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The boy perches on an uneasy stool.

My bones brace for failure as I watch him manoeuvre into a crouching stance on the stool, from bottom to boots, then slowly rise to stand.

“Lief,” I start, teeth bared against the threat of his fall, and if he does fall, his head will smack right off the bar, and he will be another dead. “Get down. I will do it.”

“No, Miss Nari,” he grunts out the words as he stretches and stretches all the way up on his toes to reach the plaque bolted to the top shelf. “I got it.”

“You don’t,” I say and, sidestepping Hedda who chases flickering lights from the glowjars all over the wooden floor, start for the bar. “You will fall.”

“Only if you keep willing it,” he grumbles, low enough that I suspect he didn’t mean for me to hear him.

I arch a brow and turn a blank look on Forranach.

His smirk is small, hidden by the list of orders he works on, and he only meets my gaze for a brief moment.

I find I can’t so easily turn my cheek to a young boy barely balanced on an old, flimsy stool to reach the plaque on the top shelf.

So I watch, as though that’ll somehow stop him from tumbling to his death. But I don’t interrupt again.

I let him delicately sweep the cloth over the names of his parents.

It is our way here at Eamon’s.

Above the hearth, his name is cursive on a plaque stuck to the wall; Lief’s parents on the top shelf; Aleana’s name gilded along a blackwood slab over the cosy corner sofas.

Those plaques aren’t the most special part of our tavern.

It is the black vase on the centre table, a table without chairs, but rather an array of candles to light for the dead.

The idea came from Eamon himself.

At the Sabbat, he said he wanted his tavern to be special, to be ‘ a place to honour the dead. Not to rouse them from rest, not to disturb them, but to love them…’

I took that—and put the vase on the middle table.

Patrons write small stories about those they have lost. And throughout the Quiet, two stories are plucked from the vase and read aloud to the tavern’s patrons.

Forranach has taken to reading the tales. It is a duty he snared into his grip.

I am glad for that, because I don’t quite have the stomach to address the dead yet.

I stick to the kitchen in those moments.

I didn’t know if it would work when the idea first came to me, if it would offend the beliefs of our patrons, the locals of Cheapside.

But since, in the Quiet, we are packed full, I would say it offends very few Cheapside locals. But success in this business is never guaranteed.

We might only be busy because we are new.

I hope it is the tavern itself that draws the folk in; that they are lured by Eamon’s dream come to fruition.

And I hope he knows this.

The door rattles behind me.

Locked, it shudders in the frame as someone outside tries the handles. They give up after a moment, but not before Lief has shouted out:

“We are closed!”

I shoot him a look, my brows raised.

He blinks on me before he adds, “Come back at the First Wind!”

I nod, small.

But the door rattles again, this time with a knock, firm, shuddering the wood.

I huff and pull away from the bar.

My collection of polished glasses is abandoned as I march for the trembling door, knock, knock, knock .

Each step closer, my irritation swells that bit more until it is a flurry of ice in my chest.

I stalk past the windows, curtains parted and so I see the sudden fluttering of light out in the street.

Predictable as ever, Forranach looks at the window and watches the disturbance of the ravens flying and dipping and air-diving into the heart of Kithe.

This is their flightpath from Dorcha, over Cheapside, and they will land in the town’s centre where the depot messengers wait.

The ravens are from the returning units.

For weeks, each phase, they come in bursts. Sometimes dozens from a single unit, invading Kithe with messages of return.

Only one of those messages has been delivered to us. It came direct to the tavern after trying Forranach’s dwelling blocks away, but he wasn’t home. The messengers knew of our tavern and so brought it here.

The notice of return from Rune.

It arrived just two phases ago with the assurance of his survival, his safety, his return—and mentioned he should be back in Kithe shortly.

Since then, Forranach has paused for each burst of ravens into the town.

He has not yet received Niamh’s letter of return.

The wedded pair are separated, I have learned, but that love he has for her is as obvious as his missing leg. It holds his attention to the ravens as they disturb the light beyond the window—and he hopes for the return of the healer serving a unit in war.

My mouth tilts on his sorrowed hope as I pass him.

Lief doesn’t spare the flapping lights a moment’s glance; he just keeps polishing, and I have the fleeting thought to purchase him a ladder—if only for my own nerves.

I turn my cheek on the window, the ravens sweeping into town, and grab at the door’s latch.

No ravens have come for me, not from anyone, and I don’t know exactly what that means. I don’t know if Daxeel is still out there, delayed in the human realm, or dead. Dare, too.

Samick… well, he wouldn’t send a message to me, not on his deathbed, not even on mine.

I turn the latch and feel the clack hit through the door before I swing it open.

I look out onto the street, to the patron who can’t stop knocking, but it takes my eyes a moment to adjust to the dimmer light outside.

I can make out a brushstroke of yellow down a black canvas. I blink on the yellow, braided hair pulled into a topknot; gleaming cat eyes fixed on me; beige skin, coated with dark leathers.

A sound escapes me, a guttural noise blended with a squeal, and I shove myself into a run.

The run is curt, two steps to reach him, but the urgency slams me into his solid chest, hard enough that he staggers back with a laugh.

