He holds out a gloved hand for his potion and I drop it into the palm, watching his fingers curl over it, making it disappear. Then it vanishes into the folds of his cloak, to be replaced with gold coins. I open my hand as he does, so he can drop them in; we don’t touch, Silas and I, not even like this, not even during the simple taking of a coin or a vial.
“Thanks.” He nods, peering around.
When he pulls his hood down further, preparing to leave, I blurt, “Do you need anything else?”
He shakes his head, his lips pursed. “No, thanks. With the border closing I expect the situation will change.”
Silas has placed a fair few orders with me over the last few moons, wildly varying his requests from the most innocent remedies to the deadliest poisons. I’ve recorded each and every order in my apothecary log: what it was, how much of it, and the cost. He pays three gold florins for the illegal ones, and four silver centas for anything else. I have no idea what he does with them; he won’t tell me, nor will he tell me how he gets the coin to pay for them. If I’m honest, he never tells me anything. I’ve tried asking outright, and I’ve tried tricking him into it. He always shakes his head ruefully, giving me a close-lipped, inscrutable smile, and tells me if I ask no questions, I’ll be told no lies.
I shrug, as though I don’t care either way. “You should probably get going,” I remind him. “The meeting was practically over when I left. It was risky to come here.”
“I didn’t have a choice, Errin. I told you, I had to move; you wouldn’t have known where I was if I hadn’t come to you.” He smiles. “I was careful, don’t worry, I always am. Besides, I needed to know what the meeting was about.”
“And if I hadn’t left it early?”
A slight twitch in his jaw as his smile falls away. “I suppose I’d have some explaining to do.”
His tone strives for nonchalance, but his body gives him away. He’s tightly held, coiled like a snake, ready to flee, or strike if he has to. He’s nervous about being here, being exposed, despite his words, and I feel a perverse thrill in my stomach that I can read him like this. For three moons I’ve been feeding him parts of my life: about my father dying; about Lief’s determination to support us and then his disappearance; about my apothecary work; in fact everything except for my mother’s condition, in the hope it would prompt him to reply in kind. That’s how it’s supposed to work, a secret for a secret, and a story for a story. Instead he takes my tales with a nod, as though we’re at some kind of confessional, the corners of his mouth turned up or down depending on what the story is about. He never comments or judges, instead listening and absorbing and never telling me anything personal in return.
But I’ve discovered that you can learn a lot without words. And what I’ve learned is hard won, because – though he’s the closest thing I have to a friend here, and as far as I know, I’m his – I have no idea what he looks like beneath his hood. It sounds impossible. It ought to be; how can you call someone a friend, know them for so long and not know what they look like? Yet I don’t. I don’t know what colour his eyes are, or his hair. I know his mouth, and the point of his chin, and his neat teeth. Once I even saw the end of his nose when he tipped his head back to laugh. But that’s all. From our first meeting, to today, he has always, always been hooded, gloved and cloaked, and he’s never removed them, never even pushed them aside, whether we’re indoors or out. When I asked him why, he told me it was safer like that. For us both. And to not ask again.
Mysterious boys are not as enjoyable in reality as they are in stories.
The obvious reason would be that he’s hideously disfigured in some way, but something about the way he carries himself makes me think that can’t be it. In my mind’s eye he’s dark haired and dark eyed, his hair brushing his shoulders, but in truth I don’t have a clue. The