Chapter Twelve
By the time I got downstairs, the others had already ordered food and were busy demolishing a large jug of beer and a large bowl of shell-on peanuts while they waited for their meals. Neve read me the menu - well, the stained sheet of paper tacked to the wall that said Pie Mash Veg - and went to order for us.
I took a seat next to Raelthos. Before I left my room, I’d pulled on my hoodie and added thick eyeliner from a stump of pencil I’d found in my jeans pocket. Raelthos’s critical eyes were almost burning a hole in the side of my head. I ignored him and bunched my hands in my sleeves, shivering slightly despite the warm night.
Over the other side of the pub, the door clattered open. I span round to see the back of Oriel’s head as he left the pub followed shortly after by a girl with a head of scarlet dreadlocks. It took me a moment to place where I knew her from, but then I remembered. She was the girl talking to Oriel at The Griffin. Her again. I couldn’t even be bothered to wonder who she was or how Oriel knew her. All I could think was: thirteen.
Lost in my own thoughts, it startled me when Kallista leaned over to me, a big, fake, plastic smile plastered to her face. ‘Is it true that you can’t read?’ Her voice was almost shaking with glee. She’d obviously unearthed this little nugget of information recently and had been dying to stick the knife in. ‘I mean nothing at all? I only ask because before you arrived here Oriel made out like you were a complete brain and were going to study at a university.’ She sat backwards in her chair while my fist tingled with the desire to punch her. ‘I study at the university in the Citadel and perhaps things are different in the Sanctuary, but here scholars have to be able to read.’ She made a face at me that was half you-poor-thing and half you-pathetic-thing.
I felt a brief glow at Oriel thinking I was clever, even though I wasn’t particularly. ‘I can read, just not the letters you use here. We use a different alphabet in the Sanctuary.’ Raelthos nodded in interest, but Kallista rolled her eyes as if to say she often heard this line from illiterate people.
‘No Oriel tonight?’ Raelthos looked around, deftly shelling a peanut as Neve sat down.
Kallista flicked her hair back over her shoulder. ‘Probably out whoring. Or gambling. Or both.’ The other two chorused, ‘Kallista!’ and I tried very hard not to choke as my drink came up through my nose. Raelthos threw a peanut shell at Kallista and it landed in her hair. She brushed it away irritably. ‘What? I’m just saying. He probably is.’
‘Kallista,’ Neve said softly, ‘don’t say things like that.’ She glanced over at me, so quickly you’d almost miss it.
I wanted to jump in and tell anyone who would listen that it was none of my business what Oriel did in his spare time. Instead, I stared at the menu on the wall, with its strange Cyrillic-looking runes, feeling the traitorous heat rising in my cheeks. Pie Mash Veg.
‘Things like what? The truth? He’s a professional gambler. Typical Guardian.’
‘Hardly professional,’ Raelthos countered.
Kallista arched an eyebrow. ‘Really? How else did he get that nightclub, then?’
Despite my attempt to keep a neutral expression, I was impressed. ‘Oriel owns a nightclub?’
‘He owns a quarter of a nightclub,’ Neve explained. ‘And yes, to our mother’s horror, he won it in a card game, but that doesn’t make him a professional gambler.’
‘Yes, well,’ Kallista said scornfully. ‘It’s just yet another thing that he doesn’t bother doing anything with.’
‘Just to get back to the original point,’ Raelthos chimed in, looking interested, ‘Is he really going gambling and whoring tonight? Because I was led to believe that Hawksrest was decidedly thin on the ground, entertainment-wise.’
‘No, he hasn’t,’ Neve huffed. ‘If you must know, there’s a flotsam auction this evening. Apparently, the Barrier thinned in a field just outside of town yesterday and a load of random stuff came through before any Psions could get there to seal it up. Someone said that there are some of those music record things.’
‘Records?’ I asked in disbelief.
Neve gave the same baffled look my parents often gave my manga collection. ‘He has a real thing for Sanctuary music. For some reason.’ She shook her head then looked over at me, her expression changing to sheepishness. ‘And it totally has its merits. Just...an acquired taste.’
Raelthos put down his knife and fork. ‘Does that mean he’s going to come back with armfuls of that peculiar Sanctuary clothing that does nothing for him?’ His gaze drifted down to my jeans and Converse and he made a guilty face. ‘No offence, Cupcake.’
I gave him as sarcastic a thumbs-up as I could manage. ‘No, that’s fine. It sounded like a compliment.’
