“He’s a bit high-strung,” Boyd said, his voice pitched to needle. He shifted position on the floor, with his weight braced on the heels of his hands to keep his roughly splinted fingers from being jarred. Gregor hadn’t bothered to leash him. Where would he go? “You’d think he’d be grateful you came to get him. I’d have left him to rot, ungrateful bastard.”
He waited for a response. Gregor crouched down and grinned at him, all teeth. “Is that how a professional does it?” he asked. “You’re trying to, what, divide and conquer? Because my lot invented that.”
Boyd shifted back. The complexity of his smell had been stripped, and only the coarse notes were left to dominate. It made it difficult to track his emotions, like someone who shouted every word.
“Your lot? Who is that? You’re not military, but you know how to fight. What, some Glasgie brawler that hooked up as a merc with some PMC? Get to kill people without having to do the time? I’ve seen it before. No judgment here. But what’s the likes of you doing up here, and who’s he that he matters so much? You didn’t chase him up here into the blizzard for his sweet ass. Neither did we, I’m guessing.”
He said guess, but there was confidence in his voice.
“You’d be surprised,” Gregor said. He shifted his weight onto the balls of his feet and stood up. “About a lot of things. If you had the time. If you drink that, you’ll still die.”
Boyd held his face still, but his hand twitched toward the pocket of his jacket. He’d stolen the flask from the corpse when he tripped over it. The sleight of hand had been smooth. Gregor might have missed it entirely if Boyd had been able to resist a nip on the long walk back.
“I don’t….” He started the objection and then gave up in the face of Gregor’s disinterest. “Maybe, but at least I won’t feel it.”
It wasn’t Gregor’s business. He didn’t care how—or where or when—humans died. They did it so easily, after all, how was he meant to keep track? Yet he hesitated before he followed Nick outside.
“Die as yourself,” he said. “It might come quicker, but it’ll be cleaner.”
Boyd snorted out a harsh laugh. “I’m a soldier,” he said. “If I wanted to die clean, I would have stopped living a long time ago.”
It was as much effort as Gregor was willing to make. He left Boyd with his poison and headed out into the storm.
The loch was entirely frozen now, rippled with sharp, chipped ridges where the cold had caught the waves midlap. The haze of cold rose from the black glass surface, the bite of it sharper by the hour. Tomorrow the moon bitch would open her lazy eye to track how far things had progressed toward the end, and it felt like something had been brewed to give her a show.
Nick was perched on a rock at the edge of the water, his arms braced on the shelf of his knees. It looked a lot less elegant in the padded, stolen snow gear than it did in his trademark long coat—still birdlike in the hunch of his sharp shoulders and the tilt of his head, but more like a fluffed-out sparrow than a raven.
“What does it matter?” Gregor asked. Despite his best intentions to be kind and loving, the words turned harsh as he spat them out. “What do you care if Ewan is your grandfather? Rose is your grandmother, and you have enough sense not to care about her.”
Nick didn’t turn around. The wind stripped his voice from his lips when he said something, and Gregor had to stalk closer to make him out.
“… should have let him drink it.”
“What?
Nick impatiently rubbed his hand over his eyes with a quick, frustrated flick of his fingers and looked over his shoulder.
“You’ve more faith in that than me,” he said. “She’s my gran, and she killed me, but…. The first thing I learned in this world was that I had to love her.”
“Doesn’t mean you do,” Gregor said. “I was told to love my brother, and we can barely stand each other.”
“You saved his life,” Nick pointed out wryly. “You can’t hate him that much.”
“I hate him enough to want to kill him myself,” Gregor said bluntly. It sounded like he was trying to convince himself as much as Nick. That troubled him. Who was he, if he didn’t hate Jack? How could he justify what he did—what he might do—if thwarting his brother wasn’t an excuse in itself? But he couldn’t deny Nick’s point, so he shrugged awkwardly as he crouched down next to Nick and leaned against his leg. “Maybe one day I could tolerate the idea he’s still alive, somewhere else, but he’s notmine. You’re my family. I don’t need anyone else.”
Nick reached up and tangled his fingers in Gregor’s cold-stiff hair. His fingers were icy.
“I picked you over her,” he reminded him. “I choseyou, even if you don’t talk to me.”
“Not really had the time,” Gregor said. He paused and then pointed out, “It might not even be true. Prophets lie. Rose lies.”
“Does she?”
Gregor stiffened at the question. Had Rose gotten to Nick while he’d been lost? Had she something to offer him that was as seductive as what she’d offered Gregor?
“You know she does.”
Nick shuddered at something and then nodded with a brisk dip of his sharp chin. “Not about him, though. The Run-Away Man. I saw him, out on the moors.”
