Byrd cocked his head ever so slightly. He slipped his right hand behind his back slowly enough that the movement would be clearly seen. When he withdrew it, a wide blade protruded like a squat spade from across the knuckles of his fist.
Leesil relaxed all tension in his body.
Most people tensed when threatened, but tight muscle didn't react quickly enough in the final moment. Leesil had spent his entire youth altering his instincts, shaping them. He lazily shifted one forearm beneath the table, tilting it between his thighs, until a stiletto hilt slid into his hand.
Byrd stepped to the table, remaining noticeably out of arm's reach. He pressed the blade's tip slowly into the table's surface. When he released his grip, it remained poised there, tilted toward him as he pulled out a chair and sat down across from Leesil.
"So what's your gripe, lad?" he asked like a concerned father giving all his attention to an angry son.
Still relaxed, Leesil glanced at the blade.
Wide and long as a hand's palm, it resembled a skinner's blade for working hide. No guard, with a short "hilt" ending in a crossbar, it was gripped in one's fist to cut, stab, or gouge a target. The naive would see its open display like raising empty hands or releasing one's weapon in good faith.
Leesil knew better what it meant. Byrd was an infighter.
Not like Leesil, with thin stilettos used for surprise or lethal subtlety or the weaponless ways taught by his mother. Byrd would come straight in with speed, weight, and muscle for a close encounter. He wouldn't care what it cost him so long as he finished his opponent first. Brutal efficiency in place of cunning precision.
Whatever Byrd chose to do, it would be backed by determination few possessed and most wouldn't care to face. He did not attack; instead, he sighed.
"I didn't know you were coming," he said, "and these drawings have nothing to do with you. None of this has to do with you, lad."
"Back in Bela, I met one of these elves," Leesil said. "His name was Sgaile, and he hinted that my mother was alive, imprisoned by her people. Did your friends tell you-"
"Nein'a alive?" Byrd asked quickly, and his surprise appeared genuine. "You heard this from one of them?"
"Not exactly." Leesil wondered if this might work in his favor, if Byrd began questioning his associates, but it seemed just one more risk of betrayal. "There was enough implication in Sgaile's words, and, if true, I needed to know if Gavril survived as well. So I came here. Did you know she might still be alive?"
Byrd shook his head as he growled back. "I didn't know! If I had, I would've-"
'Perhaps you were preoccupied," Leesil countered with a quick glance at the drawings, hoping to keep Byrd off balance. "With too many missing pieces."
Byrd's voice took on an open, hard edge. "Did you even look at the state of these lands-of the people-on the way here?"
"Yes."
"Would you help them, if you could?"
"That's a pointless question."
"Would you?"
Leesil suddenly felt like a fool. A second-rate one, at that, as pieces of Byrd's scheme started to become clear.
Whoever was getting the details for Byrd's drawings did so piece by erratic piece. As if there was no telling when, how, or where the next scrap might be acquired. Byrd's informant wasn't a regular or confidant of Darmouth's close company, but someone who gained rare and limited access within the keep. Such an undependable source meant all other avenues were closed to Byrd, or Darmouth had grown so paranoid that no one close to him could be enticed. It also meant the informant was someone desperate, perhaps fanatical, who had succumbed to the delusion of revolution-Byrd's delusion.
Leesil knew of such. He had betrayed many in his youth. And though it was mostly guesswork, there was the other hint they'd already discussed-the anmaglahk.
"How much longer will it be," Leesil asked, "before you're ready to kill Darmouth?"
Not that he cared, since it would be no help to him. Every question Byrd ignored strengthened this new realization as well as Leesil's first suspicion. Byrd might play any side to get what he wanted, even the son of an old friend.
"I know nothing more of your parents," Byrd said flatly, as if Leesil had never asked about Darmouth. "Nothing more than what I've told you."
"Do you think removing Darmouth will change anything?" Leesil continued, offering his father's old friend one more chance to talk. "How many officers and so-called nobles wait eagerly to take his place? It's how Darmouth's own grandfather came to power."
Byrd continued in his own conversation, still ignoring Leesil's questions. "But don't stop looking for your parents on my say-so. I've not much but guesses and scant facts concerning Nein'a and Gavril, but perhaps those drawings might give you some leads."
He stood up.
Leesil sat upright, feet flat on the floor, and spun the stiletto in his palm. He lifted the blade until the point was just below the table's edge.
One slap of his free hand would flatten and pin Byrd's blade to the table as the man reached for it. And that movement would provide a clear opening to pierce Byrd below the jaw… slide the stiletto tip up along the spine into the base of the skull.
Byrd turned away, lifted his cloak carefully from the bar, and trudged toward the stairs.
"I'm going to bed. You should do the same. I'll let you know if I need the drawings, but best you don't leave them lying about."
Leesil stared after the man he'd been waiting to kill. The little he'd uncovered hadn't settled his suspicions, and still he'd hesitated when the moment came.
Perhaps he should take Magiere, Wynn, and Chap and head straight into the mountains to find a way to the elves' homeland. But what if Sgaile had lied? He'd be leading his companions into an unknown territory, where humans would be unwelcome, and all for no reason. What if his father was alive, somehow, locked away beneath the keep?
Byrd disappeared at the top of the stairs.
The moment had passed, and Leesil looked down at the squat blade in the tabletop and the unfinished drawings of Darmouth's keep. Indecision began to build to despair as the front door's latch creaked once again.
Leesil reversed the stiletto, grasping the blade as he swung his hand wide, ready to throw. The door opened, and the common room's low light spilled outward to reveal a pale face in the dark.
"Put that away," Magiere said.
She stepped in, closing the door. Her black hair hung loose across the shoulders of her hauberk, which was buckled down and fitted for combat. Her falchion was unsheathed in her grip.
Leesil felt an unexplained chill at the sight of her. "What were you doing out there?"
"I don't trust that man," she said. Her irises turned dark at the sight of the blade stuck in the tabletop. "What happened here that I didn't see?"
"You were listening?" Leesil replied. "I told you to stay away. I'll handle Byrd my-"
"Your judgment has been…" Magiere snapped, but never finished. "I told you, you're not leaving my side. And don't fight me about it again."
Leesil looked away. Magiere tried to play bodyguard, yet couldn't see that she was the one who needed protecting. She didn't understand this world. Leesil's hand shook as he slid the stiletto back into its sheath.
"Go to bed," he told her, trying to sound calm. When she was about to argue, he added, "I'll be along once I've gathered the drawings and put out the lanterns."
Her gaze shifted sharply to the wrist where he'd just sheathed his blade. She sheathed her own sword and headed up the stairs.
Leesil sat back, and his hands trembled.
Magiere had been outside the whole time.
He'd come here prepared to kill an old acquaintance. That was just the way of things, and there was nothing to feel about it. When it happened… if it had happened… at any sound of struggle, Magiere would've rushed in to protect him.