“Naturally.” I motioned to the purse with a wave of my hand. “Is it sufficient to settle the debt?”
Mav winced. “Quinn?—”
Wren held up a hand, silencing him. “It’s enough to buy my tavern. Twice. With enough left over to bribe every magistrate from here to the capital.”
“Then I trust you will consider the matter closed.”
Mav appeared as though slipping beneath the table had become a desirable escape. “You don’t have to do that.”
“I find it…efficient,” I said, “to resolve such obligations.”
Wren gave Mav a jarring clap upon the back. “Come on, now. A beautiful woman just handed me a purse full of coin. This is the best day of my life! Don’t ruin it.”
Mav sagged where he sat, grumbling beneath his breath about pride and principles.
Wren paid him no heed, eyes fixed upon me. “Any more like her, Bassiano? Fair of face, fat of purse, and with poor judgment of companions?”
“Just the one,” Mav mumbled.
Wren gave a coarse snort and ambled off, his tune warbling out of key as he vanished behind the bar.
Mav drew a weary hand down his face, as though attempting to scrub away the moment. “I don’t know whether to be embarrassed or grateful.”
“They are not mutually exclusive.” I offered a mild shrug.
The clatter of crockery and the scuff of chairs diminished as patrons finished their meals and wandered into the night. The tavern emptied until the air felt thin.
Mav adjusted his posture, one hand rising to knead the back of his head as though dislodging a thought. “About this whole being bound thing…”
I waited.
He spoke again, though his eyes did not rise to meet mine. “What does it actually mean?”
There it was. My sleeves clung damply to my wrists. “It means that for a fortnight, I am here to assist you.”
His elbows braced upon the table, his eyes narrowing. “So, what do I do with you now?”
I swallowed a splinter of doubt as it surfaced. This being my third awakening, I had borne two tethers before. Both were fools and lesser men who saw in me nothing more than carnal use and ornament. Mav did not seem cruel. Only…unmoored. As though ruin had claimed him, whether by his own hand or another’s, I could not yet say.
“That depends,” I said. “What is your quest?”
“Quest?” His brows drew tight, gaze steeped in incredulity. “I don’t have a quest, I don’t even have steady work.”
“Used to,” Wren called from behind the bar. “He was a knight.”
Mav groaned. “Stuff it, Wren.”
“You brought her into my place, you get what you get,” Wren replied.
A knight. That was the shape of the ache he carried. Not simply a lost purpose, but one discarded. I had noted the way he moved: careful, observant, a man who once wore duty among layers of armor. My suspicion had been nameless until now.
“Surely you desire something,” I insisted.
A breath escaped him that may have passed for laughter, were it not laced with resignation. “I desire quiet. A warm room. Enough coin to waste at taverns. That’s it.”
“That is survival, not purpose.”
He looked at me, searching for offense in words that bore none. I had offered them gently, as one might set a salve to a bruise. We had only just met, but I knew the manner of man he was. He was not without scars, but he had long since learned how to remain standing when there was nowhere safe to fall.
