ands ached as he worked at the buttons. Seemed slippery underneath his fingers; he left the top few unbuttoned, tired as he was, and searched for his belt instead. Nevio was on his other side now, long fingers a flash of pale in the dark. It was a sliver of leather at the edges of his fingertips, like he was still reaching out for it – and when Tom bent to get it, his fingers twitched, his silver thumb ring glinting.
Tom’s lip twitched. He massaged his shoulder; the ring’d dug in and made a crescent, still smarting underneath his shirt. The pain whisked up the memory of hot breath on the back of his neck, he didn’t know whose. Aremu was already on his way out; Tom looked at Nevio one last time, before he dropped his spur and ground it out with the heel of his boot.
This place, huh, he wanted to say, moving out into the blue light. Them snoring kov and the heady fug of smoke-smells couldn’t banish it: the mant echo of nothing through the space, the way the tunnel went back into nothing, nothing, nothing, dark.
His eyes moved up over the walls outside. He didn’t much care to watch Aremu climb, though he saw the wrinkle and ripple of his shirt over the motions of familiar muscles. He looked at the stones instead, glistening dewy almost like the scales of a chainmail balloon.
Thought about another evening, thin thread line of an Ever beside this one. When Aremu’d set his hand on top of his, he’d taken it; he’d stood wordless as the stone and drawn him away from the smoke, into the dark or else into the light, and they’d found such things as the stones hid, carved Heshath and bones and crumbling walls to climb.
Was nothing but a fancy; was more like a dream, than anything, a dream he’d’ve had when he was a boch. Out here, he looked down at his shirt and found a smear of dirt along a crease. Couldn’t’ve known whether it was from here or back in the wrecked attic, or anywhere in-between.
He set his hands on the ladder and started up.
He imagined it creaking underfoot; he imagined the ground a mant manna further below him than it was, or maybe just the sea. So he didn’t look down, just up, where Aremu stood.
He wasn’t in the light, not enough it picked out any of his face, anything of him at all. After all that dark, it seemed stinging-bright; it flooded about the dark shape of his head, his shoulders, even his shirt turned to a shadow with the light at his back. He watched one long, lean arm go up, then the other, the breeze tugging at his sleeves, all of his slim frame stretching up and rippling with it.
He was almost to the top when Aremu’s shadow fell over him. He squinted up, eyes bleary; his eyes half-adjusted to the dark, but not enough. The other man was kneeling, a long, thin hand extended. He thought there might’ve been a smile on his face – it was too dark to tell – and too mung to think that.
He hazarded a smile anyway and took the hand. He opened his mouth; he thought of a word he knew the shape of, a word he was still too coward to say, a word he didn’t know’d be welcome. “Thanks,” he said instead.
Knew well enough to know Aremu was whipcord-strong, and had an easy enough time with even his weight; he used that firm, callused grip to lever himself over, then pushed himself up to stand.
Hand let go of his, quick enough.
They’d gone toward Basin Court a fair ways just following the lights; the outflow was on the edge, underneath the last few empty streets. The slim dark shapes of cats skittered through street lamps, eyes flashing. There was lamps lit here and there in the windows of shabby houses and flats.
They kept to the shadows, far apart as any two men. He thought he could feel the ghost of Aremu’s fingers on his, and he pushed both his hands deep in his pockets.
“You like…” he started after a moment, clearing his throat when his voice broke. “You like Hessean?” His voice sounded more like his, now, even if something was still missing.
Oes, he thought, after all that, off to a Hessean stall in some closing-up night market in Basin Court. Would dsoh in West-and-Long be better? Jus’ wait, dove, I got to go clean up. Both he could’ve laughed at. Sure know how to treat a kov, Cooke, you kenser’s erse.
He looked over at Aremu, his brow furrowed; under another lamp, he couldn’t tell what was on the other man’s face. He felt an ache of concern, and wondered if he felt too much or not enough. He still felt something like a banderwolf, or some other animal with a thick hide and sharp teeth.