Taste of Marrow by Sarah Gailey

Author:Sarah Gailey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Tom Doherty Associates

Chapter 8

HOUNDSTOOTH’S HANDS WERE STEADY for the first time in nearly three months. He finally understood how the ferals must have felt when they slid up the Mississippi and found themselves free of the Harriet.

He felt good.

He twirled his favorite ivory-handled knife between his fingers like a baton, sober as mountain air, and strode in a slow circle around the ladder-backed chair. The chair was resting on its side on the sawdust-strewn floor. It was a well-made chair, Houndstooth mused. It had stood up to the impact of his boot when he’d kicked it over.

He couldn’t say as much for the innkeeper tied to the chair, of course. No—that man’s nose had taken the brunt of the impact when his face had hit the floor, and he was bleeding all over the place. The sawdust could only manage so much.

It would need to manage quite a lot more if the innkeeper didn’t start answering questions soon.

“I can do this all night, Percival,” Houndstooth said, letting his already-low voice drop to an even deeper baritone than usual. “You, on the other hand? I don’t know if you’ll be able to keep up with me.” He crouched in front of the innkeeper, grabbing a fistful of the man’s thinning, oiled hair. He pulled hard enough to lift Percival’s head from the floor. Blood had pasted a good deal of sawdust to the man’s cheek. “You’re a mess,” Houndstooth said, shaking his head slowly. He lifted his knife and used the edge to scrape Percival’s cheek clean. “Oh, dear,” he said. “My mistake. I seem to have taken some whiskers off of you.” He wiped his knife on the innkeeper’s shirtfront, then lifted it again. “I’ll just even you up, shall I?” He scraped the blade against the man’s other cheek, letting him feel just how sharp it was.

“I don’t know where they went,” Percival whimpered. Houndstooth dropped his head, and it bounced off the wooden floor with a crack.

“The problem here,” Houndstooth said, twirling his knife again, “is that I don’t believe you. I don’t believe you because you do this . . . this thing.” He tapped the tip of the blade against Percival’s front teeth. “You bite your lip, see? Right before you tell me that lie.”

“It’s not a—what are you doing?” Percival’s voice rose to a high quaver as Houndstooth grabbed the top of the ladder-backed chair with one hand, hauling it upright.

“Well, it’s tricky, trying to look at you when you’re all sideways down there, eh? That’s no way to have a conversation,” Houndstooth said. He brushed sawdust from his palms, then stooped to pick up his knife. He tossed it a few times, watching it flash as it spun through the air, savoring the clarity of purpose that had entered his mind at last.

“I don’t enjoy being lied to,” he said, pulling a second chair in front of Percival’s. He rested one elbow on his knee and started paring his fingernails with the blade of the ivory-handled knife.

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