Bloomreach at night was pleasant. The air was warmer than I was used to, and I was glad I had left my cloak behind.
He was in a dark linen shirt, slightly unlaced at the collar, in a way that wouldn't have been possible three weeks ago, when the cold demanded every fastening done. His sleeves were pushed back, showing the golden tan of skin used to warmer climates.
Without the bulk of his travel cloak, he looked different. His shape was more visible, broader through the shoulders than the layers had suggested. His pants were still the thick, dark cloth, but in the paler light of the evening, I could see they were of good quality. His boots were scuffed and worn, but the leather was supple, and again, the better quality of the leather was more obvious now that I had time to study him properly. He’d trimmed his beard into something more manageable, and it looked good. His rich brown hair was longer too, pushed back off his face, more from habit than intention.
“You’re staring.”
“I haven’t seen you out of a cloak before,” I blurted.
He made a short sound that could have been a grunt or a laugh.
Nicco glanced at me, his eyes running over my form from head to toe, once, not in any other way than a man cataloging someone’s appearance. “Same,” he confirmed.
I couldn’t help but look down at myself, self-consciously aware that my clothes were not of the same quality as Nicco’s.
I was in my wool tunic and pants, a simple leather belt around my waist for my dagger, and my hair was loose for the first time since the baths. Without the cloak and layers, I felt lighter than I had in months. Lighter and slightly exposed. It was as if I’d been wearing my own form of armor for so long, I didn’t know how to be comfortable without it.
The air on my arms was cool but not biting, which was a revelation in itself.
The streets were quieter than Glassfyr but livelier than any Crystallese town I'd known after dark. Lantern light spilled warm and yellow from the inn windows and caught the cobblestones in pools.
I walked beside Nicco and looked at everything.
Not the stunned look I had when I looked at Glassfyr. I was past that, thank the gods. This was the trailfinder's look, the cataloging of a place, its exits and rhythms, and the way it held itself at night. A reflexive habit, and always useful.
"You're doing it," he said.
"Doing what?"
"Reading the town." He looked sideways at me. "I can see it. The way your eyes move."
"Trailfinder," I said. "It's what I do."
"Even in towns you’ve never been in?"
"Especiallyin towns I’ve never been in." I looked at the street ahead. "Towns like this I can read. Glassfyr was… harder."
He made a sound that might have been an expression of sympathy. We walked in silence for a moment. It was a different silence from the one on the trail. Or maybe I was just more aware of it.
I was aware of him beside me.
That wasn't new. I'd been aware of him since the first morning in Eirhollow, when he'd walked into the inn and looked at me like I was something worth knowing about. But the quality of that awareness had shifted. Since the column. Since Glassfyr. Since the Verei Kahn near-miss, and all the small, accumulating things that had changed the shape of our silence without either of us naming it.
I still didn’t name it.
How would I even know how to?
Without his cloak, his hood, and the wrappings that had covered the lower half of his face for months of travel, there was more of him to see than I was used to. The beard, hiding the line of his jaw, the notable way he moved through a room or a street, present without announcing himself, aware without appearing to be.
It was easier to watch him without the layers between us.
"How long do we stay here?" I asked, aware I’d been staring at him again.
"A day or two." He looked at a side street as we passed, in a quick assessment. "Then farther south."
"Is there work farther south?"
"There's always work."
