For once Acton made no effort to be seen. He could be surprisingly discreet, when he wanted, though never so well as Raum. He would never be invisible, but he could be less, and that is what he was now: no swagger, no flash of teeth or wild laughter. Just a man who walked thoughtfully alone, a man enjoying the night.
And he was enjoying it. Not only because he would always love the markets, would never grow tired of them, but because he was doing Crow work.
It had been some time since he’d had a mark he’d watched so carefully as this one. Raum’s mention of him had been offhand, but Acton thought the Ghost was letting himself be distracted by fatherhood. He’d seen the stranger wander the streets, watched him vanish and return again days or weeks later.
He had no idea where it was he went, but there was only one place Acton expected revenge from. He had never been one to see assassins in each shadow, but Davke or not, Seraphina had not seemed the sort to let an insult slide.
How boring it would be, if he were wrong.
There were a dozen times tonight he might have intercepted the black but each time he waited. Part of it was the game: would the stranger catch him first? Did he know he was being watched? But there was something else; Acton could see that the stallion was genuinely enjoying himself, his pleasure careful but clear. The markets were splendid; why not let him enjoy them a little longer?
Eventually his impatience caught up with him.
They had wound through many of the stalls by now, past dancers and fire-drinkers and those infernal balladeers. The night was a synesthesia of senses: music and laughter and the leap and snap of flames, scents sweet and bitter and endlessly beguiling, a thousand colors and patterns and textures of fabric, of food, of citizens. Never did Acton let the black slip out of his sight, until finally he settled beside the taller stallion as he stood at a stall of delicate chains and hammered cuffs and smooth round earrings, gold as rich as the night, silver as cold as the stranger’s eyes.
At first Acton kept his own amber-eyed gaze on the wares, but he made sure he bumped a shoulder into one of the blacks’ folded wings.
“Those extras help you move any faster, or are they just for looks?” His voice was low and even, but his eyes, when they lifted to the stranger’s, were fire-bright and far too keen.
@Caine
whatever you feed me I'll feed you right back
