Thunderhead (Arc of a Scythe #2)(14)

He considered running, but Rowan was never one to run from a confrontation. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a knife—he always had a weapon with him, even when he wasn’t wearing his black robe, because he never knew when he’d have to defend himself against agents of the scythedom. Cautiously, he went inside.

His intruder was not hiding. Instead he sat in plain sight at the kitchen table, eating a sandwich.

“Hey, Rowan,” said Tyger Salazar. “Hope you don’t mind, but I got hungry while I was waiting for you.”

Rowan closed the door and put his blade away before Tyger could see it.

“What the hell are you doing here, Tyger? How did you even find me?”

“Hey, give me some credit—I’m not entirely stupid. Don’t forget I was the one who knew the guy who gave you your fake ID. I just had to ask the Thunderhead where I could find Ronald Daniels. Of course, there were tons of Ronald Danielses out there, so it took a while to find the right one.”

In the days before Rowan’s apprenticeship, Tyger Salazar had been his best friend—but such designations meant little after one has spent a year learning how to kill. Rowan imagined it must be what mortal-age soldiers felt when they returned from war. Old friendships seemed trapped behind a clouded curtain of experiences that old friends didn’t share. The only thing he and Tyger had in common was a history that was getting more and more distant. Now Tyger was a professional partier. Rowan couldn’t imagine a profession that he could relate to less.

“I just wish you would have given me a heads-up that you were coming,” Rowan said. “Were you followed?” Which he realized ranked pretty high on the list of stupid questions. Not even Tyger would have been clueless enough to come up to Rowan’s apartment if he knew he was being followed.

“Calm down,” Tyger said. “Nobody knows I’m here. Why do you always think the world is out to get you? I mean, why would the scythedom be after you just because you flunked out of your apprenticeship?”

Rowan didn’t answer him. Instead, he went over to the closet door, which was slightly ajar, and closed it, hoping that Tyger hadn’t looked inside to see the black robe of Scythe Lucifer. Not that he would understand what he was seeing. The general public didn’t know about Scythe Lucifer. The scythedom was very good at keeping his actions out of the news. The less Tyger knew, the better. So Rowan invoked the age-old ender of all such conversations.

“If you’re really my friend, you won’t ask questions.”

“Yeah, yeah. Big mystery man.” He held up the remaining bit of his sandwich. “Well, at least you still eat human food.”

“What do you want, Tyger? Why are you here?”

“Is that any way to talk to a friend? I come all this way—at least you could ask me how I’ve been.”

“So how’ve you been?”

“Pretty good, actually. I just got a new job in a different region—so I came here to say goodbye.”

“You mean some sort of permanent party job?”

“Not sure—but it pays much better than the party agency I was working for. And I finally get to see the world a little bit. The job’s in Texas!”

“Texas?” Rowan got a little worried. “Tyger, they do things . . . differently there. Everybody says, ‘Don’t mess with Texas’; why do you want to mess with it?”

“So it’s a Charter Region. Big deal. Just because Charter Regions are unpredictable doesn’t mean they’re bad. You know me; my middle name is ‘unpredictable.’?”

Rowan had to stifle a laugh. Tyger was one of the most predictable people he knew. ?The way he became a splatting junkie, the way he ran off to be a professional partier. Tyger might have thought of himself as a free spirit, but he wasn’t at all. He just defined the dimensions of his own cage.

“Well, just be careful,” Rowan said, knowing that Tyger wouldn’t be, but also knowing that he’d land on his feet, whatever he did. Was I ever as carefree as Tyger? Rowan wondered. No, he wasn’t—but he did envy that about Tyger. Maybe that’s why they were friends.

The moment became a little awkward—but there was more to it than that. Tyger stood, but didn’t make any move to leave. There was something else he had to say.

“I have some news,” he said. “It’s actually the real reason why I’m here.”

“What kind of news?”

Still Tyger hesitated. Rowan braced, knowing it was going to be bad.

“I’m sorry to tell you this, Rowan . . . but your dad was gleaned.”

Rowan felt the Earth shift slightly beneath him. Gravity seemed to pull him in an unexpected direction. It wasn’t enough to make him lose his balance, but it left him queasy.

“Rowan, did you hear what I said?”

“I heard you,” Rowan said softly. So many thoughts and feelings shot through him, short-circuiting one another until he didn’t know what to think or feel. He never expected to see either of his parents again, but to know that he couldn’t see his father—to know that he was gone forever—not just deadish, but dead. . . . He had seen many people gleaned. He had ended thirteen people himself, but never had Rowan lost someone so close to him.

“I . . . I can’t come to the funeral,” Rowan realized. “The scythedom will have agents there looking for me.”