It wasn’t until she pushed open the door that Celeste realized she had wrapped her hand around his arm a bit too familiarly. Like the night before in the forest when, after some internal protesting, she’d let herself lean on him and momentarily feel something like safety, she was giving his elbow a rather intimate squeeze. Her hand didn’t go around his arm very far, and it was much too thickly muscled for her to do any damage, but shewassqueezing him. A simple glance at his surcoat’s symbol, however, was enough to make her pull back, instead running fingers through her hair to tug it between them like a shield.
It was quiet inside the tavern, but that only allowed Halfrida to hone in on the new arrivals. “The courageous soldier returns! I knew you wouldn’t abandon that horse, not that Eliot would be disappointed if you did.”
The kitchen door swung open behind her, and the young boy’s head popped out.
“We did worry, of course, since Briarwyke’s got no other inn.” The keeper’s eyes narrowed, lips curling devilishly. “You found a spare bed though, eh? What did you get up to, I wonder?”
Reeve turned to Celeste, looking for permission to answer and clearly upset about the fact she wasn’t going to grant it. She only made a small noncommittal noise and shrugged.
“Well, I bet you’ve worked up quite the appetite.” Halfrida bustled into the kitchen, shooing Eliot out.
Reeve moved toward a table, gesturing to the closest seat. Celeste scurried around and plopped herself into the chair across from him, head still bent. When he didn’t sit, she looked up to see his brow furrowed yet again.
“What? I didn’t lie to her—I didn’t say anything. Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m not—” Reeve glanced down to the chair he’d pulled out, then sat into it himself. “I suppose you did not lie. This time.”
She rolled her eyes. Too often had Celeste been on the receiving end of someone’s ire for things she could not control, for simply delivering a message containing an inconvenience she had no part in. Clearly, Reeve did not understand that lies were necessary, even in the most mundane situations, when telling the truth earned one only punishment.
“I think we need to define what a lie actually is, if withholding the truth counts, because—oh, hi there.” Celeste’s gaze fell on the young boy who had silently slipped across the tavern to hide behind the next table and peek at them.
He said nothing, but continued to stare, specifically at Reeve.
“He likes your sword,” said another voice. From beneath their table, the little girl who had fed Celeste potatoes poked her head out. How she’d gotten there was anyone’s guess.
“Oh, of course.” Reeve unsheathed it from his scabbard, and though he’d done it many times, the Obsidian Widow Maker in the hands of a seated wielder in the domesticity of a tavern made it seem much bigger. “Would you like to hold it?”
Celeste thought she should protest—it was a very big sword and a very little boy, comparatively, but Reeve turned in his chair, laid the blade carefully across his arm, and offered the hilt up in such a way that it seemed nothing like a weapon at all. Eliot stared at the obsidian steel for a long moment and didn’t move.
“Eliot doesn’t talk,” said a third voice, and the dark-haired girl Halfrida had called Charlie appeared from the shadows at the other end of the tavern. At least that was all of the children, Celeste thought, unless she had counted wrong the previous night.
“It’s so shiny!” The littlest girl came racing around the table to look. “Is it heavy? Do you kill bad guys with it? How much blood comes out when you stab ‘em?”
“And Willow talks enough for everybody,” said Charlie, going up behind the boy and putting a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay, Eliot, if you want to.”
Eliot took tentative steps forward, and with one more glance back at Charlie, he held his hands out.
“Itisheavy.” Reeve offered up the sword. “And, yes, it is used for vanquishing evil, and there is often quite a lot of,”—he glanced at Celeste quickly, then cleared his throat—“well, it takes care of bad guys.” When Eliot’s hands were firmly around the hilt, Reeve pulled back, and immediately the tip of the blade fell to the wooden floor with a thunk. Eliot gasped, but Reeve only chuckled and shrugged. “I told you.”
A cautious smile spread out on the boy’s face as Willow burst into adorable giggles.
“I couldn’t hold something like that up when I was your age either.”
“He can barely do it now,” said the sword, and all three children shrieked.
“No weapons indoors!” Halfrida came bustling back out, two bowls in hand, and it was a mad scramble. Reeve caught the hilt as Eliot abandoned it, and the children scattered.
“Yes, ma’am,” barked Reeve, as he rushed to sheath Sid and sat straight. “Sorry, ma’am.”
Halfrida set the bowls before them. “That’s better. Now, I’ll go to seeing what kind of work needs done so you can pay.”
Still pin straight, Reeve stared down at his bowl and nodded.
Celeste had been watching the careful way he handed off the sword, then his quick reaction at Halfrida’s chiding, and it stung in a strange way at her heart. “I don’t think you’re actually in trouble,” she whispered, picking up her spoon.
“Oh.” Reeve’s shoulders relaxed. “Of course, I just…”
“Like to follow the rules. No swords at the table, no lying to strangers. I know.” She took a bite, nodding. The stew they’d been given was thick and savory, filled with mushrooms and carrots and onions. It warmed her throat and loosened the tenseness she’d been carrying about in her neck.
