The wolfkin woman paled and stepped back, but pointed one black-clawed finger at me. “She destroyed my lute! I make my livelihood with this thing.”
With a sigh, Ezo reached into a pouch at his belt and pulled out a handful of gold pieces, which he offered to the wolfkin. “For your trouble, and maybe a song? Uh. Acapella, I guess.”
She snatched the coins and shot a dirty look first at me, then at Firenza. “Keep her away from me, and I’ll sing whatever you want.”
“Great.” Ezo glanced around at the frozen common room. A man in a worn apron I recognized as the Hermit’s owner stood off to the side, wringing his hands.
“Maybe something to get the party started again?” Ezo asked.
Behind him, Ivy had managed to cajole Firenza back to the table, pointing at some recently arrived mugs of ale.
“Sure. Whatever.” The wolfkin started counting the money. I didn’t think Ezo was going to get his song.
With a sigh, he turned to me. He blinked, and his expression turned cow-eyed. “Uh. Hi.” His voice was every bit as dreamy as his brown eyes. “What’s your name?”
I would have laughed—I nearly did. Then I remembered I was supposed to be crying.
“Adeline Riverdeep.” I sniffed. “I’m sorry. I’m so clumsy. I’ll t-try to pay you back.”
“Oh, no, that’s fine,” the goblin waved away my words.
“Ezo,” Talsar said sharply. The goblin ignored him. Thank goodness for stupid boys.
I let my lower lip wobble. “But, you see, I was coming to talk to you anyway. Y-y’all . . . I mean, I might be wrong, but are you the Ezo Twistkettle? Are y’all that group of adventurers who killed Archmage Oakenlock?”
“ Ezo,” Talsar hissed.
Ezo puffed out his chest. He had the warm green skin of most goblins, as well as the big eyes and bold bone structure. A shock of black hair ran in a straight line down the center of his head, the sides shaved close to his scalp. He was pretty handsome actually. And near enough my age that I might have flirted with him, had circumstances allowed.
“I am,” he said. “We are.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” I exploded into sobs and threw myself into his arms. “Please, Ezo, you have to help me! The hags have my sister!”
I did not have a sister.
“Absolutely not.” Talsar’s pretty-boy face was set, his jaw a hard line. “Have you lost your minds? We don’t know her. We are not following her anywhere.”
He was not even going to pretend he liked or trusted me. It might have been offensive, but he was the type who looked sideways at everyone, and I couldn’t fault him for that. Heck, I agreed with the guy. By and large, people were sneaky and stupid.
The damsel routine had done only half the work I’d hoped. By the time we reached the private dining room that Talsar had insisted on—something about “not screeching our plans in public like a bunch of drunken banshees”—both Ivy and Ezo were as sweet on me as honey on a biscuit. But Firenza kept shooting me suspicious looks, and Talsar was having none of it.
“We haven’t even heard her story,” Ivy threw her hands in the air, her fine brow pinched in consternation. In the light from the small fire in the hearth, her auburn hair turned orange and gold. “All you have to do is listen.”
The dining room was cozier than the common room, with only the small hearth and two lamps. The table was empty except for Firenza, who sat on the far side staring at me inscrutably over a chipped vase of winter flowers. Ezo hovered by the door, shooting me glances and blushing every time we made eye contact.
I’d taken a small stool close to the window and propped Bob between my knees. We were on the second story, and the dining room had a much better view of the city than I had from my closet-sized room on the first floor.
Between the glow of the streetlamps and the moon reflecting off the snow, Aster, the Climbing City, was lit near bright as day. It had been built up either side of a pass through the Throne Mountains, its roads switchbacking steeply all the way from the Isceald River to the mansions and palaces high above. Bridges arched across the chasm between, heavy and utilitarian at the bottom where warehouses collected goods shipped up the river, but more delicate as they ascended toward the city’s heights. Some of them were even mechanical, and could retract at the touch of a lever to allow space for passing dragons or the occasional airship.
“Talsar, listen,” Ivy pleaded.
“Why should I listen when you’re just going to repeat yourself for the third time?”
“Maybe if you would listen, she wouldn’t have to repeat herself,” Ezo replied acidly.
“As if I’m more likely to listen to the idiot who set a house with children in it on fire,” Talsar shot back.
Ezo scuffed the floor with one worn boot and grumbled, “Because your morals are so flawless.”
Firenza slammed her tankard onto the table, which startled me so badly I clutched Bob to my chest.
“TALSAR! Stop living in the past! He thought he was setting ADULTS on fire! And as far as we know, all those children survived!”
“I don’t know if three months ago counts as the past—” Ivy began softly.
“Ivy, for the love of all the gods, stop. All of you, stop!” Talsar shoved his fingers into his white hair, and for a second I was afraid he was fixing to pull it clean out. Then he whirled on me. “Tell the whole story, beginning to end. That way, when I still insist on leaving you here, I won’t have to listen to this.” He gestured to everyone else in the room.
This right here was why I always traveled alone. If they hated each other so much—which, from their rigid postures and angry faces, they did—then why in all the hundred hells did they stay together?
“Well?” Talsar growled.
I took a breath, running my fingers over and over the runes in Bob’s handle. “Y’all have gathered from my accent that I’m from the provinces?”
They all nodded except Talsar, who just kept staring at me like he could burn holes in my head with his eyes.
“And I assume, since you’re breathing and haven’t just emerged from beneath a rock, you know what happened there during the War of Six Kings?”
Raids. Massacres. So much death.
No, I would suppress the memories. That time was over. Once I had the power arcane, I would never be helpless again.
Their expressions changed, even Talsar’s. “We know it.”
“So then it probably won’t surprise you to learn that during the war, my sister and I were shipped to Middleport with dozens of other provincial children. A big city in the interior of the empire with high walls to keep us safe. Our parents stayed to work the land and make sure the armies had crops to eat.”
I couldn’t help a humorless laugh. Children without parents are never safe, not anywhere. “The war ended, and most of the kids went home, but my parents never showed up. Come to find later that they’d disappeared sometime in the weeks before the war ended, when the fighting was worst. I—we—never heard from them again. We stayed in Middleport, in one of the homes that popped up to house children like us. Children with no parents and no homes to go back to . . .”
Ivy made a sad noise, only to be shushed immediately by Talsar, and I was grateful to the dark elf. The problem with a good lie is that it’s mostly truth. I felt like I’d ripped open my chest to show these strangers my beating heart, but I didn’t want their pity. I was not pitiful. I was strong.
No, I reminded myself, I did want their pity. Pity made people do stupid things.