If there was tension in the room, it was unintentional on Aurin's part. To his mind, they were negotiating. He wanted assurances these people, who he still didn't know from Arsoren, did not threaten him or his people again. They wanted the cursed eberrite key that a draegir had bidden him keep secret and safe.
Aurin was a pleasant man as the managing director of the Golden Peacock Theater, but that was because they paid him to be. These people, for all that they had identified Elwes as leverage against him, did not seem to know him at all, and every step they had taken to get him down here for this negotiation seemed designed to alienate him and, to be fair, Aurin wasn't choosing to react well to their poor management of him.
But negotiations ceased suddenly, as did any possibility for a resolution, and it took all his willpower when he realized he couldn't blink, couldn't swallow, couldn't breathe. This was not, as far as he could tell, a glamour, unless Hound or Twitch were grandmasters to fool him. Time magic? That fabled stuff was even scarier than the thought of someone who had his tricks, only more powerful.
That impassive helm gave away nothing, as Hound seemed wont to do. He wondered, briefly, whether Hound was the animated corpse of Jacien Novalys encased in steel. Stranger things had happened.
And then Hound was gone, a chill certainly creeping in.
Aurin cursed under his breath as soon as he was able. Elwes' coils shifted around his shoulders. She too misliked being helpless.
"You're not wrong, Twitch, my rat," he said, shivering despite himself.
"I thought we were—very slowly—making progress toward some sort of resolution, but I guess not. Look. We're still here, so let's figure something out. I'm not going to cross a godling, even a shitty one, without a good enough reason. But I'm going to reach out to him, at least. I'll give him what I know about Hound and this operation, which is next to nothing..." He sighed. "See what he says. Because even if I took a shot, stuck my hand up my death wish's skirt, and said 'fuck Talon Novalys, open the door, let's goooo,' he would find out and there would be divine repercussions, which... I don't want. I'm guessing you don't want. Hound wears full plate armor, visor down, to a negotiation, so maybe he feels invincible and isn't worried about a draegir on his ass...
"So... all right, could you at least talk to Hound or anyone who has more pull than him in whatever outfit you two are a part of... get them to release more intelligence to me. Maybe find someone whose negotiation strategy is more nuanced than a crap dad telling his kids 'because I'm the boss and I told you so'?"
For all that he rubbed elbows with Avialae and the affluent of Kalzasern society, more of his life had been spent in undergrounds, if not always literally an underground sewer, like this. Twitch wasn't the most impressive of partners in crime, but Aurin felt like he had a sense of the rat without even climbing into his aura. Although, that might not be a bad idea in the future if Twitch continued to be his point of contact. That he criticized someone for playing things close to their chest while he hoarded secrets as a matter of course and a matter of pride was hypocritical, but he was not self-aware enough to even consider that.
Hound was gone. Twitch remained. So, Aurin tried to make do with Twitch, knowing negotiations, especially when initial desires seemed so diametrically opposed, took time. He would make a little headway. He would...
Aurin closed his eyes, rubbing his temples, pinching the bridge of his nose. He wasn't unduly worried being momentarily blind before Twitch, whom he didn't exactly trust, but he was working on a working relationship. No, he had survived too much trauma not to have an almost sixth sense that had nothing to do with his conscious mind or his slapdash magic. Anyway, Elwes was still staring at Twitch for him. Impassive, she could be intimidating, sure, but in this shape, she wasn't big enough to consume Twitch, so he really didn't need to be so... twitchy.
In the darkness behind his eyes, he thought about Talon. In the darkness, he found the faintest sliver of light, like a crack in an otherwise seamless wall. He didn't know really what he was doing. For all his power and his skill, Valencia had had to teach him the basics of magical theory when he had already, by some standards, mastered a Rune. Whether this was his imagination or something real, it worked.
He thought perhaps it had to do with Talon scriving a Rune into his soul, even if he hadn't had to cut it into his skin as the misinformed Aurin had initially done when teaching someone one of his tricks. The blood made sense as a connection. 'The blood is the life,' was what that Vampir in Gel'Grandal had said before Masagh ended him. Even if Aurin wasn't a Vampir, he could sense how vitae and its flow mirrored the flow of aether throughout the world, across planes, and such. Perhaps it was because Talon had answered his prayers before, even if they were profane, challenging things rather than any sort of praise or thanksgiving or even a modicum of faith.
Aurin didn't have faith in Talon, or in anyone, not even himself.
In any case, he thought it might have been his soul he was not seeing in that darkness, and that crack in the wall, that sliver of light, was Talon. With his mind's eye, he focused on that. With his mind's hands, he probed at that connection like a child tonguing a loose tooth.
There was a whole lot to say, so instead of rambling fit to put even a diligent draegir into a torpor, he tried to distill down this journey into images, concepts, feelings—an aetheric language, much like sometimes he and Torin twined their auras together like interlacing fingers when holding hands and they could communicate more clearly without words than they could with them.
The abduction of Elwes. The shadowy communication. The rat. The suit of armor. The proposed deal that all revolved around the thrice-damned key. Finally satisfied that he had translated it all, he left an upward inflection as if it were a sentence of words, a question.
Talon should have patted Aurin on the head, thanked him for his service, and given the key to the Dawnmartyrs or something. Instead, for some batshit insane reason, he had given it to Aurin instead. Aurin was no Arcasian paladin. He didn't want the responsibility, but Talon had shirked it and Aurin wasn't willing to pass the buck to someone else. All the same, most of his people were in Kalzasi. He didn't want Talon kidnapping them too, or picking them off one by one to punish him for not fulfilling the holy obligation that he hadn't wanted in the first place.
With a sigh, he blinked his eyes open.
"Yeah. We good for now, Twitch? You need a ride back to Hahseu or something?"
