One: Double-Time

A creaking floorboard in the room below alerted Jordan Haverford that it was time to run.

He froze, glancing over at his companion, whose eyes glittered in the dark at him. With a quick motion – more apparent to Jordan, with his magic-tinged sight, than it would have been to anyone else – Jesper directed him to the open window. Jordan stuffed another necklace into the inside pocket of his coat and jumped onto the ledge, just as boots echoed on the stairs outside.

"Go," Jesper hissed, nudging him in the back as voices reached the landing. Jordan looked down, suppressing dizziness at the drop, and stepped out, landing softly on the well-manicured lawn. Jesper was beside him in seconds, directing him to the garden wall.

"Hey!" Light flared behind them. Jordan broke into a run without turning round. "You! Get back here!"

Something crashed behind them. Jesper dug in his pocket and threw a small, thin vial over his shoulder, and moments later glass cracked and laughter spilled into the quiet night.

Jordan's arms trembled as he hauled himself over the high wall. He'd barked both his knees on the jump up and his head pounded from where he'd hit it on the window-frame on their way in. He threw a leg over and jumped, wincing as his bruised knees absorbed the shock.

Jesper landed beside him, light as a cat, and they leaned back against the stone to breathe as hysterical voices in the manor house garden finally receded. He grinned, but Jordan didn't return it. Not that the man would have seen it anyway; Jordan might not wear the cloak that declared him as a demon-hunter when Arlen sent him on jobs, but he still kept his face covered. He had made sure to select a cloak with a hood, as anyone who saw his face and the glowing green of his eyes would know what he was – an Unspoken, a magic user, and someone who certainly shouldn't have been associating with the assassins' guild.

"What did you get?" Jesper asked. Jordan's throat burned from exertion, so he dug around and pulled out what he'd stuffed into his pockets by way of an answer – two necklaces, a small golden figurine, a ring and three gold coins he had found in a dresser drawer. Auriels were the highest-value currency in Shadow's Reach, and Jesper's eyes widened when he saw them. "Watch out, kid, Arlen might kiss you when he sees those."

Jordan made a vague noise of disgust that had Jesper cackling. They got to their feet. Jesper bounced up like he'd only been for a stroll, and Jordan staggered upright like his muscles had turned to lead. He suppressed a scowl as he stashed the goods back inside his cloak and set off into the dark streets. He had to admit, though, that he'd had a much easier time under Jesper's supervision than under any of the other mentors Arlen had assigned him. Housebound as an amputated leg healed, his instructor had set up a complicated schedule of his friends from the guild to get Jordan some experience – though 'friends' may have been generous, since Arlen had a constant air of wanting to stab everyone in the room, including, at times, Jordan.

Runes, bright emerald and visible only to Jordan, glimmered on the walls of the buildings they passed. They patterned the roads they walked on and hummed in Jordan's ears as his own Gift responded to them. What felt like a lifetime ago, when he had first arrived in Nictaven through a portal with his sister Grace, the manifestation of the magic buzzing inside him had felt like the end of the world. Now he found it an unexpected comfort, a constant even when his life was turned continually upside down, rattled around, shaken up and dumped out for anyone to interfere with.

"When Akiva said you were quiet, I thought he was exaggerating." Jesper stuck his hands in his pockets. Constantly moving, energetic, the wiry assassin tired Jordan out just by being there. The break-in into a manor house on the edge of the Orthanian quarter had taken a week to plan. Half of Jordan's energy had already gone into worrying about it before he set foot outside Arlen's home that evening, and his thoughts were a woolly fog.

"Tired," Jordan said shortly, dreading the day ahead of him. The gruelling training wouldn't end when he left the dead quarter at dawn – when he returned to the home of his Unspoken tutor, Yddris, there was no respite, only a change of subject.

"I've been wondering about that," Jesper said. The light-heartedness in his tone indicated that he had either ignored or not noticed the irritation in Jordan's voice. "When exactly do you sleep, what with Yddris and Arlen running you in circles day and night?"

Jordan looked around instinctively for anyone who might have overheard Jesper mentioning both his tutors in the same breath. The street was deserted, but that didn't mean much in a place like Shadow's Reach. He lowered his voice and hoped Jesper took the hint.

"I get a day off and a night off every week," he muttered. "In between times, whenever I can grab it."

