“I told you I’d take back what’s mine, boy. It’s a credit to you, though, that you finally wised up to the Arcanist. Figured out you were better off back home, did you?”
Rolan dropped his gaze. “What do you want, Pa? Why’d you have these idiots jump me like I was some lordling for ransom? You could’ve justaskedto see me.”
“I tried that once already,” his father replied drily.
He looked down at his father’s hand, at the bone tattooed on his thumb, and shivered.
“I know what you really want, Rolan,” his pa said. He waved Cabbot out of the chair and took it himself, leaning on his forearms over the table, as if they were equals. As if this were a serious business conversation. Rolan leaned away, his brow a hard, low line over his eyes. Usually when he found himself at the center of his pa’s attention, he walked away with bruises or worse.
“If you’re thinking what I really want is a warm bath and some venison stew,” said Rolan, “you’re right on the money.”
“You want to be a part of my crew. You always have, since you was little.”
Of course, it was true. Or ithadbeen true, for the Rolan he’d been a few months ago. But that Rolan was gone, reshaped andtransformed under the hands of the Arcanist. He’d been made into someone new, and thenthatRolan had also been lost.
Now he was a nothing boy—just an empty, admittedly filthy shirt and pair of trousers blowing around the city without purpose. He had no ideawhathe wanted anymore. He wasn’t sure he should want anything at all, because wanting things seemed to only lead to trouble and disappointment. A cell in the duke’s dungeon. Daggers thrown on the ground. Apothecary’s apprentices leaving for the capital.
That was wherewantinggot him.
He watched his father and said nothing. Rabb, perhaps taking Rolan’s silence as a sign he was on the right track, continued.
“I’ve put you off for years,” he said. “Concerned for your well-being.”
Rolan scoffed.
“But,” his father went on with a stern look, “I believe you’re ready now. I believe I have the perfect job for you to prove, once and for all, where you belong.”
Despite himself, Rolan sat up straighter. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.” Rabb grinned. “So. You in or out?”
Rolan crossed his arms, mostly because he feared his father would see his heart jumping in his chest. “This is about Luc, isn’t it?”
“Ooowee,” crooned Cabbot. “On first-name terms with the Arcanist, are we?”
“Shut up, Cabbot,” Rabb said. “Yes, Rolan. This is about the Arcanist.”
“I know your plan. Yours and Cabbot’s and Hoff’s. How does Hoff like it, by the way? Taking orders fromyou?”
“Even a kicked dog needs to eat,” Rabb laughed. “I guess you found your spy, eh, Cabbot? Hoff tore apart half the city looking for my boy, but what can I say? He’s got his pa’s wiliness.”
There had been a time, not so long ago, when that comment would have made Rolan glow like a lamp. Now he just felt sick, like he’d drunk something oily and sour.
“Did you tell the Arcanist, you little rat?” Cabbot snarled. “What does he know?”
Rolan cut him a narrow look. “Why should I tell you anything? You put asackover my head!”
“Enough,” Rabb said, rapping his knuckles on the table. “It doesn’t matter what the Arcanist knows. He thinks he’s safe, hidden away behind his traps and tricks and Cryptic pets. But you, Rolan. You can take us to him.”
“So that’s the job, is it?” Rolan scowled. “I help you reach Luc, and you… what?”
“Then we have a little chat with the fellow,” his pa replied. “That’s all. We talk, he realizes it’s best for everyone if he just… goes away. Takes his dark magic to some other part of the kingdom. Not that that bit’s your concern. You get us to his house in one piece, and that’s it. You’re in. I’ll make you a member of my crew. You can even get one of these.” He waggled his thumb, making the bone tattoo dance. “Eh? Not even the crew get these. It’ll be a sign to everyone that you belong to Rabb Strider, and Rabb Strider only.”
Rolan shuddered.
He looked at his pa, this man who’d loomed over him his entire life, and wondered how he’d ever wanted to be like him. Perhaps that was never what he’d really wanted at all. Maybe he’d just seen joiningRabb’s crew as a way to escape the punishing end of his cane. Maybe that had been the best life he could imagine—simply a life where he wasn’t hungry, wasn’t cold, wasn’t hurt.
Then blasted Luc had come along with his blasted books and daggers and pathfinding, and Rolan’s imagination had grown ten sizes. Now he could see farther than he ever could before, when the walls of Crisanth had felt like the ends of the world. He’d outgrown this place, and his father and his measly, murderous gang, but he had no idea how to shed them. He’d tried, and they’d dragged him back in a sack.
