The spoon slipped from his fingers and struck the bowl with a sharp clatter, a sound that served to mark his astonishment.
A hard swallow pressed against my throat. “Whilst I sleep, I do not age, dream, or breathe. I merely endure the passage of time. And when I wake, I am…here.”
He passed a hand along the rough edge of his jaw and released a breath, as though uncertain the air would bear it. “Saints above.”
“Twas not the Saints who cursed me,” I clarified, my voice ironed flat. “Only a petty man with an abundance of power and a fondness for control.”
His fingers drummed against his chin in a thoughtful rhythm. “And during the two weeks?”
“I am bound to serve,” I explained. “To offer aid. A tether forms between myself and the first soul who accepts my help.” I met his gaze. “On this occasion, that soul is you.”
He gestured loosely toward the road that had brought us here, as if it might offer clarity I had somehow missed. “You mean the fight?”
“The moment you agreed.”
He shook his head as though he could cast off reality like rain from a cloak. “Help me how?”
“With a quest.” I sighed. “If the quest is fulfilled, the tether loosens and I return to sleep at the fortnight’s end. If I do not assist someone with a quest, sleep claims me sooner.”
The pause between us stretched as his doubts simmered.
“Quinn,” he said slowly. “How old are you?”
I raised a brow. “A rather impolite question.”
“Fair.” He nodded once. “But still. How old?”
“Twenty-seven,” I answered.
He leaned toward me, his voice dipping low, colored now by something nearer to caution than disbelief. “And how long have you been twenty-seven?”
Silence unfurled between us before I spoke. “Three hundred years.”
Mav blinked, slow and deliberate, then leaned back.“Three centuries?”
A faint smile curled at my lips. “More or less.”
His mouth parted, then shut, then parted once more, words fighting for shape but refusing to land. “Seems I’ve suddenly developed a taste for older women.”
I held my tongue, though warmth crept into my cheeks. The remark had been meant as suggestive, that much was plain—but I was not in the habit of indulging such advances from men I had known scarcely an hour.
He cleared his throat. “That sounded better in my head.”
“I have endured worse torments than poor flirtation.”
We remained fixed across the remnants of our meal, silence thick between us, when Wren reappeared.
“You gonna wash dishes,” he grumbled, tossing a rag over his shoulder, “or just make eyes at each other?”
Mav groaned into his hands. I smiled politely and reached for the pouch at my hip, placing it gently upon the table.
Wren squinted at it. “What’s this then?”
“A gesture,” I said.
He loosened the strings of the worn pouch. The soft clink of coins followed. A sliver of gold caught the firelight. Wren froze, then turned to Mav as though beholding some newly anointed Saint.
“Mercy,” Wren whispered. “Is this real?”
