The Ninth of Loshis, Forty-three Minutes Past the Seventeenth Hour
He looks to the Lame Man, hoping he has a shorter walk to his next port of call, to home. All at once the negation forms in his mind. No. The Lame Man has a long walk ahead of him, or a long ride in a cab. The man’s face, his particular gait, he has seen it before, seen it in Smike’s End. He is almost sure of it. Is that all it is? A face and form he has seen from time to time? Buying produce at Caseby’s and bread from the Black Raven? Quotidien matters, the usual patterns of a man’s life. Something still gnaws at him. There is more than just the memory of this man in the streets. Something about the face. Something he has seen before, closer and longer than a fleeting glance in the markets and shops. Well, one small part of the mystery solved, another, greater part remains.
Best to keep the man talking. More information may arise.
The current line is still on the fish still gliding beneath their transparent ceiling. “They are somewhat meditative to watch as well. Swimming about on whatever business they have. Presumably eating for the most part. These seem well fed and bright. One assumes they are happy enough here. Certainly I am happy to watch them.” He looks again at the Lame Man, a quick passing of the colorless eyes, still trying to place him. No luck. “I’ve never kept a pet myself. No time to tend to it. Work takes up so much of my time and my hours are both long and increasingly irregular.” And they grow dangerous.
It is the case that he has never kept a pet? Bailey is half a curious servant and half what could pass for a pet. He gives the boy room to sleep, a consistent allowance for his maintenance. A curious thought. Uncomfortable. Perhaps true. The Thief is a novelty. The Thief is useful. He is more than worth his costs. How much of his money has gone to support the city’s leek and mushroom pie industry? How much more to the better breweries of the city to provide the Thief with his sharp and floral ales? Bailey at least can fend for himself.
“It would appear that your osta is, at least, useful. Hingles are a menace. Wild ones that is. Always gnawing on paper and destroying documents. I have been known to periodically enjoy an edible one cooked in honey and poppy seeds. Though only if I am feeling over decadent. Or perhaps as a form of vengeance for all the documents they have ruined over the years.”
A few hints given, but nothing more. Allusions to his life beyond the green-tinted glass. His life in paper. A little bait to draw the Lame Man out, to discover who it is he has been speaking to all this time.