Sin Eater's Daughter 2 - The Sleeping Prince Read Online Free PDF Page B

either way. “You should probably get going,” I remind him. “The meeting was practically over when I left. It was risky to come here.”
    “I didn’t have a choice, Errin. I told you, I had to move; you wouldn’t have known where I was if I hadn’t come to you.” He smiles. “I was careful, don’t worry, I always am. Besides, I needed to know what the meeting was about.”
    “And if I hadn’t left it early?”
    A slight twitch in his jaw as his smile falls away. “I suppose I’d have some explaining to do.”
    His tone strives for nonchalance, but his body gives him away. He’s tightly held, coiled like a snake, ready to flee, or strike if he has to. He’s nervous about being here, being exposed, despite his words, and I feel a perverse thrill in my stomach that I can read him like this. For three moons I’ve been feeding him parts of my life: about my father dying; about Lief’s determination to support us and then his disappearance; about my apothecary work; in fact everything except for my mother’s condition, in the hope it would prompt him to reply in kind. That’s how it’s supposed to work, a secret for a secret, and a story for a story. Instead he takes my tales with a nod, as though we’re at some kind of confessional, the corners of his mouth turned up or down depending on what the story is about. He never comments or judges, instead listening and absorbing and never telling me anything personal in return.
    But I’ve discovered that you can learn a lot without words. And what I’ve learned is hard won, because – though he’s the closest thing I have to a friend here, and as far as I know, I’m his – I have no idea what he looks like beneath his hood. It sounds impossible. It ought to be; how can you call someone a friend, know them for so long and not know what they look like? Yet I don’t. I don’t know what colour his eyes are, or his hair. I know his mouth, and the point of his chin, and his neat teeth. Once I even saw the end of his nose when he tipped his head back to laugh. But that’s all. From our first meeting, to today, he has always, always been hooded, gloved and cloaked, and he’s never removed them, never even pushed them aside, whether we’re indoors or out. When I asked him why, he told me it was safer like that. For us both. And to not ask again.
    Mysterious boys are not as enjoyable in reality as they are in stories.
    The obvious reason would be that he’s hideously disfigured in some way, but something about the way he carries himself makes me think that can’t be it. In my mind’s eye he’s dark haired and dark eyed, his hair brushing his shoulders, but in truth I don’t have a clue. The few times I have managed to peer up into the ever-present hood I’ve seen the glint of an eye, before he’s pulled the hood lower, the rest of his face shadowed and hidden.
    Despite that, I can tell when he’s worried, or anxious, or angry, or pleased. I’ve learned to read his lips and his shoulders and his hands, the way he holds himself. He leans forward when he’s relaxed, his head tilting to the left. He taps his fingers on whatever surface he can find when he’s agitated: tree stumps, his own legs, his arms if they’re crossed. When he’s amused, two dimples form on the left of his mouth, none on the right. He rubs his tongue along his front teeth when he’s thinking. I can see the things he doesn’t say, because they’re written all over him.
    “Is there anything else I should know?” Silas crosses his arms, cutting across my thoughts and pulling me back into the here and now. “From the meeting?”
    The panic returns like a wave washing over me, and my stomach lurches as I remember what Unwin said. “We’re to be evacuated. With immediate effect. We’re all to go.”
    “Go where?” he says.
    “The refugee camp at Tyrwhitt, if we’ve nowhere else,” I say, even though I know we can’t go there.
    I can feel his eyes on me, the fingers on his