He didn't say that Yddris allowed him time to catch up on his sleep as often as his training schedule allowed; the Devils didn't know that Yddris knew about Jordan's involvement with them. The Unspoken Guild likewise didn't know about his involvement with the Devils.

Even his sister didn't know about it, and she was the reason he had agreed.

"Pretty rough, that," Jesper said, wincing. "Arlen pushes hard. I bet that dickbag Yddris doesn't go much easier, eh?"

"He's not a dickbag," Jordan snapped. He considered. "Just a dick."

"Subtle difference." Jesper grinned, and Jordan had recovered enough of his composure to return it this time.

They both fell quiet as a low, hollering cry echoed in another quarter; not all of them had runes drawn on the paths, and demons roamed them freely at night, keeping the residents trapped inside. A shiver went down Jordan's spine. Over the months he had spent in Nictaven, he had learned by heart the cries of every kind of demon to frequent the settlements. That cry had been a Firebull.

"Hate those things," Jesper muttered. They hadn't spoken for several minutes, and it made Jordan start. They clambered onto the balustrade of the tumbledown bridge that led from the Orthanian quarter to the dead quarter, picking a path through the muck and algae. The bridge's surface was submerged under a few inches of the river Aven which ran underneath it.

Jesper strode along whistling, with his hands rammed in his pockets. Jordan scowled at his back, but only for a second before he had to train his eyes back on his feet. The Aven's black waters gurgled below, too close for his liking. He didn't think he had imagined that the river was rising, had been for a couple of weeks. There were other ways into the quarter, but he had never been able to convince his teachers to use them instead. Akiva had laughed in his face when he'd suggested it, and Usk had mockingly asked if he wanted to ride piggyback.

He hadn't asked anyone else since.

The streets on the other side of the river were a far cry from the opulence of the quarter they had just left. The manor house they had robbed, with its polished floors and marble mantels, belonged to a different world from the ramshackle ruins that yawned into narrow alleys or poked into the greying sky with shards of blackened timbers. There were runes here, but they were patchy and frequently faded. There seemed to be movement in every shadow. Despite coming here for a few weeks now, Jordan tensed in anticipation of attack every time.

His tutor lived on the top floor of one of the rare buildings that still had a top floor. The ground floor had caved into the cellar long ago, but the outside structure itself was surprisingly stable, and it had enough runework left to be safe. He and Jesper climbed through window from a pile of crates, and found Arlen pacing the room, teeth bared against his frustration. A gleaming metal limb poked out from underneath his long sweat-stained shirt, and his dark hair, half-shaved to show off the Devil tattoo on the side of his skull, was stringy with it, too, as if he'd been pacing since they left.

He looked up as they entered, snarl falling into a sullen glower. Even his blinded eye seemed reproachful. "Have fun?"

"Was alright, wasn't it?" Jesper cuffed Jordan's shoulder, deaf to Arlen's resentful tone.

"S'alright, yeah," Jordan replied. He couldn't recall anything he'd ever done with the Devils being fun. Tolerable was the best he could hope for, and everything else was categorised into varying shades of shit.

"Show Arlen what you found, kid."

Jordan emptied his pockets onto the table, grateful to be free of it. He'd never been tempted to keep anything the Devils told him to steal. Getting rid of it went some way towards helping him sleep at night – or at whichever hour he grabbed a minute to himself.

As Arlen heaved himself into a chair and started to inspect the haul, Jordan loosened his cloak and kicked his boots off. His belongings leaned against the far wall, next to a smattering of broken glass and sticky wine stains. His brown Unspoken cloak was folded neatly on top of the knapsack he used to carry a change of clothes when he ran between tutors. It was covered in a dusting of black hairs from his pet shadow-runner, Ren, who he was suddenly eager to get back to. Arlen never let him bring her with him and it was a wrench to leave her behind.

There was a time where he wouldn't have been able to fathom seeing Yddris's home as a welcome refuge.

He was so fixed on the idea that he almost forgot Jesper was still present, and stopped himself pulling his hood down just in time. He turned, and the assassin pretended he hadn't been watching curiously. Arlen bit down on each of the gold Auriels, and Jordan received a rare grin.

"Nice. You can sell these off for me next time," he said, pointing at the figurine and the jewellery. He pocketed the money. "I'll have an errand for you, too. I'll pay you then."

