that Jordan felt he should say something, but then he remember who this was and kept his mouth shut. All around the beer hall, Devils were drifting to the door and melting into the night in small clusters to start the plan rolling. Some carried buckets of pitch, others bundles of sacking to steal food. Weapons glinted from dozens of belts, and the hunting knife on Jordan's weighed heavier than his dagger ever had.

The Varthian appeared from the crowd like a wraith, Akiva swaggering along beside him. In the shadows near the door he spotted Jesper and Raziel waiting for them. The filthy munitions expert leered at Jordan when he caught him looking, and held up a handful of ominous-looking vials and bottles.

"Ready?" Usk grunted.

To shit myself, yeah. "Um..."

"Good lad." A massive hand knocked the wind from him as it clapped him on the back. "Let's get going. Catch you later, Arl. I'll bring you back something shiny."

Arlen's lips pressed into a thin line and he nodded, leaning on his walking stick. Jordan glanced back at him just before he reached the door, wishing for a confusing second that his tutor was coming after all. He had seen enough of Arlen's break-in skills to know he would have been helpful on something like this. His eyes drifted and caught Marick's. The Devil leader had moved to the middle of the room, and smirked at him when their gazes met. Jordan tore himself away and hurried into the night.

Though he had seen dozens of assassins leave the beer hall, they were the only ones visible on the street outside. Raziel pressed several vials into his hands and grinned with all five of his teeth.

"Smoke," he said, using a filthy finger to point at an opaque glass bottle. "Belladonna. You break one, cover your nose, hold your breath and run." He pointed to three thin vials that looked empty, save for a few drops of dark liquid in the bottom. "Firecrackers." He indicated the four sticks with string hanging out of one end that looked alarmingly like the dynamite sticks Jordan had seen in cartoons as a kid. "I made some green, just for you. I assumed you could light them yourself."

It was too late now to say that he was doubtful about that and Raziel was already walking away, so Jordan just set about finding pockets to store them in. He tried not to think about that fact that he was carrying three breakable vials of a powerful hallucinogenic poison in his pockets like they were loose change and hurried to catch up to the group.

Jesper sidled up beside him, for once not attempting to take him by surprise. "Ever robbed a lord before?"

"Can't say I have." Jordan sniffed and drew back a little. "Most criminal thing I did before I came here was drinking in a park where alcohol wasn't allowed."

Jesper wrinkled his nose. "You had designated areas for not drinking? What kind of mad people lived in...what'd you call it?"

"Earth." He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. He should have made the effort to see Grace before doing this. Thinking about his past life only made the guilt worse, but it was a gate that was hard to close once it was open. He had all but pretended it never existed in an effort to get through the previous week in one piece. Right before the job was a terrible time to examine it again, but his mind betrayed his attempts to think of anything else.

He didn't know if Earth and Nictaven's time ran parallel, but he wondered if Christmas had been and gone back home, and felt a wrench in his gut that almost floored him. He wondered if his parents had even bothered, once Grace and Jordan hadn't come home, if they were even now sitting in the dining room without them.

"We didn't have lords, either," Jordan replied. "At least not as you know it."

"Then...who ruled?"

"In my country we had an elected parliament." He paused. "And a queen, but that's more ceremonial than anything."

Jesper, despite himself, looked fascinated. It occurred to Jordan that Nika would be interested in this, too, and then wondered with a fresh spike of shame if the Unspoken hadn't asked for the sake of Jordan's feelings. He hoped not, because Jordan's behaviour certainly hadn't returned the favour.

"Imagine voting for who rules," Jesper said. "Is it like the Devils' system? They win and they stay?"

Jordan was vaguely aware that Usk and Akiva were now also listening. "If winning involves stabbing, no. And you can vote them back out again."

"You hearing this?" Jesper said to Usk. "Madness."

Usk just grinned. "If Arlen took a dose of arsewort, several brawls and one bastard of a kick in the balls to get someone to power and then had them voted out again, he'd kill everyone in sight."

Jordan wrinkled his nose. "Arsewort?"

"Raging shits," Akiva supplied. "Burns on the way in, fucking wrecks you on the way out."

"Oh."

