Day Boy by Trent Jamieson Read Free Book Online Page A

that gaze, and
I’m used to it.
    ‘We are here, we are the room and the walls, we are the table and the chairs, and
the air that billows lungs. We are the Court of the Night: called to session by one
of our brothers.’
    They pull chairs from the table and sit, and we stand behind them: perfectly still
for a heartbeat or two.
    ‘Dain,’ Egan says. ‘You have the floor.’
    Dain stands silent, eyes cast out to the other four.
    ‘My boy was visited with violence, by a Hunter,’ Dain says. ‘You all know this. He
was taken out of town, taken to a boat hidden up-river, to be smuggled west. Well,
he would have been if I hadn’t got there first. I have few memories of such a threat,
and they were long ago, at that. Before any of these boys, before the lot that preceded
them. Hunters know where our edges are, and they do not cross them. Or they haven’t
until now.’
    Egan stands, the whole hall shivers, there’s a rustling murmur in the air. Dain’s
hands drop to the table. It creaks beneath his grip, he isn’t steadying himself,
but the table itself. With all these Masters here, and words heated, the Hall and
its objects seem skittish.
    ‘It’s a half-truth, an exaggeration and a folly,’ Egan says. ‘There are always troublesome
elements, those that don’t do as they are told. But I think we know who crossed the
line.’ He looks at me direct. All the niceties are undone.
    ‘This was more than troublesome elements.’ Dain stands steady, but there’s an edge
to his voice, an effort underlying. ‘Much more. I believe that we need deeper attention
given.’
    A sound somewhere in the hall; near the kitchen. A door slams. Dain doesn’t lift
his hands.

CHAPTER
9
    EGAN GRINS. ‘AH, the Professor and his deeper study . The wind blows wrong half a
night and you call for it. And you would have us draw the attention of the Council
of Teeth? We’ve tangles enough without that web. It is a small town, our little exile
here, surely we can manage such troubles?’
    And he says it like Dain is a child, a nuisance to be placated with the barest of
kindnesses. There’s heat in my face and it is building. Dain is no fool. They’ve
no right to treat him as such. And then I realise they can speak to him that way
because of me, and I feel the shame of it.
    Tennyson, Sobel and Kast are nodding their heads.
    Dain seems surprised, or angry, or both. He gestures at the others, palms open; the
table shudders, released. But the others just smile. Three faces of open mockery.
I can see he knows that he’s been ambushed. ‘When there is an open threat the Council
of Teeth should know. This is council business.’
    Egan laughs. ‘The council complicates everything. Besides, we are its teeth, are
we not? Do you think it cares for us as long as we bite?’
    ‘It cares for the Imperatives. It cares that we don’t capsize the peace we have,
or cast ourselves into the Outer Dark.’
    Egan’s got one of those cat-with-the-cream grins and I understand the poison of a
smile. ‘As do we all.’ He turns his all-too-clever eyes to me. ‘Trouble comes from
within, in my experience, not without. Why were you at the river, boy?’
    ‘Wanted to cool my toes.’ Not the whole truth, but I’ve no desire to point out previous
indiscretions.
    ‘Yes, but that place. You know the dangers of that place.’
    ‘Big old catfish there,’ I say.
    ‘There are catfish in the turns and shadows of any river. That the Hunter found you
suggests you frequent that place forbidden. That he was expecting you.’
    ‘I—’
    ‘Don’t lie to me, boy. I can see the workings of a lie like the pulse that beats
within the prey. You lie to a Master, and you will find a Master’s sharp penalty.’
    I lower my gaze to my hands, they’ve a bit of a shake in them.
    ‘Look up at me, boy.’ Of course he would demand that.
    His eyes are snarled with a cruel, cold grip and I can’t look away. Everything is
a plummet, a background noise, a narrowing and falling