he door might’ve disappeared underneath a fall of ivy. He knew well enough by now how to shut it quietly and let the tangles of vine and leaf fall back into place, ‘til not a crack or line of cotton-muffled lamplight was visible.
She’d put the lamps out soon, anyway; they had read until their eyes were raw, both of them. In the sudden dark of the alleyway, the sharp lines and dots of the monite danced in his vision, as bright as the ink had been dark. When he shut his eyes, he could see them against the backs of his lids, flashing in spots and tingling motes.
He saw her hands, too, and her dark-painted fingernails, tracing a line or curled around a pen. He saw her eyes and her face, intent on him or on the page. It wasn’t always smooth anymore. It couldn’t be, with how they worked late into the night; they’d never worked together like this before, not even with all her lessons. He was starting to recognize the faint suggestions of lines around her dark brows or in her frown, or at the edges of her eyes, covered up with neat kohl.
He was getting used to sitting close beside her, too – to reaching across her when he needed to point out a mistake on the page or pen in a bit of punctuation or turn the page of a grimoire. After a time, his back started to ache; there was no room to think about all the things he used to think about. They always chose their words carefully between them, but sometimes in the night the back room felt like a lamplit dream.
His lungs and his vocal cords felt tired from all the talk. He’d needed to get into syntax a little, to explain how to recognize a leybridge and how it worked – the special negative particle you used when expressing will rather than describing the world as it was… All the laoso little things about a language their kind only used to ask questions and make requests, and carefully, so as not to piss off the very air.
They’d spoken of him, too.
Quiet-like, for all he knew the thick cloth hangings prevented them from being overheard. Offhand and quiet.
His hands ached with the chill as he pulled his gloves back on, leaning against the cold brick. He cupped his mouth and breathed into it, willing some warmth back against the first prickling numbness of the cold, because he knew he’d be out here awhile.
He made a habit of sitting out afterward, to coax the little gray cat with scraps of fish or whatever he’d brought from Uptown; he made a habit of it, too, because it gave him the opportunity to watch. To watch, and be watched.
He did the same tonight, sitting stiffly on the curb, though the cat was nowhere to be seen. He’d come; he usually came. He reached into his coat and pulled out the paper bag of smoked fish, with a little extra tonight. He set it beside him, then pulled out his pack of cigarettes and his matchbox, too.
He’d seldom seen the lad. Movement, more like, at the edge of his vision, down an alleyway on the way to the shop or blending neatly into the crowd.
His qalqa had been following as much as being followed, back in the day, and he knew the lad was good at it. Scrappy from what he’d seen, but getting by fair well, as his type often do – and, he thought, he knew the type well enough – tangly dark hair, scruffy, like any other wick lad in the Ladies or anywhere else in the Dives. He’d no way of knowing who he worked for, but he’d a feeling.
He didn’t see him right now, but he’d the feeling, too – he always had the feeling. He’d been followed here with, he suspected, the intent of catching him leave, too. As always.
He took out a spur and lit it with stiff hands, taking the first drag with relish.
He leaned back against the damp brick, sucking at a tooth. “You care for a smoke, lad?” He raised his voice just loud enough. “While we’re both here, that is.”