"Don't know who could possibly have slipped that in his drink," Usk said, in a tone of voice and with a smirk that said he knew exactly who had done it and that he was still proud of himself.

"If I remember right, he double-dosed you back," Jesper pointed out. Usk's grin soured a little.

"He got lucky."

"So lucky that he's been running the show ever since," Akiva said with a cackle.

"But who doesn't make friends by giving them awful runs?" Jesper nudged Jordan with his elbow and gave an exaggerated wink.

"That's how you met?" Jordan asked Usk faintly. The brute nodded, sharp teeth glinting in the faint light from few streetlamps still burning in the quarter. "Each to their own, I guess."

Despite having the best eyesight of the group in the dark, the river still took Jordan by surprise, and he almost walked into Raziel and knocked them both into it. The man's stench alerted him just in time that he'd stopped walking, and left Jordan blinking away tears.

"Right, lads," Usk muttered, staring out across the bridge. Silhouetted against the dusky twilight sky, glittering lights picked out the contours of Harkenn's castle, and Jordan stifled a sudden urge to be sick. "We're stealthy from here. We all got the plan nailed?"

"Aye."

"Nailed as a...."

"We're not needing the raunchy comparisons, Kiv." Usk gestured Jordan closer to him, and then set off across the bridge.

They were taking the same bridge that Jordan used to get back to Yddris's from Arlen's, but this time there was no sense of relief, only an intensifying feeling of impending doom. As they reached the other side, Jesper and Raziel peeled off and disappeared down a side street, and Akiva dodged away further up the streets known as the Fingers. Yddris lived on the top row, the house and its relative safety so close as to be painful.

Usk led Jordan on, face a mask of almost feral focus. Jordan followed his lead as best he could, stumbling between doorways and scrambling onto roofs with hands soon scraped raw as his gloves proved a hindrance. He was certain the brute could go faster and was holding back for his sake, but if Jordan tried to speed up he'd only fall off a roof or do something similarly stupid and time-consuming. The contrast between this and the experiences he'd had in lessons was stark; even with a teacher beside him he was finding it hard not to sink into despair. So many things could go wrong when he was trying to play on three sides, and only one of them knew about both of the others.

The castle loomed overhead, its shadow falling across them as they walked briskly through the merchants' quarter to reach the other side. Usk had rammed a hat onto his head and his hands in his pockets, ironically looking a whole lot less obtrusive than Jordan probably did in all-black leathers. The quarter was too busy this close to the castle to be as stealthy as before, though they kept to the shadows and narrow alleys. The vast stone curtain wall rose up on their right as they left the Fingers. Jordans legs ached before the job had even started, but he trudged on, looking around him. To their left lay the estate where Harkenn housed his staff, a scattering of lights that started at the bottom of the slope that the castle perched upon. A long winding path led down it, bordered by scrubby, half-dead foliage. The estate ended at a distant, glittering line on the horizon.

"Reservoir," Usk muttered, catching his gaze. "That one's nicknamed Ferrin."

"Why?"

"Harkenn's grandfather had it built. The one on the other side's named after his father." A huge hand clamped on Jordan's shoulder and steered him back into the shadows. "You can sightsee later."

The castle grounds stretched ahead of them when they finally reached the back of the vast building. The stores consisted of three warehouse-sized sheds within spitting distance of the castle, lined side-by-side lengthways along the lawns. On the far side of the grounds, closer to where Jordan knew the kitchens to be, was a low-slung building that he only saw because of its glowing rune net, as no braziers burned inside or out – the barracks, he knew, because there was a small unit of the castle guard waiting inside to ambush Marick's assigned fire-setters.

It didn't look like anything had begun yet; two guards patrolled up and down outside each warehouse with a torch in hand and the night was quiet. Then a flicker of movement caught Jordan's eye from the roof of the nearest shed, a faint silhouette of a man climbing in through a hole and disappearing from sight. Jordan tried to catch sight of Gelert, who would be giving direction from close quarters, but couldn't see him yet.

"Wait for the signal," Usk muttered, crouched behind him.

Jordan held his breath, eyes trained on the scene in front of him. For a long moment, the night was pulled taut.

Then someone screamed.