From the Storm

The door opens, and suddenly, it feels like the whole room changes temperature. Six of them come in out of the rain, the tinker stops mid sentence, and old Perrin, who I’ve never once seen stop talking in my three years, stops talking. Masks. Hanging off belts, off hips, one slung on a shoulder strap like a waterskin.

Royal Mage Guard. I keep my eyes down and stare at my stew.

Magic works in circles. One is standard, what nearly everyone gets, enough to light a lamp, warm a room, or take the rot out of a wound if you’re patient about it. Of course, you still need to be trained and have the knowledge and ability to do these things. Two is uncommon. Three gets you hired. Ten is the most anyone has ever had, and that was a long time ago, and they are still writing stories about her. The Guard doesn’t take anyone under five. The masks are worse, each one if made for the mage it belongs to, and nobody outside the squad knows what any given mask does. You don’t wear one unless you mean to use it, and using it generally means something is about to be over. So they hang them off their bodies, a visual sign of their power.

None of the masks are on. Good.

What are they even doing out here? There’s nothing in Bellhollow. There is famously nothing in this tiny, coastal town, that’s the whole reason I chose to live here. I check my own work instead. Two circles, slowly pumping mana throughout my body. Not one, because one gets you asked to do favours. Not three, three gets you remembered. Two is a man who can take care of himself, and claim being untrained to avoid making an impact. The two hold firm. Of course they do, I made them myself.
I eat.
“Right, first of all, I’d like to apologise for the floor.” Their leader says it to the whole room, hands up, before anyone’s had the chance to decide how to feel about him. “We’ve walked half a bog in here. I’ll pay for the mop, and I’ll pay whoever has to use it.” His gruff voice is almost calming as he looks around. “Is that you? You look like it’s you.”
“It’s me,” One of the server girls calls from near the kitchen.
“Seems right. I’m sorry.”
Somebody laughs. Then somebody else, and then the tinker picks his sentence back up like he never dropped it in the first place, and just like that the room has its noise back.
That’s the trick. That was always the trick. You can’t stay frightened of a man who’s worried about something as simple as your floor.
He heads for the bar, and Maerwen meets him there like he’s anyone, which might be the most impressive thing I've ever seen her do. She doesn't even wipe her hands first.
“Ma’am.”
“Sir.” She sets a cloth down. “You’ll be wanting rooms I presume.”
“Six of us. One night, two if the weather keeps on like that.” A pause. “And whatever the kitchen has. They’ll complain about it and then eat all of it.”
“That’s most men.”
“That’s most men,” he agrees. “Oh, and a round for the room as well, on us. I once again apologise for the interruption and mess.”
A small cheer goes up across the room.
I don’t turn around. I don't need to turn around. Three years of sitting out on that cliff and I can tell you what the weather’s doing with my eyes shut, and this is the same thing. There’s a weight to a room with him in it, yet I’m the only one feeling it.

Don’t.

I look at the fire instead. The dog under the corner table which is asleep, legs twitching in a dream. Behind me, he’s asking Maerwen whether the roof held through winter, and if the mill is running fine still, and he’s actually listening to the answers. He always actually listens. It’s not a technique, that’s the worst part of it, he just wants to know.
I finish the stew. All of it, because she’ll check the bowl. Then I finish my drink, put the cup down, and stand up like a man with nothing behind him and a bed upstairs. Which is what I am in this town.

The room’s packed. It’s always packed, I just never look over it when it’s full like this. I take the long way along the wall where all the benches are, past the tinker, past Perrin, past a table of farmhands arguing about a fence. The other five have already claimed a table by the fire, wet coats starting to steam. We pass as he finishes talking to Maerwen.
He looks at me. I look at him.
Nothing. Not a flicker, not a word, nothing anyone in that room could swear to. Just a shoulder brushing mine in the crowded tavern, and a mask swinging at his hip, close enough for me to see the familiar small crack on its cheek.
I know that mask too well.
“Oh, sorry.” His hand comes up, steadying me in a friendly gesture, then gone in the next instant. “Pretty packed in here.”
“It’s fine,” I say.
And I keep walking, out the door and into the rain. But even then, in the drizzle, I can still feel it. A tracking rune sitting on my shoulder where his hand was.