Razik returned with mugs, placing them down on the table. He slid one to her, then to Cethin, putting more force behind his, liquid sloshing over the side. Then he slipped into the booth on her right.
“Did you find sleeping accommodations?” Cethin asked, his voice low.
“I figured we’d go to Tenebrae Halls. I think they’ll make room for their king,” Razik said before taking a drink.
“Yeah,” Cethin said, fingers clenched around the handle of his mug. “I just prefer to give more than a few hours’ notice of my plans.”
“They’re going to have room. It’s not as if people are clamoring to visit Shadowfen.”
The fingers of Cethin’s other hand drummed on the tabletop, the sound jarring in the otherwise silent tavern.
“Does anyone actually live in this town?” Kailia asked, her hands in her lap. Closer to her daggers.
“It’s not a large population,” Cethin answered. “But yes, there are people who live here.”
“It’s barely past sundown. This is when Avonleya is most active, and yet there wasn’t a soul on the streets.”
“They were out there,” Razik said. “They just stay hidden. You should know all about that.”
That would explain the constant unease and feeling of people watching her.
Cethin took a drink of his ale before he said, “Now that you’ve seen the lie of your origin, care to share where you’re really from, wife?”
Razik paused, his mug halfway to his mouth, suspended in the air. His sapphire stare was pinned on her. If she’d learned anything about the male these past weeks, it was that he loved knowledge of any kind. Hoarded it like he hoarded his books.
She needed to offer them something. She was supposed to be trying here, and sharing personal information helped build trust. At least that was what she’d been told.
“You already know I came from across the Edria Sea,” she said, eyeing the mug before her she had yet to touch.
“Only a handful of ships have made it through the Wards,” Cethin mused. “Something I’d love to discuss more with you, but not right now. Where across the Edria are you from?”
“Various places,” she answered. “I moved around a lot.”
“That’s not surprising considering your gifts,” Cethin said with a small, encouraging smile.
She didn’t return it.
“Did you prefer one place over another?” he asked after a moment.
“The farther north, the better,” she answered. “I spent some time in Pyry with the Shifters there for a while.”
“And then?”
“And then I went somewhere else.”
“Any other continents besides Pyry?” Razik asked, both of them entirely focused on her now.
“The main continent,” she answered, watching a drop of condensation slide down the mug.
“Novum?”
She nodded. “No one calls it that though.”
“Were you raised in the Fae Courts then?” Cethin asked.
She pursed her lips, fingering one of the dagger hilts at her thigh. “No.”
His brows crashed together, but it was Razik who said, “Surely not the mortal lands? I thought magic wasn’t accessible in those lands? Were you with the Shifters in Novum before going to Pyry?”
