Chapter 193: Maybe he is dead

For a moment he thought she would answer. Her lips parted, and her fingers tightened on the cup.

Then she shook her head.

"I do not know why you were afraid," she said, quietly.

"That is the truth. I have used it before, and I have seen what people do when they look at it. Most of them feel nothing."

"They see a girl with a bow and they laugh. They do not feel anything at all until it is too late." She lifted her eyes to his.

"You felt it at once. I would very much like to know why."

Leon sat very still.

He had expected a lie, or a refusal. He had not expected the truth to be that she was as puzzled as he was.

"Then we both have questions," he said.

"Yes."

"We will not answer them tonight."

"No."

"Then I should go."

"Yes," said Iris. "I think that you should."

He stood up. The tea was still in front of him, untouched, and he reached for it and drank it standing, all in one swallow, because it seemed rude to leave it.

It was too hot. It burned his tongue.

Iris watched him do it with a look that was halfway between exasperated and fond, and then she seemed to remember that she was meant to be angry, and looked away.

"You did not have to drink it like that," she said.

"It was kind of you to make it."

"It was a cup of tea."

"It was kind of you to make it."

He walked to the back door. The glass was cold under his fingers. He opened it, and the night air came in, smelling of wet grass and the sea, and he stood on the threshold with his back to her.

"I meant what I said," Leon told her. "I did not come here to put you in danger. I am not going to let anyone take you, either."

"I did not ask you to."

"I know."

"I can look after myself."

"I have seen your bow," he said dryly. "I do not doubt it."

She snorted, a short and unwilling sound. He thought that he might have been smiling when he stepped down into the yard, though he was not sure.

"Leon."

He stopped.

"I am still angry," Iris said from the doorway behind him.

"I know."

"I am going to be angry for a long time."

"I know that too."

"Good." She hesitated. "Then we understand each other."

The door closed softly.

Leon walked through the little garden and out the gate, and the street lay quiet and empty before him under the lamps.

He did not look back at the house. He knew that the kitchen light was still on, because he could feel it against the back of his head like a hand.

He walked to the corner before he stopped.

The night was warm. The wind came in from the sea. There was nothing in the street but a stray dog sniffing at a gutter, and a paper moving along the curb. Everything was ordinary, and everything was as it should have been.

But the cold had not left him.

It had not gone when the arrow dissolved, or when she lowered the bow, or when he drank her tea.

It was still sitting in the base of his skull like a splinter of ice, patient and quiet, as though something that had been asleep for a very long time had opened one eye and had not yet closed it.

Leon did not go far.

He told himself that he was only walking to clear his head.

The streets of the lower district were quiet at that hour, and the lamps along the canal made long yellow stripes on the water. He pulled his hood up out of habit, and then he stopped and pushed it back down again.

’What are you doing?’ Medusa asked.

’I am done hiding my face.’

’That is very brave of you.’

’It is not brave. Milda promised that the hunting would stop.’

’Milda is a woman who smiles while she makes her promises.’

’Then let us see whether she keeps this one,’ Leon said.

He walked out of the canal streets and into the market square, where the big screens were.

There were five of them, mounted high on the front of the old trading hall. They had shown the same thing every night for a month, and he had learned to look away from them as he passed.

The Association used them for news and weather, and for the bounty boards, which ran in a slow loop all day and all night.

He looked up now, and he waited for his own face to come around.

It did not come.

Then the board went blank for a moment, and a new line of white text rolled across the screen.

[BOUNTY NOTICE: ALLISTAR, LEON. STATUS: WITHDRAWN.] [BY ORDER OF THE COUNCIL OF THE PLAYER GUILD ASSOCIATION.] [ALL HUNTING PARTIES ARE INSTRUCTED TO STAND DOWN IMMEDIATELY.]

Leon read it twice.

Then he grinned, and the grin turned into a low and pleased laugh that surprised a passing woman so much that she dropped her basket.

"Hehe..." he said. "They actually did it."

’It has been less than three hours,’ Medusa said, sounding unwillingly impressed. ’They moved fast.’

’They are afraid.’

’Yes. That is what I said.’

He stood in the middle of the square with his hands in his pockets and watched the notice repeat. A small crowd had begun to gather around him without noticing that they were gathering.

They stared up at the screen with their mouths open, and the murmur went through them in waves.

"Did you see that?"

"It says withdrawn."

"They cannot withdraw it. He killed his own father."

"Then why would they take it down?"

"Maybe they caught him."

"If they caught him they would have said so. They would have a parade."

"Maybe he is dead."

"No, it says stand down. They do not say stand down for a dead man. They just say it is over."