I hopped down from the driver’s bench and looped the reins over the hitching rail before heading around to shoulder both of our bags. “You looked like you needed the rest.”
He pushed up to his feet and stretched, sending himself into a coughing fit that took longer than I liked to pass. He cleared his throat and glanced over at the other wagon. “What happened to the lamb?” he asked.
I frowned. “What lamb?”
“From Cait’s story. With her brother? And the river?”
“Oh.” Hours of idle chatter had filled the space between then and now, and when I thought back to the story, I couldn't recall its ending. “You know, she didn't say.”
Penny's forehead scrunched with lingering concern, and I chuckled.
“They're just inside. You can ask her.” I offered him a hand down from the cart.
He took it and held on a few seconds longer than necessary after climbing down. When he pulled away, I fought the urge to catch my fingers in his again. I would be glad when we parted ways with the other initiates so I could be with Penny the way we were at home, the way we couldn'tbe in Ashpoint. Out here on the road, I didn’t care who saw how close we were becoming. I’d gladly show them all.
Penny shuffled to the inn’s gnarled wooden door and held it open, then trailed me inside.
The pub was small, with only a handful of tables and rickety chairs scattered about the space. Nearly all of them were packed with people. A fireplace nestled in between two clusters of threadbare armchairs on the far wall, but the room was plenty warm with the gathered crowd. Cait had claimed a table off to the left on the edge of the room, and she waved us toward it.
I dug my coin pouch and the small stack of letters I’d brought from home out of my pack before handing it to Penny. “Why don’t you go sit? I’ll get the room taken care of, and you can find out what happened to the lamb.”
He did as he was told, winding through the room and settling into the chair across from Cait.
I joined Edgar at the bar on the right side of the room to arrange lodging for Betty, Penny, and me, and to order food to be sent to the table. Edgar insisted he’d get both horses put in for the night, and I was happy to let him.
Once he’d disappeared back out the door, I slid the stack of letters to the innkeeper. “I need to get these to Eastcliff.”
He nodded. “There’s a courier a town over who stops in now and again. He gets out that way every couple of months. Four coppers for him, and two for my trouble.”
I handed over the coin, and he tucked the letters away behind the counter.
I reached the table just as Cait was finishing her story. Penny was grinning, so I assumed the lamb survived. I sank into the seat beside him, resting my hand on his knee under the table and earning a faint blush across his pale cheeks inresponse. When Edgar joined us at the same time the barmaid was passing out our meals, Penny was more than ready to pull them into conversation while I poked at the food I felt too nauseous to eat.
“How did you two meet?” he asked around a mouthful of roast.
Cait flashed Edgar a smile and leaned her shoulder against his. “I moved to town mid-year, but I settled right in and got to work in the fields. I’d been there a few weeks when Edgar showed up one day to build some boxed beds for the spring and winter barley, and that was that. There was something about him. I never stood a chance.”
“I knew the second I laid eyes on her that I was going to marry her,” Edgar cut in. “We started courting a week later and were married before the first harvest.”
“It’s been the best six months of my life.” Cait pecked her husband’s cheek, staring at him with such adoration that it was hard to believe they’d barely known each other half a year.
They’d married within the same amount of time Penny and I had known each other. I couldn’t imagine being so sure of my own feelings to commit to someone for the rest of my life when it had taken me that long to figure out that I might have feelings at all.
“That’s so romantic,” Penny said, his chin propped in his hand and a sappy smile on his face.
“You’re veritable strangers.” I regretted saying it when the other three turned toward me. “How could you possibly know you want to spend the rest of your lives together when you hardly know each other?”
“When you know, you know,” Edgar said.
The answer was too simple to accept. “Buthowdo you know?”
“We just did,” Cait said. “I couldn’t imagine the rest of my life without Edgar in it, and that was all I needed to know.”
Penny tangled his fingers with mine and nodded along like it made all the sense in the world. Was he that sure ofme? Did he expect this same rapid progression in our relationship while I was content to let things stay as they were? I didn’t want to have to keep what we had to myself forever, but what wewerewas already more than I ever expected to have, and it was enough. We didn’t know what the next nine months would bring, let alone the next nine years, so how could he know already that he wanted to tie himself to me for the rest of his life?
“How old are you?” I asked.
“We both turned twenty this year,” Edgar said.
