They reconvene in the port tower at evening bell. A carillon running across the roofs of Hesper as windows are flung and kitchens sizzle with the tang of meat and spice. Tonight, Declan Fallon has set a more sober table. Shipwright can read his mood in the cringing of the servants who do their very best to fade into the walls, or dissolve into the dust that coats the tower floor. Fallon has not been entertaining very much.
The man himself is already present, sat on the long side of the table, a half-drained mug by one hand, a sheaf of papers in the other. He looks up as she enters, and waves pointedly at the seat opposite.
‘Just you?’
She shrugs, which is enough to send the serving boy at her shoulder scurrying.
‘Shroud’ll be along. He slept like shit.’
She waves her own empty glass at the nervous boy. ‘Please, lad, I think I’ll need it.’
He pours a slug of some bitter black ale straight into fine gilded stemware. And if that doesn’t tell her the state of things, what would?
She sips. ‘Should we wait?’
Fallon snorts. ‘We should.’
Silence falls. The city rumbles along outside the window, cat squall and birdsong falling to the first tipsy shanties rolling up the walls from early starters taking shore leave.
Shipwright rearranges the cutlery and sips again, casting a plaintive look at the serving staff who studiously avoid her eyes. She stops drumming her fingers on the table when Fallon glances up from the papers; jigs her leg on the floorboards instead.
‘Widow’s tits, are you going to dance a full hornpipe for me, Ship?’
Shipwright sinks the ale, and straightens the forks again. ‘I’m not in the mood, Dec. It was a long voyage, and a longer night after.’
Something in Fallon softens for a second, then he turns back to the papers. ‘Your beau better get a shift on.’
As if on cue, Shroudweaver enters, ragged as an owl in an aviary, something feral in his gaze. His robe askew, with wisps of red, cindered thread trailing from his wrist. He sees their eyes on him, and seems to realise he is expected to speak.
‘There was a dream. I mean. Last night. And then this morning, I was experimenting. Trying to get a hold of it.’ He waves his right hand casually. Something stinks of saltpetre.
Fallon says nothing, just motions the servants to bring trays, salvers, platters filled with an excess of good food. Tense as she is, Shipwright’s mouth waters.
Shroudweaver settles next to her with a faint air of embarrassment, but there’s something worse beneath it. He’s thrumming like a violin string, taut with worry. She leans in, fixes his robes, tucks a particularly wispy strand of hair behind his ear.
‘Let’s just ride this out.’
Shroudweaver nods and makes a pretence of fussing with his cuffs. A splash of some pleasant fizz, and a little grilled bird wallowing in butter steadies him somewhat. She watches him start to come back together as he gently peels the meat from the bone. Good – she needs an ally.
Before Fallon even opens his mouth, Shipwright knows thisis going to be a long dinner. The old bull’s weighed down with the kind of misery that slides into spite. He starts holding forth, the cup waving in his hand, his fingers stabbing at the papers fluttering in the other. Shipwright lets it wash over her, admiring the patterns on the glassware. She’d picked these out with Arissa in a little trinket shop, a long, long time ago. They were passé even then, but there’s something in the cut of them that reminds her of home.
The thought of home holds her for a while. Fallon says something about theVolanteand she nods. He curses out the guilds of the city for being stretched too thin to help, and she nods. He ticks a litany of dead ends off on his fingers – Errant, the Heron Halls, the Burners.
She nods.
Half of them Shipwright had already chalked up as lost. She’s sailed farther by far than Fallon over the past little while, but she knows he needs to strike them off his list, to balance the sheets. She also knows that every fleck of spit, every slammed fist and dancing plate, every palpitation that runs through the staff is cover for something worse.
This table is set for three, when there should be four.
Arissa’s absence is a palpable, crushing thing. Not just for Fallon, for her too. It doesn’t quite floor her, but it almost does. Her fingers tighten on the glass. Beside her, Shroudweaver’s hands skip a quiet, fluttering dance.
Beware the shards of a broken pot. A wrist twist, a shoulder dip.Hawks most fear an empty nest.
And with that, Shipwright notices the other ghost at the feast. Quickfish, not long gone, but so dear to Fallon’s heart that the stupid man hasn’t spoken of him since.
She flicks a quick message back across the table.
Pups run and hounds howl.
