By the time the conversation circled back around to nothing in particular, the substitute guard had lost most of the wariness he'd started the night with, settled now into the loose, half-complaining rhythm of a man passing time with people he hadn't chosen but didn't mind all that much either.
"How long you lot usually wait out here," he asked, arms crossed against the cold. "Feels like we've covered every topic worth covering twice already."
"Depends on the night." The knee man shrugged, working his bad knee with one hand, an old habit by now. "Sometimes an hour. Sometimes we're out here till the sun's halfway up and Reiner's still in there talking someone's ear off about horses."
"Horses." The substitute raised an eyebrow.
"Don't ask." The driver said it with the flat weariness of a man who'd heard entirely too much about horses for one lifetime. "You'll regret it."
"I wasn't going to ask."
"Good instinct. Keep it up." The broad man had drifted a step or two off from the group, scanning the street the way he did every few minutes out of habit rather than any real expectation of trouble, and came back into the conversation without missing much of it. "Anything moving out there?"
"Quiet," he said. "Quieter than usual, actually. Whole street's been dead since that business with the Liu boy started making rounds."
"People scared off." The younger guard nodded, unsurprised. "Makes sense. Nobody wants to be standing on a street corner when Marianne's people decide they need somebody to blame."
"You think it was them? The killing?" The substitute asked it carefully, the way you ask a question you're not sure you're allowed to have an opinion on.
"No idea." The knee man said it honestly, without performing more certainty than he actually had. "Not our business to guess, and even if it was, guessing wrong out loud in front of the wrong people is a good way to end up part of the story instead of just talking about it."
"Recommended not to," the substitute said, dry, and got a short laugh out of the driver for it.
"See, he's learning."
They fell into an easier quiet after that, the kind that settled in naturally once a conversation had run its more urgent topics dry, each of them content to simply stand there a while, watching the empty street, listening to the faint hum of the building behind them. The cold had settled properly into the night by now, the kind that crept in past collars and cuffs no matter how good the coat, and more than one of them shifted their weight or flexed their fingers against it without much comment, the general discomfort too ordinary a thing to bother remarking on.
"They usually take this long?" the substitute asked eventually, nodding toward the door.
"Depends on Reiner." The younger guard checked his watch, more out of habit than real urgency. "If he's found someone new to talk horses at, could be another hour yet."
"Lucky you."
"Lucky us," the driver agreed, without much conviction, and pulled his collar up a little higher against the cold, the four of them settling back into the same patient, unhurried watch they'd been keeping all night, the substitute guard, somewhere in the last hour, having quietly stopped being a stranger among them at all.