Rune’s arms come around me.

His scent floods me, soapy cloths run over his leathers, the faintest hint of salty tears; and a hot touch to his coffee-scented breath brushing through my hair.

I cling to him.

And for a long while, he lets me.

Into my hair, his words are muffled, “Melantha said I would find you all here.”

Something thrums through me, a struck cord.

Find you all here.

Whether he has come here to see Forranach or myself, or us both, that is not my thought. He might expect to find Eamon here, too. And they are friends, were friends, and Rune left before it happened…

I must tell him.

My throat bobs as, slowly, I peel myself away from him.

Rune’s hold slips away.

His eyes gleam down at me. That curious glint pins me.

My weight shifts, boot to boot, and my hands have found each other at my front, fingers tangled. “There’s something you should know… before you… before you come inside.”

Rune spares me from this hell. “I know.”

My gaze swerves up at him, to the grim twist setting his mouth into a stroked line and the sudden dimness of his eyes.

“You know?” I echo in a faint a whisper. “H-how?”

“Melantha wrote to me. The letter came a phase before our departure.” The grim twist to his mouth is creased with unease. “I am sorry I was not there.”

“They wouldn’t have attacked if you were,” I confess with a flinch. Almost four months and I still flinch as though the memory of it strikes me across the face. “It was only Eamon and Daxeel in that lane—it was the opportunity those litalves were waiting for.”

“But you were there,” Rune states the fact delicately, and he doesn’t chase it up with a question, he simply leaves it open for me to take.

I do.

With a faint nod, I cast a look down at his boots, the only part of his gear he didn’t take the time to wipe down before coming here, and so they are caked with dirt around the edges and scuffed all over the toes and heels.

“I was in the parade when I saw them, the litalves, going into the lane. I tried to call out, but the noise was…” My sigh sags me. “I… I killed one of them, the assassins, but… it wasn’t enough.”

And I killed the one I wasn’t aiming for.

I aimed at the other, to save Eamon. That was my choice. But instinct swerved my throw—and took out the one going after Daxeel.

I ponder that sometimes.

I can’t decide between Mother and evate.

Residue of the bond soaked into my muscles, an instinct I cannot override, one that swerved to protect Daxeel at the last moment; or Mother reaching into me, changing my position, just to deliver me to that fateful moment I plunged a blade into Daxeel to save Eamon.

I ponder it all, mull it in my mind, over and over.

I sometimes wonder if I had acted quicker, stabbed Daxeel the moment I heard Mother, then would Niamh have been drawn by fate to the lane sooner? Would she have arrived quick enough to heal Eamon?

Rune’s large hand comes down on my shoulder. His grip is firm, a reassurance that does little to soothe the anguish bubbling in me.

“Do you know who they were?”

“Bounty killers,” I say, and lift my frown to him. “They must have accepted Lord Braxis’s bounty in life, and when he died, his estate still pays old debts. Me, Eamon, Daxeel—we are old debts.”

“They were skilled,” Rune tells me, then runs his tongue along his sharp teeth. “Amateurs wouldn’t wait that long, their impatience would derail them.”

My voice is small, a faint whisper. “But why Eamon? Why take him to the afterlife—not me? Not just Daxeel. Eamon was… pure.”

Rune sighs a curt sound. “It could have been any of us. The slights exchanged expanded to us all. To Eamon when he came to your aid in the garrison; to me when I knocked out Taroh in Kithe—” My throat thickens at the reminder, a flashing assault of the memory, Taroh smacking me around that alleyway before Rune chased down my shouts. “—and to Daxeel when Taroh went missing. He never said to me he was responsible, but Daxeel and Dare together…” He shakes his head, that grim twist still wrangled onto his mouth. “We each made our choices, Nari, just as you would have made your choice to protect Eamon if he was the victim. The brutalities of a wicked male are not your crimes to wear.”

A damp trail runs down my cheek.

I swallow, thick and wet, then let a whooshing breath escape me.

‘The brutalities of a wicked male are not your crimes to wear.’

No one has said that to me. No one has told me that this isn’t my fault.

I didn’t know how much I needed to hear that.

The tears run down my cheeks, tugging in at my pinched mouth, a mouth that trembles.

I shudder in a breath that rattles my lungs. “But if…” I exhale, harsh. “But if it wasn’t for me, then Taroh wouldn’t have waged battle on anyone else—and his father wouldn’t have spread the bounty to other heads.”

Rune’s grip firms around my shoulder once more. “Isn’t it always easier, and yet so unfair, to blame a female for the crimes of a male? Even in pretty Licht, it seems that same pattern thrives.” His hand slips away as he leans his weight back onto one boot. “You are not to blame for Braxis or Taroh, for Eamon’s choices, for Daxeel’s… You are to blame for your own self, and no one else.”

My lips part, as though I make to speak, but no words come—and I simply gape at him for a moment.

Tears cling to my lashes, obscuring my sight in the dim Square. My throat bobs, swallowing down the brewing sobs, and I sniffle back the snot.

Rune is silent, watching as I wrestle to steady myself.

I wipe my hands down my face, leaving white streaks to ruin my cheeks.

