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“Yer pushin’ the friendship, bein’ at me bar this early, Ryon. I don’t cook nothin’ this early, and this ain’t a fuckin’ charity.”

Salem strides between the tables, his tunic untucked, the wisps of his remaining ginger hair bristling. Ryon imagines Salem isn’t much older than him, but he looks it. The bags beneath his eyes are well-etched – his years of hard liquor and tending the inn. He is imposing, the bulk of his weight in his neck and shoulders but plenty around his gut, too.

He drags his body behind the bar, pouring water from a glass bottle into a tankard. “Want some?”

“I’d take something stronger,” Ryon says.

“The liquor is fer the payin’ patrons, Ry. Yeh’re hardly that.”

“Ah, you would miss me if I didn’t trouble your doorstep.”

“Speakin’ of trouble, yeh ever gonna explain the half-dead lass yeh dragged in here an’ dumped upstairs?”

Ryon rolls his shoulders in discomfort. “Her name is Dawsyn.”

“Aye, an’ where’d yeh find her?” Salem asks, his voice still raspy with sleep.

Ryon swallows. “She is from the Ledge.”

The tankard slams to the bar top and sloshes water over Salem’s hand. For a moment, he only stares incredulously at Ryon, his jaw slack. “Yeh best be kiddin’ me, Ry.”

Ryon shakes his head.

“Fuckin’ hell, yeh idiotic bastard! What did yeh do?”

Ryon rolls his eyes. “Nothing. I only helped her off the slopes.”

“Start talkin’, yeh unthinkin’ dick! What is a girl from the Ledge doin’ here?”

“She was taken to the palace and instead of jumping in the pool, she chose the slopes. She ran off like a fucking mountain cat. There were four Glacians in the air, hunting her down for sport. I was one of them.”

Salem frowns, his hand twitching nervously. “That’s a lot to risk to save a girl.”

“It wasn’t to save her. This is my out. The King likely thinks me dead. When I return, it won’t be for pleasantries.”

“That so?” Salem guffaws. “Yeh sure yeh haven’t led those animals here? Should I be expectin’ Glacians at me stoop?”

Ryon shakes his head. “They called off the search even quicker than I’d thought. I do not believe they are looking for me at all. I believe even less that they would bother to search for Dawsyn. They will not imagine that she has survived.”

“I’d rip yer head from yer neck if it weren’t hard as a rock, yeh jackass. Yeh’d better be right in yer assumptions.”

“You know, you tend toward the dramatic in the morning, Salem. Calm yourself. I would never have ventured close if I’d thought we were being watched.”

Salem shakes his head, muttering more insults beneath his breath. He reaches to a shelf behind him and lowers an amber bottle, pouring himself a generous helping. “Well, shit on me grave. She has to be the first person to leave the Ledge since the whole lot of ’em went up. Terrsaw will treat her like their long-lost daughter.”

“Terrsaw needn’t know.”

“Know what?” says a voice from the back of the room.

Dawsyn stands at the threshold to the dining room, her skin less sallow after proper food and sleep. Her raven-black hair falls around her shoulders, and she is still in the sullied tunic and pants she wore on the mountain. She moves toward them, her steps hampered by the bandaging.

The sight and sound of her stirs something in him. He spent several days and nights close to her side and a few hours without her has felt like a void. He cannot name it, precisely, this urge to rise and be near.

She reaches the bar, her chin high. “Are you the innkeeper?” Her voice does not waver.

Ryon hides a smile. This ought to be good. A girl of the Ledge fraternizing with those in Terrsaw for the first time. She should be afraid, but if she is, she does not show it.

Salem puts the bottle down. “I am that, miss. The ruffian here tells me yer name’s Dawsyn?”