Page 188 of Turncloak

Allow me to cut right to the heart of the matter, without the meandering preludes for which I am ordinarily known. I am miraculously and fatally sober, you see, and not feeling especially loquacious.

So: the heart of the matter.

I was listening to every word uttered during your stakeout in the apartment opposite the Whitewing drophouse. A little enchanted artifact not unlike your own bracelet—so useful for hearing what the ear cannot, for keeping record where a quill cannot.

This is how I know Nissa Naszi perjured herself during an official inquest.

This is how I know you let her.

If this got out, it would be the end of both of your careers, no?

Oh dear, Marriosan. I think that means you’re mine now.

Yours enchantedly,

Harrow Claver

77

• • • •

The Blackest Embrace

Loxlure was not difficult to find in a place like Mersina.

It was known by a different name on the isle of mercenaries and mendicants, but the kingpin—was he still a kingpin, now that his empire was ash?—had always had a knack for languages. A few muttered words into the right ears, a few gentle death threats, and he soon found himself in a dingy tavern that smelled strongly of piss, candied cherries, and nightpoppy.

Levan rolled the glass vial in the palm of his golden hand.

There were many ways one could take loxlure. It could be ground into a fine powder, which one could either snort, rub into gums, or smoke in an achullah pipe. But Levan had always preferred to drink it in a deep, dark shot of liquid. The release was less immediate, since the substance took longer to enter the bloodstream, but Levan loved that. The anticipation, the tingling, the way the high hit slowly, slowly, then all at once, the blackest embrace welcoming him home.

He unstoppered the cork, lifted the thin glass rim to his lips, and swallowed it down in one. The taste was exactly how he remembered it, as sweet as it was bitter, acrid as smoke yet somehow floral, a little metallic. The scent of nightpoppy, but a thousand times more intense.

He closed his eyes and waited.

The sounds of the tavern dissolved around him, the roar of pirates gambling away their treasures, the bleat of a stringed instrument, the clink of glasses, and the scuffle of footsteps.

It was all so far away.

Senses like sound and smell and taste and sight were all so abstract compared to the pain.

Miret, dead and empty in a heartbeat.

Alucia, alive, snarling, and then killed in front of him.

Saffron, taking his face in hers, peering into his soul as though it were not monstrous but wonderful, and then betraying him anyway.

His father, slain by the Silvercloaks because Levan had trusted the wrong woman—again.

His mother’s dead face illuminated by moonlight, his brother pleading next to her.

His brother telling him, cold and true, that he was beyond redemption.

But these agonies were already softening, swaddled by loxlure. The sharp, scraping horror lost its bladed edge, leaving behind a strange kind of resignation. Surrender. Yet surrender felt curiously like freedom.

All behind him now.

It could just be him and loxlure; the only thing he’d ever been able to count on.