“Lead the way,” Kizzi said, sweeping her arm broadly in front of her. I did, but I made sure to keep my pace slow so she would walk beside me instead of behind me.
“I love it here,” I said wistfully as we walked along the beach, passing other cottages as we neared the center of town. The cottages were tucked back a stretch from the water to avoid being swept away by the tides, but they all had a similar architecture. Bright, open, and airy.
Kizzi hummed thoughtfully. “I have always loved visiting Tidegrove. It does have its charms.”
I nodded in agreement. “The beach, for one.”
She smiled and glanced up at my face. “Why don’t you move here?”
I shrugged, not quite able to answer that question. I simply said, “it isn’t home.”
She gazed at me with an expression that said somehow, some way, she understood exactly what I meant.
We continued the rest of the walk in a warm, gentle silence, nothing but the sounds of our feet crunching in sand, water brushing against shore, and beach birds chirping in the distance.
Tidegrove’s inn was more of a series of small cottages nestled together rather than a singular structure. There was a main, central room that housed the entryway, the check in desk, and the common areas and kitchen, but the rooms themselves were stretched in two straight lines with doors opening to the outside air instead of to a hallway.
It was almost like a tiny neighborhood. A small, charming neighborhood of single-room cottages.
Kizzi’s attention was snagged by a vendor selling flowing, billowing palm trees beside the front door. Her eyes stuck to the plants like glue, and she actually faltered in her steps. The corner of my mouth lifted. “You stay here and look—I’ll get us checked into some rooms,” I said.
She glanced up at me for only a moment before her eyes returned to the foliage. “Are you sure? I can come with you. I just want to look for one second?—”
“Stay,” I interrupted her. “I’ll take care of this. I’ll be back. Watch my stuff.”
I plopped my bag by her feet to give my back some momentary relief, grabbed my coin pouch, and strode inside. Her bright voice drifted to my ears as she happily chatted to the merchant.
A few folk lingered around the inn’s common areas, but not many. Most of the folk here, like Sunhaven, had darker shades of skin, either naturally or toasted from the brighter rays of the suns. There were brightly colored and lighter folk as well, of course, but in general, everyone had been kissed by sunlight.They weren’t shaded by near constant tree cover and clouds like Moonvale townsfolk were.
I caught a glimpse of a fluffy white tail rounding the corner of the inn, around back.Was that a cat? Weird—it looks like that white one back in Moonvale.
“Welcome! What can I do for you?” the smiley innkeeper asked. He appeared to be human, though there was an energy about him that suggested some magical heritage. His skin had the slightest blue tint to it, and perhaps a sparkle as well, if my eyes weren’t deceiving me.
I smiled back. “Do you have any rooms available?”
The innkeeper flipped quickly through the leather-bound logbook in front of him. “Yes, we sure do! Just one?”
My smile froze on my face, turned to stone. I glanced in Kizzi’s direction to find her still chatting with the merchant, holding up a tiny palm tree and examining its rich, shiny leaves. She appeared to be in no hurry, content to discuss every detail of the plant.
“How many rooms are available?” I asked. My voice came out tight. Strained.
“We have three, right now.”
I gulped, my thoughts balanced somewhere between guilt and eagerness. I thought of the last time Kizzi and I shared a room—the way we had to slip around each other constantly, the way her apple scent filled the room and clung to my clothes. The way she gravitated toward me in the night…
All I knew was that I wanted to be as close to her as possible, for as long as I could.
“Sir?”
“How many beds in those rooms?” I asked around the tightness in my throat.
“Two of the rooms have one bed, the third is a larger room with two beds,” he answered smoothly. “Would you like to have more space?”
I glanced at Kizzi again to be sure she wasn’t within hearing distance. “And how much do they cost?”
He glanced at his logbook. “Two silvers for the smaller rooms, three for the larger.”
I made up my mind. If my time on this journey with Kizzi was limited, I would make the most of it.
