Shroudweaver’s answering shrug is fluid.
Katkani is too poetic for this room, for this space that Declan fills with rage so they won’t notice the sour stench of his grief, or trace it in his rumpled clothes, his shadowed eyes, the yellowingof his large horse teeth. She half expects Shroud to step in, but something else is tugging at his attention, his pale eyes flicking from Declan to the table and back. This theatre of attention, she knows it all too well. He’s running some calculations neither of them are in on, rolling something else around in the bone box of his skull. She’s on her own.
Thankfully, Declan blows himself out after a time. He slumps in the chair, one leg slung baldly over the arm, the curve of his belly clasped under strong hands, like an old wolf woken in the wrong season.
Not brought to bay yet though. Shipwright has sailed and failed with Declan more times than she can count, and she knows every movement that signals him limping back to the fray. He strokes his moustache with thick brown fingers, slurps from the mug. Shipwright can see his thoughts marshal themselves, and watches the confession bubble up like marsh gas.
‘Look, I don’t want to be the one to say it.’
She can see that he does, as if some perverse imp’s goading him on. She laughs. At least it’s humour, at least it’s something.
‘I don’t want to be the one to say it,’ he continues, as she rolls her eyes. ‘But I have begged and bartered and run every last rat road I can to get us the bodies and blood we need to push Kisser back properly.’
He flaps the papers. ‘I have offered favours and forbearances and things I should not even have considered. I have done everything possible save bending myself over the table and pulling down my breeches, but the fact of it is, I am down to one miserable option. It’s shaped like my worst bloody nightmare, and filled with fickle fucks I haven’t seen in years.’
Shipwright looks at Shroudweaver. Shroudweaver looks at Shipwright. She can see the shape of that great, black mountain reflected in his eyes.
‘Thell,’ she says, the sound of it on her tongue like a stone down a well.
‘Aye, Thell,’ Fallon agrees.
Shipwright waits for Shroudweaver, for some comfort. Heputs a hand on hers, but his smile is thin, absent. He’s seen this coming, and those numbers are still running in his head.
‘Thell’s a big risk, Dec,’ she says. ‘Worse than a risk. A millstone.’
Fallon sniffs. ‘Right again. Plus, there’s him.’
‘Him?’ Shipwright says, even though she already knows. Another ghost loping into the room.
Fallon sinks lower, mournfully ripping apart a quail.
‘Kinghammer.’ He sucks grease from a thumb.
Shipwright smiles weakly. ‘He’s not been returning your letters?’
It’s a bad joke that falls as flat as it deserves.
Fallon’s face twists as he works around a lump of gristle. ‘Worse than that. Keeping one toe just the right edge of hostile. And after what the rebellion cost us?’ The stripped leg waves expressively. ‘His weeping Republic is mortared with Hesper blood.’ He snaps, sucks marrow. ‘With my wife’s blood, Ship.’
Shipwright reaches for some fruit, digs in with her thumb. The juice stings.
‘Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, then. For the sake of your heart, if nothing else.’
The look Fallon shoots her is venomous, but she ignores him, breathes deep.
‘What do we have left?’
Shroudweaver twitches, but Fallon answers.
‘Scraps. That slit shredded us good. TheVolantewas one of the best we had.’
‘What do we haveleft?’ Shipwright repeats, using the tone she saves for cabin boys. Arissa always responded well to that one.
Fallon picks at the skin on his lip. ‘TheHart’s Pride, theMaiden of the Forests.’
She waits.
‘You,’ he finishes lamely.
