Today I need all the confidence I can muster. Especially when I have to deal with a ruined bar and all the clearing up. I buckle on the sword without thinking and slide the dagger into the hidden sheath I have in the waistband of the dress.
These are items I am unable to ever leave in my room. The sword settles at my side like an old friend.
I open the door, expecting a Brag-sized hole in the floor.
There isn’t one. The floorboards look as they did yesterday, even down to the worm. I walk over and tap my foot on one, making sure it isn’t some sort of illusion.
Maybe the dream I had about the Brag went further. Maybe it included him…falling through the floor. After all, the rest of it was quite graphic. I don’t test the floor further, instead choosing to go down the servants’ stairs to the kitchens which are filled with the smell of baking.
“Good morning, Lady Ryle,” she trills as I spot the familiar bulk of Cuthbert and his little dangerous shadow, Edgar, merrily hoovering up the last of a batch of morning rolls stuffed with bacon and sausage.
I greet her as I make my way through to myboys. Cuthbert and Edgar are security, but they also provide the brawn inside and out of the tavern.
“Has Millie told you?” I ask.
“About the Brag?” Edgar wipes the back of his hand over his mouth as Cuthbert chews happily. “She told us.”
“I don’t know which one of you were responsible for fixing the landing upstairs, but thank you. Good job.”
Cuthbert looks at Edgar and Edgar looks back at him.
“We didn’t, my lady,” Cuthbert says through a mouthful of crumbs.
“Didn’t what?”
“Fix anything.”
“But it’s fixed…”
I am now really worried I did dream the whole thing about the Brag falling through the floor, and the more I think about it, the more it would have to be a dream. A centaur, in my tavern, falling through the floor and ruining my tavern the day before the wolf moon? Cheese dreams, surely.
Only I didn’t eat any cheese yesterday, not at all, and not before bed, I’m sure of it.
“Well, we’ll need to get the remains of the beam out of the bar area and fix up the ceiling,” I say, ploughing on as Cuthbert shoves another roll filled with bacon in his mouth. “I don’t know how badly damaged the bar itself is, but it’ll need to be patched up, and we’ll have to get some more tables and chairs from somewhere.”
Behind me, Millie starts to hum a tune, as if this is any ordinary day and not the morning after a Bragfell through my ceiling and ruined my bar. I turn to glare at her, but she has her back to me, putting a batch of pies in an oven.
“I don’t think we need to do anything like that, my lady,” Edgar says carefully, with the tone of someone who is not used to dealing with more delicate subjects. “The tavern is just fine.”
“Just fine?Just fine?” My voice rises in pitch, and I am unable to help myself. My hand going to the hilt of my sword. “The Bragdestroyedthe bar last night.”
“Yeah.” Cuthbert gives me a gummy, bacon-filled grin. “He did. But he fixed it all up, good as new.”
“What?”
“Yes, my lady. He brought his Duegar from the Shadow Keep. They did all the work. Not even a bit of sweeping up is needed.”
My head spins. “But…”
“I told you,” Millie says in a sing-song voice. “It was the Brag who caused the damage and it would be the Brag who fixed it.”
“But monsters…they don’t have magic,” I splutter, feeling incredibly out of my depth.
“Most of them don’t. They don’t need it,” Millie confirms. “But they know those who do have magic, and every self-respecting Brag would have an army of Duegar.”
“What the hell is a Duegar?” I demand, patience deserting me. “What the hell is going on in my tavern?”
“Lady Ryle,” a deep voice booms from the doorway between the kitchens and the bar.
