Angelfire | The Whispering Wall #3

Twenty One: Secret Meetings

"I don't know about this, Arl."

Arlen wanted to say something sharp in return, but the truth was that he didn't know about it, either. In every way it felt like a bad idea, but he hadn't had the time or space to plan anything better than this – had never intended to even challenge for the seat a year ago. So much had changed since then.

Or perhaps it was just him that had changed, and he'd been too blind to see everything else heading his way before.

"We have a contingency," he said instead, unable to muster more than uneasy neutrality in his tone. He didn't trust the fringe gangs, didn't trust Skipper. The crux of it was that if he didn't take the reins back by force, these conspirators would do something stupid and get all of them killed. He would not be dragged into a plot to put him on the seat if he was not in full control of it.

He ignored the nagging little voice in his head, the one telling him that it had already gone rogue and this meeting was just damage control. He had to stop letting ambitious idiots blindside him like this.

"I'm surprised you didn't drag Calder along," Akiva said, dropping down from a roof above the alley and sauntering beside them as if he'd been there all along.

"Why would I drag Calder into this?" Arlen growled. He suppressed a twitch of irritation in his jaw. He hadn't mentioned the incident with Silas to the others and didn't plan to; it was a bad look. "I can't risk him having one of his..." he struggled with the words, "...episodes in front of people we can't trust."

"You can't blame him for that, Arl," Usk rumbled, so low it was as if he didn't really want Arlen to hear it.

"I'm not fucking blaming anyone for anything." Perhaps a lie, of sorts. "Unless you would be volunteering to carry him if we needed a getaway?" Tension immediately filled the alley and Arlen could have smacked them all in the head with his stick. "What are you lot looking all shifty for? Big difference between 'upright with knives' and 'completely fucking unconscious'."

He realised he was very close to shouting and fell silent, grinding his teeth. It wasn't getting him anywhere. It wasn't anyone else's fault that Cael had attacked his apprentice and left him with debilitating scars; Arlen knew a thing or two about scars. And, he thought grudgingly, it wasn't really their fault that Calder would find it easier to freeze and get run through than to take a life. It was Arlen's. He'd yet to decide whether it was the gaps in his teaching or a failure of his intuition, but he hoped to Nict it was the former. That boy was the only thing standing between him and Marick right now.

The meeting place was obscure, challenging even Arlen's decades-long experience of the dead quarter. He had Jesper and Ashe scouting ahead, Akiva darting between them to relay information. Arlen was flanked by Usk and Darin, who was the colour of sour milk and hadn't said a word all day. Raziel waited several streets back, sitting amongst his demon hoard of explosives and waiting for a signal in case things went horribly wrong.

Ashe appeared out of the gloom ahead. She moved silently, dark eyes glittering in that way that always made her gaze a challenge, if anyone was fool enough to take it.

"Clear run to the door, boss," she said cheerfully. "Jes is waiting outside."

"What's it look like?"

She shrugged. "One of those fancy-pants wine cellars the Orthanians like. Only like, old. And smelly."

"I thought we left Raz back there," Akiva said, offhand. Usk snorted and covered it with a sniff.

"He's not that bad."

"You would say that, Arlen."

"I'm going to pretend I didn't hear that." He flexed his fingers around the head of his walking stick.