CHAPTER

THIRTY-TWO

Cyril dropped the Adam Wallis persona with gratitude once the door to his boardinghouse room closed behind him, though he couldn’t shed the exhaustion so easily. Or the chill. He couldn’t remember ever being so cold, for so long. His bones felt brittle, and every muscle ached. He was starving, too; there’d been very little food or sleep over the last three days to blunt the stress and hardship.

His window looked down on a sooty, salt-crusted street, the gutter filled with butts and garbage. Beyond that the sea wall, and beyond that, fishing boats at their moorings in the oily water.

So this was the harbor Memmediv had betrayed him for. The sound of mournful bells came through the glass. Long blue evening shadows made the vista grim. Still, he supposed people had held stranger things dear.

Someone knocked on his door. “Coming,” he said, and pushed back from the sill.

Aristide stood in the doorway, posture stiff and face drawn into a frown. Cyril wondered if this was Erikh Prosser’s worry, which would fall away when he crossed the threshold, or if he was truly as nervous as he looked. In one fist, he held a greasy paper sack. Cyril smelled fry oil, pork fat, and cabbage.

“Come in,” he said, already reaching for the food.

Ari left Prosser in the corridor, yes, but the frown came along. Once he was in the room he seemed not to know what to do with himself. The windowsills weren’t deep enough to sit in, and the room had only a bed and a washstand, no chair. He hesitated in the middle of the floor, boots shifting on the bare boards. At least he looked less drawn, less bloodless. Maybe he’d already eaten. Maybe he’d just gotten drunk.

Springs squealed as Cyril sat on the edge of the bed. The open sack revealed potato dumplings, burnt at the edges and speckled with brown where they’d touched the grill. He bit into one: ground pork, cooked to gray paste with cabbage and onions. A thread of grease slid down his chin. “Your luggage came in all right?”

That settled Ari. He didn’t relax, but his weight at least stopped shifting. “Delivered from one ship to the next, as promised. It will be in the cabin when we board.”

“Only one cabin?”

He’d hit a tender spot, and saw Ari flinch. “There’s room enough for a cot, and if you’re uncomfortable with that, I’m sure we can arrange … it only seemed less suspicious to…” He trailed off, and began to shift his feet again, eyes searching for something to fix on that wasn’t Cyril.

Unfortunately for him, they strayed across the surface of the washstand mirror, where Cyril snared his gaze and held it. “I don’t remember that you were ever this stuck for a line, before.”