Silas's chalk mark sat on the third stair when Alistair came back to the inn, the white of it still damp along the bottom edge.
Alistair pressed his thumbnail into the corner of the second-floor banister, a scratch no longer than an eyelash. It was the answer they had agreed on months ago.
So that night, for the first time in eight weeks, he went to meet Silas in the flesh instead of leaving words on a windowsill.
The place was a courtyard behind a dead tavern in the lower district. It was walled on three sides, one narrow way in, and the same narrow way back out.
Silas was already there when Alistair arrived, sitting on an overturned crate with his back to the good wall.
He looked tired, though not the kind of tired that sleep fixed. It was the kind a man got from being seen by too many eyes for too many days without once reaching for Absence to slip out from under them.
"You look like a scholar," Silas said.
