“Regular?”
“Say, four times a week? Every other day. And at the same time, every time. Maybe five in the evening? Six bits a session. How’s that sound?”
Pendry looked disbelieving. “Well, I’d… you’d reallypayme? To play?”
“Yep. That’s about the size of it.” She extended a hand.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said, pumping it vigorously with his own.
“Oh, and Pendry…? You should still put your hat out.”
By the end of the day, another sign hung outside the shop, painted in Tandri’s flowing script.
- Live Music -
Mornday, Tauday, Vintus, Freyday
Five in the Evening
* * *
Viv startedawake at a painful tearing sensation in her right palm, the skin splitting and peeling away. She was up in an instant, the bedroll thrown open, searching her hand for the wound that must be there.
Her flesh was smooth and undamaged.
The feeling persisted, though, lancing up her forearm. Viv’s instincts had not yet entirely fled her, despite the months of inaction, and she lunged for Blackblood’s accustomed resting spot beside her bedroll. Of course, it wasn’t there, instead hanging uselessly on the kitchen wall, tangled in garlands.
Hemington’s ward.
Fennus.
The elfmusthave heard her flinging the bedding aside, the creak of the boards. Mustn’t he?
She crept to the ladder, anyway, hunched and shifting her weight carefully from bare foot to bare foot. The tugging, ripping feeling in her hand abated. She heard nothing from below. When she peered over the edge, a scant bar of moonlight blued the dining area.
The chandelier loomed almost in front of her face, and beneath she could see the softened silhouette of the big table, the dark slabs of the booths surrounding it, the sketchy strokes of the flagstones. Her night vision wasn’t particularly good, but she held her breath, staring hard for any hint of motion.
A minute passed.
Another.
Then the ghost of a scent, something foreign under the pervasive aroma of coffee. A faint but recognizable perfume—floral and ancient.
He was cloaked and hooded, but it was him.
Not so much as the rustle of cloth betrayed his presence, but Fennus had always been impossibly stealthy, usually to the advantage of their party. Now on the receiving end, Viv marveled at his noiseless advance with a grim new respect.
She had to squint hard to track his motion, but she saw him pause at the end of the big table. The glimmer of one pale hand appeared, gently resting on its surface. The Scalvert’s Stone lay hidden directly below. His head tilted inside his cowl, as though listening, or using some elven sense Viv didn’t share.
There was no point in waiting.
She leapt, landing heavily.
There was no point in stealth, either.
“Hello, Fennus,” she said.
He didn’t even have the grace to appear startled. Turning smoothly toward her, he folded back his cowl, and a pale, yellow light burst into being in his cupped left hand. His face was illuminated from below, as infuriatingly mild as ever.
