Viv’s lack of concern was vindicated, and Tandri did indeed turn up the following morning. Viv was wringing out her wet hair into the street, a half-full bucket by her side. She’d reverted to camp-bathing after discovering she disliked visiting the nearest bathhouse.
She coiled up her hair and pinned it, then stood, palming water off her face. “I should have said when we’d start,” she said. “Can’t open yet. Still waiting on a delivery.”
“It seemed there was plenty to do already,” Tandri observed. She was just as severe and direct as the previous day, with none of the sensual sway that Viv had noted in other succubi she’d met. Although, admittedly, that was a vanishingly small number. Only the syrupy gloss of Tandri’s hair and the sinuous lash of her tail hinted at anything but crisp efficiency.
“Oh?” asked Viv.
“I’ll need to know what I’ll be doing. No time like the present.”
“Right. Well, I can’t really show you the particulars until the equipment gets here, but the plan for today was to sort out some dishware and furnishings. I’m not much of a decorator, but I’ve got a few ideas. I was going to find a potter, then see about tables for the street, some chairs, maybe….” She waved vaguely. “Some… paintings? I thought this would be the easy part, but it’s very fiddly.”
“If I can make a suggestion,” said Tandri. It didn’t sound like a question.
Viv made abe my guestgesture.
“Thune Market is today and tomorrow, the same as every week. If you want to be thrifty about it and save a lot of needless wandering, that’s what I’d recommend.”
“Willing to tour me around?”
“It’s your silver,” said Tandri, and while her tone was as even as ever, Viv thought she caught the ghost of a smile.
In Viv’s experience, most of the non-martial folk she met stepped carefully in her presence, as though cringing from a blow that would never come. She enjoyed the succubus’s frank disposition. Cal had an entirely different species of that bluntness. She wondered again about the Scalvert’s Stone, and what it promised to draw to her.
Viv locked up and followed Tandri north of the High Street to a long, curving thoroughfare where many of the tradesfolk clearly had permanent storefronts or workshops. She was surprised to note that it was near where she’d visited the locksmith when she’d first arrived. Most vendors had awnings, tables, and displays set up on the wide street, and there was already a thickening mass of shoppers.
They browsed for a few hours, past noon. Viv kept her eyes out for the items on her list, and Tandri deftly steered her away from some bad buys, noting subtle cracks in pottery or poor joins in ironwork. Without prompting or permission, she took over the process of negotiation, and Viv could see that, despite how thoroughly she cloaked herself in neutral clothing and poise—and Tandri didn’t trade on physical allure, at all—the merchants responded to…something.
In the end, Viv paid for a full set of clay plates, mugs, and cups, and a pair of much larger copper kettles. She also secured a hefty box of pewter spoons and cutlery, a utensil hanger, a rug, two wrought-iron tables with chairs to match, five wall-lanterns, assorted cleaning supplies, and a scattering of pastoral paintings that Viv thought looked blurry, but Tandri maintained wereevocative. In most cases, the succubus secured delivery as part of the deal, although Viv carried the box of cutlery and the utensil hanger under one arm as they left.
After dropping them off at the shop, Viv insisted on thanking Tandri with a late lunch.
There was a fey-run café on the High Street that was only open during the day, and somehow it seemed appropriate to the moment. The day was warm, and the smell of the river was strong. They sat at one of the tables in the street.
Fey cuisine was known for its buttery breads and artful presentation, and while Viv wasn’t normally particular about what she ate, she had to admit that she’d acquired a taste for it.
“So,” she said, as they waited on their meal. “Have you always lived here, in Thune?”
“No,” replied Tandri, poised in her seat. “I’ve lived lots of places.” The succubus then smoothly redirected. “And you’re clearly not the cosmopolitan sort. Why Thune?”
Viv thought about the ley lines, the real reason she’d chosen Thune, and figured that was thorny to explain. She settled on a truthful but less complicated response. “Research,” she said. Viv glanced ruefully down at herself. “You wouldn’t know it to look at me, but I do a lot of reading. Anyway, once I got it in my head to do this, I spent a lot of time in Athenaeums, talked to a lot of people, and this seemed the best place for plenty of reasons.”
“Coffee,” said Tandri, quirking a small smile. “Not-tea. Long-held dream or just a change of pace?”
Viv explained her encounter with it in Azimuth, a little more eloquently than she’d managed with Cal. Tandri looked thoughtful.
“Seems a far cry from what you might’ve done before.”
“Hm, and what line of work do you assume I was in?” Viv arched a brow.
Tandri looked stricken. “You’re right, that was stupid, especially….”
Viv snorted. “I’m just baiting you. My hide’s thicker than that. And for what it’s worth,yourassumption isn’t wrong. You don’t get this many scars farming.”
Tandri gave her a searching look and then appeared to relax.
Their food arrived, and once the fey server left, Tandri lifted her mug of weak beer. “Well. To misplaced assumptions.”
Viv raised her own drink. “I’ll toast to that.”
