She stares at me for a long moment. Her jaw tightens, and she pulls a gold emblem from beneath her coat and sets it on the bench beside her. The ruby at its center catches the firelight and holds it, burning steady in the dim room like something that has been waiting to be seen.
Neither of us speaks. The fire pops and settles. Her heartbeat is loud in my chest.
I still don’t know her name.
3
SELAH
The common room smells like dying smoke and last night’s ale. The fire has burned down to coals beneath the gray morning light. Corvin sets three mugs of kaffo on the table without asking. Brinna takes the chair across from me, spins it around, and straddles it like she’s settling in for a performance.
I wrap both hands around the mug and tell them what they need to know. Not everything, but enough.
“I worked as an archivist’s assistant for a noble house,” I begin. “The kind of archive that exists to protect old money and older names. Eight months ago, I found a secondary registry. Hundreds of names, all of them mixed-blood families going back generations. They were of gargoyle descent mixed with dark elf nobility. Their unions violate bloodline law. There were corresponding death records filed alongside them.”
The fire pops softly. Neither of them interrupts.
“This relic was stored in the same locked room,” I say. “I’d seen it used before. They pressed it against a man’s wrist, and the stone went black. I didn’t understand what that meant until I read the ledger. It identifies forbidden bloodlines. They wereusing it to find families and erase them. The children too. So I took it and ran.”
“Well,” Brinna says. “That’s a lot.”
“Yes.”
“And now an entire noble house wants you dead.” She tilts her head, considering. “And you’ve brought their hunting relic into our inn. And… there’s him too.”
Droza stands against the wall of the room, arms crossed, gold eyes fixed on the space around me like he’s cataloguing every potential threat in it. He exists in the room the way a storm exists on the horizon.
“He followed you down from your room,” Brinna says pleasantly. “Followed you through the hall. Stood outside the kitchen door until you came in here.” She lifts her mug. “Rennic came by about the morning delivery and couldn’t get any words out.”
I don’t look at Droza. I can feel him watching anyway.
“He’s not—” I start an explanation, but she cuts me off.
“I don’t need to know what it is,” Brinna says. “I’m not interested in the magical explanation.” The smile that crosses her face is slow and thoroughly entertained. “I’m interested in the fact that he just turned his head to look at Corvin for sparing a glance at you.”
I finally look over. Droza has, in fact, fixed Corvin with an expression of silent, unreasonable evaluation.
Corvin looks unruffled. He has probably survived worse.
“This is going to be a problem,” I say.
“Oh, absolutely,” Brinna agrees. She sounds delighted about it.
“I don’t mean to make trouble,” I say.
“It’s no trouble. This inn has always welcomed any traveler who needed rest. Stay as long as you need,” Corvin says.
Either way, I’m not comforted. These are good people here, and I feel like I’m putting them in danger by staying.
“Thank you,” I say quietly.
Gullhaven never goes fully quiet, but there’s a lull between the lunch crowd and the evening rush. Corvin retreats to his ledgers, and Brinna disappears somewhere she doesn’t explain. The common room thins out to a handful of sailors nursing their ales in comfortable silence. My gargoyle shadow is busy keeping an eye on them.
I take my coat, the relic, and nothing else.
The back door opens into a narrow alleyway behind the inn that leads toward the harbor road. From there it’s a straight walk north along the cliffs to where the road branches, one fork heading inland toward the trade routes, the other dropping down toward the water.
I make it approximately four minutes before the tether pulls tight.
