Chapter 9 #4
Emery watches this. He watches the way Avery's jaw tightens at the lack of acknowledgment, the brief flash of something wounded in his dark eyes before he smothers it.
The reaction is there and gone in the space of a heartbeat, so quick and so practiced that Emery suspects he is one of very few people who would catch it.
He catches it because he has spent years wearing the same expression, the one that says I am not bothered by this and means the opposite, and he knows exactly what it looks like on someone else's face because he has perfected it on his own.
Avery brushes it off as quick as he can, straightens, and turns to Emery.
The shift is immediate. The tension in his shoulders softens and his face opens into something warmer, more genuine, though the warmth has the brightness of overcompensating for the interaction he has just had and hoping no one noticed.
"Emery," he says. "I volunteered to bring Bastian's report to Hask. Wanted to see this place for myself."
Emery studies him. He is aware of Hask in his peripheral vision, still not looking at Avery, and the deliberateness of it is loud enough to fill the room.
"You've never been?" Emery asks, keeping his tone light.
"Never had the occasion." Avery glances around the room with undisguised curiosity, taking in the lanterns and the draped ceiling and the dancers still moving through the last of the evening's clientele.
His expression is not judgmental. It carries the careful interest of understanding exactly what this place is and having enough history of his own to withhold commentary.
"I could give you the grand tour," Emery offers, because he has found in Avery a strange and unexpected comfort, the comfort of being seen by someone who has crawled through the same mud and come out the other side still capable of kindness.
"He should head back." Hask's voice cuts across the table without warning, flat and unhurried and landing with the weight of a statement that is not open to discussion.
He has still not looked up from the envelope he has also still not opened, which is a choice Emery files away for later consideration.
"If he sticks around much longer, he's likely going to end up on the menu. "
Avery's cheeks turn pink. The color rises from his jaw to his cheekbones in a way that he cannot possibly hide, and Emery watches him bite down on whatever response his tongue is building and hold it there with disciplined restraint, having decided, probably a long time ago, that certain battles are not worth starting when you cannot be sure of winning them.
His dark eyes cut to Hask, sharp and bright with something between anger and embarrassment, but he swallows it.
He holds his tongue and does not say whatever it is he is thinking, and the effort of the not-saying is visible in the way his hands tighten at his sides.
"Thanks for the offer," Avery says to Emery, and his voice is steady even if his color is not. "Stay safe."
He turns on his heel and walks out of the Hollow with his back straight and his hands at his sides and every line of his body communicating a composure that Emery does not believe for a second.
The curtain falls closed behind him.
Emery raises an eyebrow at Hask. "What is your problem with him?"
Hask finally looks at him. His pale eyes are unreadable above the mask, though there is a tension around their edges that was not there a moment ago, a stiffness, the kind that comes from holding something carefully in place and being annoyed that he has been asked to explain why he is holding it.
"Don't you have work to do?" Hask asks. "Or are you planning to spend your whole night in the corner with me?"
Emery holds his gaze for a beat longer than is comfortable, because he is an assassin and he knows the value of pressure, and because he wants Hask to know that the deflection has been noted and catalogued and will not be forgotten.
Then he lets it go. He picks up the empty glass, sets it back in front of Hask with a deliberate click, and pushes back from the table.
"What a shame," he says, "to be devoid of your charming company."
He rolls his eyes and gets back to work.
The last hour of the evening passes in the blur of routine that Emery knows well enough to sleepwalk through, and nearly does.
A few remaining patrons, a few remaining touches he does not want, a few remaining smiles that do not reach his eyes.
He thinks about Bastian's hands, which are warm and deliberate and never once take more than Emery offers.
He thinks about how strange it is to miss someone's touch while being touched by other people, to ache for warmth while strangers press their heat against him.
He does not think about the ache too long because there is no productive end to that line of reasoning, and Emery has never been someone who indulges in thoughts that do not serve a function.
On his way to the bath, he passes Hask's table.
The envelope is open, the contents read and folded neatly beside the empty glass.
Hask is sitting exactly where Emery left him, arms crossed, eyes on the front curtain, watching the entrance with the focus of waiting for someone who is not going to walk back through it.
He is not waiting for Sander's men. Emery knows this with the quiet certainty of years spent reading people and recognizing, in the set of Hask's shoulders and the direction of his gaze, the posture of having told someone to leave and regretting that he opened his mouth at all.