Continuing to grumble to himself, the gate keeper disappeared from view. The man on the wagon looked down at me, his light shining against his glass eye.
“What are you doing all by your lonesome at this time of night?” He looked me over. “A pretty thing like you shouldn’t be traveling all alone.”
“That’s why I’m here,” I answered smoothly, if a little defiantly. There was no hint of the frightened girl I remembered. “I was waylaid. My travel companions are inside.”
“That right.” His mouth worked for a moment before he spit off to the side. His gaze trailed over me, noticing my lantern and then the pack on my back. “Fancy lantern. It don’t seem to match your cheap clothes or that dingy rucksack.”
I huffed and looked away as though annoyed. My legs shook.
“Not that it is any of your concern,” I replied haughtily, “but the lantern was a gift and outlasted my travel lantern. It is the only reason I use it now.” A latch clinked beyond the wooden gate. I turned and applied the same scrutiny to the stranger. “As far as my attire... well, you’re in no position to judge, are you?”
He paused for a moment as the whine of a crank began. His smile showed a few gaps in his teeth.
“Feisty. I like that,” he said as the gate started to open. “When you get tired of your travel companions, I’ll be at the Red Lion Inn. You know, in case you run out of funds. Hah!” He snapped the reins, getting the horses moving.
I was pretty sure that last bit was meant to be lewd—an offer to pay me for my services. Charming.
The gates were wide open by the time the wagon was through and I slipped in after it, darting through the shadows and ignoring the “Hey!” from the gate keeper. If memory served me correctly, he wouldn’t be bothered to get down to chase me. Even if he did, he wouldn’t catch me.
The town didn’t so much as open up before me, more like it gathered around. A couple banners flailed limply from spires off to the sides of the modest gate I’d just walked through, a greeting for those visiting or returning. Each featured some sortof creature I couldn’t decipher, maybe mythical, but probably a sigil of the mayor or whatever noble essentially ran this place.
Cobblestone streets wound in various directions, snaking around stone houses and wood-framed shopfronts. Oppressive stone walls encircled the outskirts.
The stranger had gone straight on, probably to the heart of the town or maybe just cutting through to the other side. He’d been headed for an inn. Given the size of this town, I assumed there’d be more than one but felt it likely they’d be grouped together.
I hurried forward, sticking to the edges of the lane, no one sharing the walkway with me. The horses and wagon moved through the glowing streetlamps ahead, spots of light rolling over the bobbing horse heads and a hunched human frame behind them. For the moment, he didn’t seem to be looking around or looking back, intent on his destination and his meeting with me forgotten. If he never saw me again, I doubt he’d remember the meeting at the gate at all.
I’d just have to make sure he never saw me again.
The lane widened as more store fronts dotted the way, leading to a central square featuring a large stone fountain. The creature in the middle—a badly carved wolf, perhaps?—was different than the banners, probably built with the town or shortly thereafter, a noble etching his or her name into the bones but the family unable to stand the test of time. No water poured from its mouth or pooled in the shallow surface.
More banners flew here and I noticed the wagon stopping at the stable beside an establishment with a roaring lion on the sign. Obviously he wasn’t lying about where he was staying. There were others, though, one with a five-legged horse, another with a teddy bear—no, wait, that was a toy shop. Still another with a . . .half-horse and half-fish? That just seemed wrong.
Anyone checking in right now would be suspect. A woman my age checking in right now would garner unneeded attention.
I slipped into the alleyways, surprised to find bodies huddled along the sides or laying spread out on tattered sheets and other sleeping items. Those on their backs or sides were obviously sleeping, obviously without homes and unwelcome in stables, but the ones huddled, or the guy standing at the far side, stooped and staring, mouth hanging open with drool dripping down, seemed... not lucid. It almost looked like he was in a coma while standing up.
I slowed as I passed, lifting my lantern a little to make sure he was okay. His pupils were blown wide and hardly contracted in the glow. He flinched, his movements jerky, before his expression creased in anger.
“You dare return, creature of the night?” he rasped in a broken voice raw from too much screaming. “You dare to seek my soul?”
He lashed out, attempting to strike a non-existent enemy.
“Unhand me, you fiend!” he shouted, growling as he continued to wrestle with nothing. He backed up against the wall, bounced off it, turned, and bent under the force of an unseen foe. “I will not go with you! Do you understand me? Oh!”
He froze... and then straightened up in halting movements. His head cocked to the side, his eyes focused on an invisible target about ten feet from me. A wicked gleam pulled at his lips.
“Is that how you want to play it?”
This man’s behavior reminded me of Raz when he’d spun in a nightmare for too long and couldn’t find his way out. He’d threaten to kill me or just blindly attack, and I’d have to shove him outside or into the supply closet. This man was much wilder than Raz, his movements not right or natural, but with the same sort of wild mania. He’d taken a similar product.
An uncomfortable feeling crawled through me.
“It’s going to be okay,” I said in a soothing voice, lowering my lantern to look at his feet. I had no idea why I’d thought to, or how I’d known exactly what I’d find.
A crinkly wrapper lay not far from his toes, discarded and forgotten. It refracted my lantern’s glow in some places, and the color was off because of the indigo light, but it was familiar to me all the same. Purple and black in a design I’d created when I was younger and had given to Granny as a card for her birthday. I’d created a dancing little fairy in the middle of my art, but this wrapper’s design showed a butterfly in flight, the fairy wings I’d drawn used for the insect’s.
“Breathing will help defeat your foe,” I told the man, circling around him to step among the rags and debris lining the wall of the alley at the back or side of a business. “Suck in your fuel and breathe fire onto the enemy.”
