A Little Day Drinking

[Nesrin Aziz]

As they settled into the silliness the mood finally lightened as intended. Nesrin rolled the cool side of the glass along her lip as she listened, all smiles and easy laughter at the banter. It was less about sussing the lie and more about gathering useful information and loosening guards – a shortcut to friendship. Even the things people chose to lie about said something about them. Though technically Nesrin herself had cheated; the only lie she’d told was that she’d told one. Not that she was going to admit it.

"Je ne pense pas que tu parles français,” she said to Anna with a wink. The soft glow which had enveloped the other woman before she spoke had made it a 50/50, and most people wouldn’t have known what ghawazi was. Not the sort of thing they taught about in elite dance schools, she’d warrant, but also not the kind of thing an uneducated dancer in a strip club would have known. It didn’t entirely surprise Nesrin to discover her to be a channeler; she’d heard the rumours about Kallisti and the people who called it home. But she was surprised Anna was so free with the revelation. It wasn’t one Nesrin shared about herself in kind.

“But you’re right about mine, Anna. My father was absent or drunk when I was a kid, so those women were the closest thing I had to family. And Arabic is my mother tongue. We don’t all speak English outside of the Custody. ” The latter was said to Cade in amusement, though not unkindly. There was little trace of it in her accent unless she chose to let it colour her words; a legacy of the Asquith’s education and her own efforts to blend in. Afterwards she glanced between him and Elyse, laughing. “You two really thought I’d met the Ascendancy??”

As she turned to her own guesses, Cade received a mischievous look. “You’ve definitely been arrested,” she said slyly. A white knight scenario of some kind she could well imagine. Something principled rather than something fun. “But did you really see that monster?”

Elyse’s was harder to guess; she was the most reserved of the three. But it was the mention of being a hacker that gave Nesrin pause. She chewed her lip thoughtfully, like she was thinking, but inside she was uneasy. For a moment she felt it like ice in her gut; that little prickly feeling which just said time to run. Elyse could have been at that party, hidden behind a mask. The Emissary himself had been strange, and the stories about him always said he wore the mask – it was exactly why she’d tried to coax it from his face. But she’d never met Zigzag in the flesh, and had no idea if the m’Antinomian’s devotees would just be ordinary people.

“You’re not a hacker,” she said eventually. “A hunter maybe.” Being a good shot and making a deerskin coat might be the hallmarks of a hunter. It was the logical conclusion. But as her pulse calmed she realised it’d be stupid for anyone who meant her harm to reveal themselves like that, and Wicked surely would have said something, even if only as easy proof of his trustworthiness.