“When I can. When Wren lets me. I rent a room in the back building, he owns both.” I glanced at the bar. “The food’s passable. The ale’s terrible. But they stay open late and don’t ask too many questions.” I tried on a smile. “The company tonight is much better than usual.”
A faint flush touched her cheeks. And I, fool that I am, leaned toward her as if it might warm me instead of burn me.
“Quinn, can I call you Quinn?” She inclined her head in a movement that looked close enough to agreement. “How long have you been walking around like that?”
Her expression turned inward, eyes shadowed. “On this occasion? Merely a few hours.”
I crossed my arms.What a strange way to answer that question.Before I could decide if her response was closer to poetry or warning, Wren thumped down two bowls of stew and a plate of flatbread, then circled back to the bar, muttering to himself.
She reached out, slowly, like the steam might bite. Quinn leaned over the bowl. “It smells...real.”
“It is.” I handed her a scuffed spoon. “By the loosest definition.”
She held the spoon as if it were a holy relic. I half expected her to whisper a prayer before using it. I watched her from the corner of my eye. Each bite was cautious, thoughtful.
“So,” I said after several quiet minutes, tearing off a piece of bread, “want to tell me what you were doing walking barefoot into a tavern full of ruffians?”
She didn’t look up. “I was seeking someone in need of aid.”
“Congratulations," I said dryly. “You found the worst option.”
“The timing is of greater consequence than the selection,” she said.
“You believe in fate, then?”
“In my experience, very little occurs without reason.”
I swallowed another bite. “What was the reason tonight?”
“You.”
She stated it as fact. My heart stuttered. For one breathless second, I let myself believe her. Maybe Iwasthe reason. Not a mistake, wrong turn, or a ruined night—but the person fate had purposefully placed in her path. It hit harder than any fist I’d taken in the last decade.
It scared the seven hells out of me.
I choked on my spoon.
She didn’t laugh, but her gaze flicked to me with the barest glint of amusement, as if she knew exactly how much power sheheld in that moment, and how little she needed to use. It earned me the slightest curve of her mouth.
“You posed the question,” she said.
“I did.” I leaned back, ignoring the stab of pain in my side. “What happens now? You keep rescuing broken men until your halo dims?”
Her gaze dropped to the rim of her bowl. She traced it with one finger, slow and deliberate. “You accepted my help.”
The last time I accepted help, it cost me a broken wrist, a horse, and what little pride I had left. Before that, it was a promise from a captain who forgot my name once the war ended. Help had always been a trade I never had enough of to barter for. The word on her lips sounded closer to a promise rather than a debt to be fulfilled.
“In the middle of a bar fight, agreement seemed the polite course of action.”
Her gaze lifted then, pinning me to the bench with its intensity. “What you agreed to is not without consequence.”
My stomach went tight. “What do you mean?”
She folded her hands again. “We were bound the moment you accepted my assistance.”
My spoon froze mid-air. “Bound?” I echoed, slowly lowering it. “To what, exactly?”
“To one another.”