Jordan tried not to look too relieved. Arlen's errands weren't fun, but they meant that he wasn't stuck out for the entire night with one of the other Devils.

"Catch you around, kid," Jesper said. He put a boot up on the window and flicked a salute that Jordan didn't return. "Oh, and Arl, there's a meeting on sixthday. Marick wants everyone there."

Arlen scowled but nodded. "I'll be there."

Jesper disappeared into the predawn gloom. The dark season was nearly over, though it never got lighter than a kind of dark grey haze before veering slowly towards blackness once more. After the terrible season he'd been through, Jordan counted his blessings for even that much.

When he could no longer hear Jesper on the crates below, he pulled down his hood and unbuckled the half-cloak at his shoulder. He changed from the black leather tunic into his shirt and jerkin, and slipped off his knife belt, which currently contained only one knife. It had been a gift from his tutor Yddris, right after he had manifested the Gift, and it was still the only weapon he carried no matter how many times Arlen nagged him over taking more.

Jordan pulled up a new pair of trousers and slipped his dagger into a more practical belt, which also had a pouch on it containing bandages and moss that Nika, Yddris's previous apprentice, insisted on him carrying around everywhere.

After the crisp, smoky night air, it was more apparent how bad Arlen's home smelled; sour wine, old sweat, unwashed bodies, and the faint, sick-sweet scent of an old wound. Arlen's leg was still mottled green and yellow, and the thick red line where his skin had been grafted was still far from healed. It smelled from days on end under bandages, but Jordan hadn't plucked up the courage to suggest he washed it just in case he got a knife in the eye for his trouble.

"Two days," Arlen grunted, as Jordan folded up his clothes and left them in a pile where his knapsack had been, then did up the clasps of his Unspoken cloak and threw the hood up. "And next week Usk will have you."

Jordan swallowed his dread. The Varthian thug taught him combat, but it was like nothing Yddris had ever taught him. He'd had to lie that he'd slammed his hand in a door when he returned to Yddris's with two missing fingernails just the other day. Usk didn't believe in 'going easy'.

"See you in two days," he muttered. No matter how often he did this, he didn't think he'd ever get used to how casual everyone was about committing crimes. There was no evaluation after he'd been out. Most days, Jordan felt less like a student and more like a run-around who got paid almost nothing. Arlen's teaching method amounted to letting Jordan fuck up under supervision, get himself in trouble, and resolve never to do it again, only to rinse and repeat.

He might not have been able to convince anyone to get in and out of the dead quarter a different way with him, he could go wherever he liked when he was alone. The route that cut straight through to the street where Yddris lived took him past the Nict House temple and its vast stone cadaver. He always hurried through the courtyard, and kept his hand on his dagger. He let his magic fizzle just below the surface of his skin to deter muggers. Jordan had been mugged, twice in fact, on this route home before, but no one had tried it since he had let a little of his power leak into the air around him as he walked.

It wouldn't be much help against darker, more dangerous denizens of the city, but it was a bonus not to have to worry about petty theft. If a thief actually pressed him, he wouldn't be able to follow through - he didn't have enough control for that - but the threat seemed enough.

The bridge across the Aven from the other side of the quarter was not in the best state of repair, either, but it had been set higher on the banks and the platform wasn't flooded. The city on the other side was better-lit, and though it wasn't as opulent as the Orthanian quarter, it was tidy and welcoming.

Jordan picked up the pace again as he turned onto the hill road up to Yddris's house. Nika would be home from patrol any time soon, and Jordan didn't want to meet him at the front door. He'd never been that good at lying.

Somewhat ironic, he thought to himself as he climbed. Above him, the looming silhouette of the castle, its outline accented with fires in brackets, stood sentinel over the city. Inside that castle was Jordan's main employer, and, more importantly, his sister.

He still shuddered when he approached from this direction. After the demon siege over a month before, he felt phantom pain in his shoulder every time he saw the paler patch of rampart wall where a collapse had been repaired. He kept his eyes down and turned onto his tutor's road, only looking up to make sure no one was coming in or out. The night was quiet except from the occasional demon cry, and the road was deserted.

