Chapter 194: It says…

Leon listened to all of it with great interest. He had never been so close to so many people who were talking about him, and none of them had the faintest idea.

A heavy man in a butcher’s apron turned toward the screen and spat on the stones.

"I do not care what it says," he growled. "A man who kills his own father should hang. I do not care what rank he is."

"Quiet, Harl," his wife said.

"I will not be quiet. There are still people in this city who have a conscience."

"Harl. He might be listening."

"Let him listen!"

Leon nodded to himself. He thought that Harl had a point, in a way. If the story had been true, then Harl would have been entirely correct, and Leon would have agreed with every word.

A pair of young girls had pushed to the front of the crowd. They were not older than fifteen, and they were holding on to each other’s sleeves. One of them was whispering with a kind of terrified delight.

" why did they take down the board?"

The first girl did not have an answer. The two of them stared at the screen for a long moment, their faces bright and fearful, and Leon felt a small, unexpected warmth in his chest.

It was not pride. It was something gentler, like hearing a story about yourself told by strangers who had gotten it almost right.

Beside them, an old man in a gray coat shook his head slowly.

"It is the end of the world," he said, to nobody. "When players like him roam free, it is the end of the world."

"Don’t say that, Grandfather."

"I am only saying what I see."

Leon turned away. He did not need to hear more. The square was a patchwork of fear, awe and hatred, and none of it was wrong.

They had all been given a story to believe, and now the story had changed under their feet, and they were holding on to whatever scraps of it they could.

He did not hold it against them.

’You are smiling,’ Medusa observed.

’It is a good night.’

’It is a very strange night. You found out that you can no longer be killed in the street for a million gold, and you also found out that the girl you like can erase you from existence. And you are smiling.’

’First... I... don’t like Iris, and only one of those is bad news.’

’Both are bad news. One of them is simply louder.’

He did not answer. He was thinking of the arrow again.

It had been such a small thing. He kept turning it over in his mind and finding that it would not sit still.

A plain white shaft, a plain white point, a string like a hair of silver. It had not blazed, and it had not roared.

And yet the whole of him had gone cold at the sight of it, as though he were a child who had heard a door open in the dark.

He had never been afraid of a weapon before. He had been afraid of men, and of what they might do, and once, at the Roaring Lions, of a voice that had torn open the sky.

But never of a thing. A thing was only a tool, and a tool was only as dangerous as the hand that held it.

Iris had the hand. That was what worried him.

"Iris did not use it," he said under his breath.

’No.’

’She could have.’

’Yes.’

’And she said she would not do it to a person.’

’She said she had never done it to a person,’ Medusa corrected. ’That is not the same sentence.’

He frowned. It was not. He had heard her say it, and had taken it as comfort, and had not noticed until now the shape of the words.

’You think she has lied to me.’

’I think she told you the truth, and that you only heard the half you liked. That is what people do.’

’That is a very annoying thing to say.’

’I have a great deal of time to think.’

Leon walked on. He left the square by the side of the old hall, where the lamps were few and the buildings leaned close together.

He had meant to walk back toward the canal. Instead he found himself turning the other way, toward the long residential street where a small house stood with a lit kitchen window.

He stopped at the next corner and looked at the dark road ahead of him.

It was foolish. She had asked him to leave her alone, and she had been very clear. She would be furious if she knew.

But he could not shake the cold at the back of his neck, or the memory of how she had said now there is one. And if the Association had called off its hunters tonight, it did not mean that every hunter in the country had heard.

A voice spoke behind him.

"Hey. You."

Leon stopped.

There were three of them. They had come out of a narrow alley between a laundry and a shuttered tavern, and they were spread across the lane in a loose arc.

All three wore the gray vests of an independent hunting team, and the smallest of them was holding a tablet that glowed in the dark.

Their leader was a broad man with a shaved head and a sword on his hip. He was staring at Leon’s face, and then at the tablet, and then at Leon’s face again.

"It’s him," said the man with the tablet.

"Are you sure?"

"It’s the face. Look. Exact same face."

"Hm." The leader stepped forward. "You. Take your hood off."

"It is already off," said Leon.

"So it is." The big man’s mouth stretched into a delighted grin. "Boys. I think we are going to be rich."

"Wait," said the man with the tablet. "Corin, the board changed. I just got a notice. It says..."