‘What I don’t understand,’ Raelthos went on genially, ‘is why Oriel would trek all the way out to a flotsam auction, when we have our very own, very comely, piece of Sanctuary flotsam right here.’ He gave my chin an affectionate wiggling squeeze before going back to his dinner.
‘Illiterate Sanctuary flotsam,’ Kallista said quietly.
‘Fine,’ I said, putting my knife and fork down loudly. ‘I will prove to you that I’m not illiterate.’ Kallista looked at me disbelievingly as I started rummaging through my jeans pockets. I still had all the crap in it that I’d brought with me. My sonic grenade, my debit card and bus pass wouldn’t get me very far here, but if memory served there was something else I could use to prove a point.
After some digging, I struck gold and pulled out a purple Sharpie and an old till receipt. Scrawling the word ‘Bee-yatch’ on the long piece of paper, I slid it across the table for the others to see. ‘There you go - proof that I can read and write. That’s how we spell your name in the Sanctuary.’
Kallista sat back, arms folded, as if to say this proved nothing, but a minute later I saw her slip the piece of paper into her pocket.
Once everyone had finished eating, Raelthos lit up another of his cigarettes, clicking his silver case closed and sliding it into his jacket pocket. Neve started flapping her hands, almost knocking over her glass. ‘Gods, Raelthos, do you have to smoke that crap in here? It stinks.’
She had a point. The smoke was thick and pungent. I looked at him curiously. ‘Not to sound too po-faced, but don’t you worry about lung disease?’
He picked a bit of stray tobacco from between his teeth and laid it carefully on the side of his plate. ‘No.’
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. ‘What, you just…don’t worry about getting life-threatening illnesses? Wow. Optimistic much?’
‘No,’ he said patiently. ‘I don’t have to worry about it.’
‘Raelthos…’ Neve’s voice held a warning, but I couldn’t see why.
He turned his whole body towards her. ‘Yes?’ Neve shook her head infinitesimally, but didn’t say anything. Raelthos turned back to me. ‘It’s one of the many perks of being Blessed. Along with our individual abilities, we have certain other benefits. Immunity to illness is one. The gods like us in rude good health while we’re putting our lives on the line to protect others. Our injuries heal at an accelerated rate, too.’
He gave me a catlike smile, something in his eyes daring me to ask more.
I rubbed my clammy hands against my jeans. A voice was telling me not to pull at this thread, but I didn’t seem to be able to stop. ‘One of many perks?’
Neve slapped her hand loudly on the table. ‘Who’d like dessert?’
Neither Raelthos nor I looked at her. ‘We have excellent eyesight,’ he said. ‘Strong night vision. Perfect hearing. Our organs are designed for maximum efficiency.’ He chuckled, sounding like someone from an old Carry On film. ‘All our organs.’ Of course. Because this was Raelthos.
‘Raelthos, let’s talk about something else. You’re boring Roanne…’
‘There are downsides, too, of course,’ he went on. ‘Every cloud and all that. We have to consume roughly twice the amount of food that normal humans do in order to survive. We meta
bolise protein at a ferocious rate.’ He rested his smoking elbow on the table and looked pointedly down at my empty plate. Minutes before it had held a dinner big enough to have defeated most grown men.
I nodded slowly, like this was just any ordinary conversation, while inside I was screaming. I crossed my hands over my stomach and looked down to avoid Raelthos’s gaze. Then I realised I was being weird and looked back up again.
Neve didn’t seem able to meet my eye and I wished with all my heart that Oriel were here. He’d be able to make sense of this nonsense. And then I remembered the conversation we’d had in my room.
‘I’m going up to bed.’ I stood up fast, sending my chair clattering to the floor. Neve looked up, guilt and worry written all over her face, but she didn’t offer to come with me. I weaved my way through the bar, blood pounding in my ears, desperate to reach the safety of my room.
‘Cupcake.’ Raelthos’s voice cut through the dark stairwell. I turned reluctantly. He stood on the bottom step, lolling against the balustrade, like he was posing for a photograph. For a few seconds he just stood with that same look, daring me. ‘You know, if you ask me, I’ll tell you.’
‘Tell me what?’ My voice was a whisper.
‘You know what.’
I stared at him, my stomach roiling and threatening to spill its contents. His face had lost its customary cynicism. He looked serious. Even sympathetic. I shook my head, edging backwards up the stairs clutching an oil lamp, unwilling and unable to hear what I knew he was going to say. Because if he said it, it would be real.
He gave a small, elegant shrug and turned to walk back into the bar. His voice drifted back over his shoulder as he went. ‘It may be dark, Cupcake, but you know you don’t need that lamp to find your way.’