“Well…” I start, a wobbly voice too wavered, “are you here for me—or your brother?”

Rune’s smile is small. “Made a friend in Forranach, have you?”

“He has a good soul.”

“You are the second to say that about him.”

“Who was the first?”

“Niamh.” Rune tucks his mouth. “She is biased.”

I sniff. “I think of him like a boiled sweet.”

Rune’s flicker of amusement glitters his eyes.

A smile dares soften my face. “Hard on the outside, with a tiny, soft core of butterscotch.”

His amusement breaks out into a grin. “Don’t write poetry, Nari. Stick to a tavern.”

I whack his arm, hard, then make to turn my back on him. I mean to lead the way inside where he can reunite with his brother, a relationship between them that I have not pried into, that I do not understand.

But I pause. “There is an orphan boy in there,” I tell him. “He stays with Forranach.”

Rune’s brows lift.

“Be kind,” I warn. “And don’t make eye-contact with Hedda… She is in her adolescence now and, well, just don’t look at her wrong—or touch her head.”

If his brows could lift any higher, they would disappear into his hairline. “What else have I missed?”

Before an answer can come from me, the thudding sound of bootfalls slap over and over on the cobblestone.

Rune twists to look over his shoulder; I lean aside to look around him.

A messenger from the town centre depot runs towards us. I can tell by the raven-claw gloves on his hands, the sack of letters slung over a shoulder, and the waistcoat with buttons in the image of red wax stamps.

“Miss Elmfield?”

I blink, once, twice, then stagger around Rune.

My mind goes blank.

I just… extend my hand.

“Narcissa Elmfield,” the messenger echoes, and slaps an envelope onto my waiting palm. “Just arrived. One copper piece.”

“Oh.” I crunch the flimsy paper in my fist before I pat around my pockets for a hint of coin. I find them, jangled in the deep, inner pocket of my cardigan. I reach in awkwardly, then pull out a few pieces.

One gold, three silver, a half-dozen copper.

Rune helps, he plucks a copper piece from my hand then tosses it to the messenger who swipes it out the air with practiced ease, then, with that, he’s turned on his heels and running off for his next delivery.

I have the fleeting wonder what it is like for those who cannot give the copper piece. This is, after all, Cheapside.

Not every fae here can pay for the service.

But maybe it is enough, to simply know that a letter has arrived, even if it cannot be read, that loved one has returned. A way to cheat a pricey system.

Rune’s shoulder brushes mine. He moves around to stand at my side, his gaze gleaming and locked onto the thin parchment inked with my name.

I stuff the rest of the coin into the pocket of my stained breeches, then turn the envelope over in my hands. Only, it isn’t quite an envelope; rather, it is a thrice-folded piece of cheap parchment, translucent.

I tear the strip of black tape from the edge then unfold the letter.

‘I am returned.

Daxeel’

That’s it.

I turn it over.

Nothing on the back.

Rune softens beside me; loosened shoulders, a sagging breath. But the tension is still knotted into me.

The letter has no mention of a stronghold, no place to meet. I read it a third time over, and the sagging of my shoulders is unlike Rune’s. Mine is not only relief. It is disappointment, too.

Daxeel doesn’t want me to meet him anymore.

That has changed.

I feel that, a crushing weight of different emotions coming down on me, a conflict that has my face twisting.

For so long, I shoved the thought of Daxeel out there in battle, in war, from my mind. I dodged lingering thoughts of him and his delayed return, what was supposed to be three months becoming three months and more phases and more phases—until an extra two weeks passed. Those added two weeks came with distractions in the form of Lief and the tavern.

But now, I stand here with the letter in hand, and I feel it. I do not dodge it.

Relief, like the spread of bathwater all over my cold, prickled flesh after a trek in the rain; like the first gulp of water after a long, hot Warmth; like that hot cup of coffee after a fulfilled night of sleep… It is relief that unwinds all the tension throughout my body.

And the ache that throbs, the anger etched into it, that he doesn’t offer me a place to go, the place to meet him.

It’s now that I realise I would have gone to the stronghold… I would have gone to see him.

Rune backsteps for the tavern doors. “Let’s get inside. I am thirsty—and I have much to tell you.”

“Like what?” I mumble, my frown fixed on the parchment. I fold it, then tuck it into my pocket. “How many humans you took down?”

His eyes roll. “Small things. I have a slave,” he mentions, casual. “Her name is Adrianna.”

I follow him to the doors. “A… A slave? Human?”

“Kuri, specifically.”

A human descendent of the fae, but so far removed that they are never seen as one of us. Hell, I am half fae and there have been so many times in my life that even I am not accepted as one of the fullbreeds.

“Did you just steal a human?”

“No, we collected them across the human realm. All the units were ordered to take as many as possible.”

“To keep?”

His smile is suddenly proud. “General Caspan gifted her to me—after I aided in protecting his evate from Bracken, and we ended a revolt, and after…” His mouth quirks up at the side. “I was promoted to his second.”

I blink. “You… what ?”

A grin splits his face. “I’ll tell you everything—over a hundred ales, if you please. It has been the longest three months of my life.”