Even drunk, I wince at the reproach in her tone. “Trying to get an answer to a question.”
She reaches the bottom of the stairs. “Is that so?”
“Yes, Adele, that’s so.”
She huffs out a grunt. “What was the question?”
Before I repeat it, Dax leaps in. “Seemed someone said something about a witch, and now Wren is in a snit.”
Her eyebrows shoot to her graying hairline. “A witch?”
“Aye,” I growl out. I point my dagger at the crowd. “I need to know who said it.”
Adele shrugs. “You heard the man.” She walks toward me. Covers my hand with hers and gently forces me to lower the dagger. “Not a drop of ale flows until—”
“It was me.” A man tentatively rises at the table beside ours. Everything about him is plain and drab, someone I would have overlooked if he stood directly in front of me. “I said it.”
“Well, now.” Adele claps her hands. “That’s settled.” Her gaze cuts me. “Consider this your warning about brandishing a weapon in The Cup and Crown. I’ll not tolerate it twice, especially not from a friend of Dax’s.”
Not only am I duly chastised, but I believe she’ll gut me if I dare disobey her rule again.
Sliding the dagger into its sheath, I give her a curt nod. “Apologies, Adele.”
“Accepted. Once,” Adele warns.
I realize how close I came to ruining my relationship with a woman who has treated me like a son since the day I walked into her tavern with her son two years ago. That day, I brought nothing with me but the clothes I was wearing and a bad attitude resting heavy on my shoulders.
She strides away, and the tense moment ebbs. Conversations recommence.
I grab the slender man by the front of his shit-brown tunic, careful not to bring forth Adele’s wrath twice. “What do you know about captives and witches?”
His face is ashen, his blue eyes wide. When he shakes his head, his greasy red hair scrapes his shoulders. “Only rumors.”
I tilt my head and lift a brow. “If you want to keep your tongue, you’ll repeat those rumors to me.”
“Yes, yes. Of course,” he stammers. “I passed through Oakley and Kenilworth, and even farther north, and chatter there is that King John searches for a witch.”
His words curdle my insides like spoiled milk.
“What would the king want with a witch?”
He swallows loudly, his throat bobbing. “They say she holds a woman captive.”
My rotten insides now feel like they’re slithering up my throat, clawing for an escape. “And why does King John want this woman?” I keep my voice low enough that my words stay between us.
The man blinks at me, eyes now full of fear. He drags in a shaking breath before whispering, “The rumors didn’t say.” Then he mumbles so low that I must strain to catch his confession. “But between us, I heard tell this woman has the power to heal the sick, even the dying. That she keeps the witch young.”
My fingers open as if on their own accord. My arms fall to my sides, and I stumble backward a few steps. The man scurries away, but I give him no notice. The tavern fades. I shuffle to the table and drop on the bench, dislodging the hurt I’ve kept caged for three miserable years.
A woman who can heal the sick—the dying.
While my father suffered, Rapunzel possessed the ability to cure him. But she hid in her tower and kept this gift to herself.
I never hated Rapunzel. Yes, her rejection hurt. But hate her? Never. Not until this very moment. Fuck her, and fuck King John because I know something he doesn’t. I know where that selfish bitch is.
Rapunzel owes me a debt.
She owes me my father’s life.
