She grins. ‘New chemicals. One of the stone-melters from the last dig. Just a drop or two and you get the zing.’
He frowns. ‘That safe?’
Cog pats his hand companionably. Her palm is callus over callus. ‘Course it is sprat, I still need you.’
She flips the birds, shakes the shit out the skillet and sits next to him for a spell.
‘So, this is a joy, but I know it ain’t just a social. Handsome lad like you has better places to be.’ She elbows him. ‘You seeing anyone? Charming more than ropes? Raising more than sails?’
He snorts.
‘That’s not all I’ve got lad. Plumbed any depths? Found any new harbours?’
‘Gods above, Cog, that’s enough.’
She clinks his bottle. ‘Gods are gone, sprat, they can’t save you from me.’
Ropecharmer says nothing, just stares at the grain on the table while Cog busies herself setting plates and cutlery, lighting a few candles against the coming night.
The table is smooth. It has been sanded and varnished over, and over again to remove the marks of Coglifter’s work, to banish stubborn stains. Yet still the grain persists, something deep in the wood that can’t be scrubbed out. He runs a finger over it, trying to shape the question in his head.
At the stove, Cog doesn’t turn her head, but she sets down the skewers and sighs. ‘Just spit it out lad, I can see it hanging on your shoulders like a tick on a dog.’
Rope coughs and takes another swig. ‘I’ve been hearing things, Cog. Seeing bits of things I don’t rightly understand. I’ve been buying drinks for people in the Towers instead of plumbing depths, as you put it, and the folk I buy drinks for are telling me stuff I can’t square away.’
Cog shutters the flames and leaves the birds to crackle. Turning from the stove, she fixes him with those sharp eyes, like a blackbird running over a hedgerow. ‘What sort of stuff, lad? Out with it.’
Rope picks at the bread. ‘About the Shipwright. And the Shroudweaver.’
Coglifter sucks her teeth. ‘More about him though, I bet.’
He nods. She stirs the bones in their broth and waits.
‘Something went down with Fallon. The scullions and stable hands are too skittish to say much but there’s a couple that like me.’
Cog waggles her eyebrows.
‘Salt and spit, Cog. Relax. We’ve done each other a few favours. They need stuff brought in, medicines, kit. I pick it up when we’re out with Ship and charge it to Fallon’s tab.’
‘Proper accounting lad, s’good. He pays the bills, even the ones we don’t tell him about.’
She rests the ladle in the crook of the pot. ‘So, what happened?’ She already knows, of course, but it’s a good little habit to see if Rope’s staying true, like running your thumb along the edge of a knife.
Rope scrapes at the table with his nail. ‘Some kind of assassination attempt. Crowkisser’s dog, most folk think. The one that crawls through shadows.’ He straightens, rubs a finger over the scar on his neck, ‘The weaver foiled it apparently, with gold magic – god magic.’
This much she knows, but he’s not done.
‘One of the girls that works the ropes on the Cattongue canal says she saw bodies hanging over the water. Says she woke up choking like someone was pouring scalded syrup down her mouth, and there were bodies there, lit up like morning, burning to ash and gold.’
Cog nods as she agitates the broth. It’s catching a little where the meat hits the metal. ‘There’ll be some folk glad to see the last of the evidence gone, I bet. Lot of sins swimming around down there.’
Ropecharmer runs his hands through his hair. It’s short-cropped, pale as death along the side where Slickwalker’s last shot came too close.
‘I don’t get it, Cog. All this shit because the gods are dead. And yet the weaver’s running around doing … what, exactly? Because it sure looks like god magic to me.’
Cog sighs. ‘I know, lad. If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck and all that. But sometimes it’s just a bastard dressed as a duck.’
Rope seems unconvinced, so she beckons. ‘Come over here. Get off your arse for once.’
