The Baroness tested the water with one gloved finger, then recoiled. “It’s so hot I may perish.”
“Good,” Lucy muttered. “Boil off the attitude.”
“What was that?”
“I said bold of you to test the water yourself.”
They bathed quickly. Lucy fully immersed herself, sighing dramatically with relief, while the Baroness clung to the edge of her tub like it might swallow her whole.
When they finished, the Baroness sniffed, “I miss the lemon scent of my bath.”
Lucy shrugged. “I miss my will to live.”
Back in their room, Lucy grabbed the stack of blankets and pillows she’d charmed from the innkeeper and plopped them in the far corner.
“What,” the Baroness demanded, “are you doing?”
“Building a nest.”
Lucy had never slept well in a bed that wasn't hers. Too soft meant vulnerable. Too big meant watched. Floors, corners, and piles of blankets were honest.
“A… nest?”
“Yes. I don’t fight my enemies on an empty stomach, and I don’t sleep in the only bed in the room when the elderly need it more.”
The Baroness’s eye twitched. “Absolutely not. You will take the bed.”
Lucy snorted. “No. You need it more. Your bones sound like branches breaking in a weak breeze.”
“How dare—my bones are youthful and sturdy!”
“I think the only youthful and sturdy thing in the room right now is me.”
“Enough of your sass, child! You will take the bed, and that is final!”
“Make me—”
Basil dropped his pack with a thud that rattled the window.
“Enough!”
Both Lucy and the Baroness froze mid-glare. Lucy respected raised voices only when they were earned. Basil’s was.
Basil pointed at the bed. “Both of you. Bed. Now.”
“We are not—” the Baroness began.
“I am not—” Lucy tried.
“It is big enough for two,” he said, somehow whispering and yelling at the same time. “I have slept in trenches and snowstorms, with a dislocated shoulder and a goblin chewing my boots. But I cannot sleep through you two bickering like alley cats. Get in the bed, and be quiet.”
Lucy and the Baroness exchanged a long, horrified look.
“Fine,” they muttered in unison, climbing onto opposite sides of the bed like cats forced to share a sunbeam.
Lucy stared at the ceiling and considered all the choices that had led her here. She regretted none of them. That felt suspicious.
Lucy wrapped the blanket around herself like a burrito of suffering. The Baroness lay stiffly, hands folded atop her chest, as if preparing for her own burial.