He let himself into a darkened hallway. His tutor lived in a two-storey house with a cellar that came with his job as the lord's personal demon hunter, and had always given the impression that he was uncomfortable with that fact. It was barely furnished – Jordan's room contained more furniture than the rest of the house put together, except for the cellar, which bristled with Yddris's weapon stores.

There was no fire burning, but he could tell his tutor was home from the nature of the crackle in the air.

"Long night, this one." A deeper shadow detached itself from the general gloom of the front room as Jordan stepped inside. An emerald green fire flared in the grate, revealing Yddris in sharp relief. "You injured this time?"

"My knees won't be right for the next week," Jordan muttered. "But other than that, no."

"Let me guess, jumping a high wall with no practice?"

Jordan's mouth pulled into a reluctant smirk. "Aye." He scanned the room, and spotted the bottle on the floor. "There any of that left?"

"Help yourself."

He dumped his knapsack by the wall and snatched up the whisky bottle. His tutor had been at it already, but there was enough for a few strong pulls. He savoured the burn as it went down. He didn't feel cold like normal people did, but spending the whole night outside in the dark season wasn't a pleasant sensation either way. It stilled the trembling in his hands that he'd barely taken note of up until now. They had started sometime yesterday evening, before the robbery, and he'd become so used to it in the intervening hours that it felt strange for them to fall still.

"When you next out there?" Yddris asked. He stared into the fire, smoking from his pipe.

"Two days," Jordan replied. He wiped his mouth and corked the bottle.

"I'm bringing your sister down with me tomorrow." And that was where any reference to Jordan's other career ended. They never talked about it long, and only in detail if Jordan offered it. It was an indescribable relief to have his tutor know about it, but that didn't make it any easier to talk about. If he kept it in his head, he could kid himself that his life couldn't possibly be this shitty in reality.

Jordan perked up at the mention of Grace. "She's got the day off?"

"Half-day," Yddris corrected. "She was very eager to see you. Can't shake the feeling she waited at the bottom of the stairs for the entire dark-damned meeting to corner me."

"Wouldn't surprise me," Jordan said, smiling.

"Eh, she's lucky Harkenn didn't catch her at it," Yddris grunted. "So you better get to bed, boy, before you sleep through the whole visit. Your eyes look like two pissholes in the snow."

Jordan snorted, halfway through undoing the clasps on his cloak. "If your piss is glowing green you need help, old man."

"Watch with the old," Yddris growled. Jordan ducked as the cork from the whisky bottle flew over his head and rolled down the corridor.

"You're getting that," he called, and closed his bedroom door.

He grinned as a dark streak of fur launched itself off his bed. He caught Ren in his arms, allowing her to nuzzle his chin as he stroked her wiggling body. He had never been entirely clear on what kind of creature a shadow-runner was, but Ren always seemed to know how to make him feel better.

"Hey," he chuckled, as she tried to burrow inside his shirt. "Hey!" He plopped her on the bed and produced a long piece of twine from his pocket. "Look what I have."

Ren went entirely still, eyes trained on the string. The only movement was the light flick of her tail on the covers.

"Go get it!" he said, throwing it across the room, and she bounded from the bed, setting to the serious business of rolling around on the floor with it.

He watched her as he got undressed the rest of the way, relieved to be back. His bed had never looked so comfortable. With no one except Nika staying with Yddris anymore, the house was blissfully quiet, and he had no reason to sleep with his face covered. He pulled on a long nightshirt and clambered in. Ren abandoned her string and came to join him, curling herself up between his arm and his chest.

"I robbed someone today," he told her. She gave him a very serious look. "I didn't want to do it. Don't you start."

Sometimes he got away with it; got back so exhausted that he didn't have the energy to do anything but sleep. Other days it hit hard, and he wished with a fervour that hurt that he could go home – really go home, back to earth and his parents and his boring job. He would even have settled for demon hunting being the sum of his career; it sucked, but he was now realising it didn't suck nearly as hard as his current situation.

It was one of those days.

He pulled Ren closer and tried to focus on the prospect of Grace's visit tomorrow as the tears spilled over, as he tried to muffle his crying in the pillow. Yddris would sense it, of course, but Jordan pretended that he wouldn't. He stifled it forcibly when he heard Nika return, stuffing the blanket into his mouth and biting down hard. In that tense space, exhaustion wormed its way in and sleep claimed him, bringing all its terrors with it.