Page 1

1

Echo of Change

Anya

T he sound came from the Western Wood, a distant and eerie whine.

I barely noticed it over the din inside the Pretty Possum Inn while Wicker and the farmer’s collie, Annie, romped in the grass, I’d fixed Quinn’s broken gate so that his sheep didn’t wander through the party grounds.

By the time I’d returned to the Pretty Possum to prepare rooms for tomorrow’s influx of Mirror Knights, the day was mostly over.

“Don’t tell us you’re interested in finding yourself a Mirror Knight?” Vera asked, still stuck on the topic of my love life.

“ Fates ,” Hugh swore, wiping his gray mustache with his sleeve. “Anya knows better than that, doesn’t she?”

Martha was quick to pile on. “Tempting as they might be, all knights are bad news,” she lectured. “Selfish sell-swords more interested in roaming than settling down.”

Vera took a bite of her stew, then aimed her spoon at me. “Lone wolves, the lot of them.”

I didn’t bother pointing out that most knights were not lone wolves , but, in fact, were part of large militaristic regiments. When this trio sat on a high horse together, there was no winning.

“Selfish lone wolves,” Hattie mused from beside me. “Sounds like someone, doesn’t it?” It was an obvious dig at Remy, who wasn’t a knight, but also wasn’t the settling-down type.

Two could play this game. “You know Noble is a retired knight,” I pointed out.

Now it was her turn to blush. She’d had an eye for Noble, the reclusive metalworker, ever since he arrived in Waldron this past spring and took up work with the town blacksmith.

“Noble just proves my point,” Vera said, oblivious to Hattie’s discomfort.

“Odd duck, isn’t he?” Martha added.

Hattie cleared Martha’s empty plate, clearly not coming to her crush’s defense for fear of drawing more attention to the topic.

“I’m not looking for a knight,” I assured everyone.

“What are you looking for, then?” Vera asked.

Some damned peace from this conversation , I wanted to say.

“Definitely not true love,” Hattie said.

There was a wash rag looped through the belt of my apron. I yanked it free and snapped it in Hattie’s direction. She jumped back, giggling.

“Why seek a man when I have Wicker, Hattie, and the Possum?” I said grandly.

“Sexual satisfaction?” Hattie supplied.

Hugh choked on a sip of cider, Fates bless him. Martha and Vera merely smirked.

“Trust me, I’m just fine,” I said. Remy was satisfying enough, and—even better—he didn’t stick around long enough to hurt me.

“Francis will be so disappointed,” Martha tutted.

I held a shushing finger up to my lips, glancing around the room for Farmer Quinn, whose son, Francis, had taken an interest in me as of late.

“Wait,” Hattie said, “is that why you won’t take Francis up on his offer to sweep our chimneys?”

“You know his offer is more about wanting to sweep my chimney, not the inns’,” I said.

Poor Hugh coughed again.

“If I accept,” I went on, “I’ll give the wrong impression.”

“What’s so wrong with that?” Martha asked. “Francis is sweet.”

“He’s too timid for her,” Vera said.

Timid was an understatement, but I didn’t want to bad-mouth him. Francis was nice enough, he just wasn’t for me. I preferred men like Remy—storied and a little complicated. As someone whose life revolved around socializing with strangers, I liked men who could keep me on my toes.

“Timid, or simply kind?” Martha argued.

While Vera, Martha, and Hugh launched into a debate about Francis, a hand went up in the dining room, hailing me over.

As I brushed past Hattie, I leaned in close and whispered, “I’d break that poor boy in half.”

Hattie snorted a laugh. “That’s probably true.”