As they neared the city, Cole took a deep breath. He wasn’t sure it would work, but if he listened to the people who cared about him instead of the ghosts that didn’t—if he dwelled on the good instead of the ugly—maybe he’d find a way to mend what was broken inside him.
Chapter 22
Mistel
“Keep your back to the wall and your mouth out of trouble.”
That was Kurtz’s only advice to Mistel before they entered the Black Boar. With Zanna on prison duty, Mistel would have to be doubly careful.
The stench nearly knocked her off her feet. A roaring hearth and a few flickering lanterns barely cut through the smoke-filled air, revealing a packed room that reeked of sweat, cloudweed, wet fur, and rancid fat. The latter, Nanette Swain had once told Mistel, came from overusing cooking oil in a kitchen that prioritized quantity over quality.
Kurtz led them to a small platform in the corner. Cole pulled a chair from a table, sat, and began tuning his lute. Mistel withdrew her tambourine from her satchel and surveyed the lively crowd.
Beneath the watchful glare of a massive stuffed boar’s head above the bar, patrons laughed, talked, and clinked tankards.
“So many people,” Mistel murmured.
“It’s a base for Fenris Yarden and his Howlers,” Cole said. “See the man in the back with his feet up? That’s him.”
Mistel searched the crowd. “The one Kurtz fought in Lytton Hall?”
“Yeah,” Kurtz said. “Let’s steer clear of him tonight, eh? But if anything happens, distract, disable, and get out.”
Mistel finally spotted the notorious man, lounging in a high-backed chair at the back of the room, feet propped on a barrel like he owned the place. He looked close to Kurtz’s age, maybe older—too much curly blond hair, too loud a laugh, too gaudy a tunic, too many rings. A preening rooster.
“That’s Ikârd beside him,” Cole added. “He helped Fenris fight Kurtz.”
“Man has no manners, eh? Barging into another man’s brawl like that.”
Mistel eyed Ikârd, whose shaved head gleamed in the lantern light as he toyed with an ax on his belt. He reminded her of Osrik Nath, her former slumlord.
On the other side of Fenris sat an old blind man with a linen cloth over his eyes.
“Who is—?” Mistel started.
“You made it!” A cheerful voice cut her off. Nash approached the stage, grinning, snow dusting his slicked-back hair and coat. “Can’t wait to hear you sing.”
Recalling Cole’s warning, Mistel offered a polite smile. “Thank you. We’re excited too.”
“Did Drustan show you the storage room?”
“We haven’t seen Master Fawst,” Mistel said, which was a very good thing, or she might have throttled the man for what he’d done to Cole.
Lines pinched on Nash’s forehead as he scanned the room. “He’s probably in the office. Let me show you the room, in case you need a private place to rest between performances.”
Cole set down his lute. “I’ll come with you.”
Nash led them down a hallway toward a back door. “That leads to the alley,” he said. “But this…” He pushed open a door across from the kitchen. “It’s not much, but it’s yours whenever you perform. I’ll have the lamp lit.”
The storage room was cramped and dark, the air heavy with ale-soaked barrels and dried herbs strung from low beams. A battered table sat against the wall, its top cluttered with three upside-down mismatched stools and an unlit oil lamp.
“Oh, this is perfect,” Mistel said. And it smelled ten times better than the main room. “Thank you.”
Nash leaned in, bracing a hand against the wall beside her head. “I’ve been looking forward to this since I heard you sing at the Dale. Tsaftown’s been a wasteland of talent until you came along.”
Cole cleared his throat. “We need to run through a few last-minute things before we start.”
“What things?” Mistel asked.
