Page 15 of Sorcery, Swords & Scones (Tales from the Tavern #2)

Fifteen

When the last of the evening's patrons had finally teetered out the door and into the night, a comfortable quiet blanketed the tavern.

Sass moved through the empty great room, collecting abandoned tankards and wiping down tables that still bore the sticky rings of ale and the crumb trails of quickly devoured pies.

The fireplace had burned down to glowing embers, and wax candles had melted into misshapen nubs and pooled into their brass holders.

She slid chairs and benches under tables with brisk movements, but her mind wasn't on the familiar routine. Every few moments, her gaze would drift toward the door, as if willing it to open and reveal Val.Sass told herself she was being ridiculous to miss the guard’s presence—they were friends, nothing more—but the hollow feeling in her chest told another story.

Clangs and clattering came from the kitchen, a good reminder that Lira was still cleaning up. Sass was hooking the last errant tankard on her pinky finger when her friend emerged through the swinging doors, carrying a cloth-wrapped bundle that smelled distinctly of spice .

“Here," Lira said, extending the bundle toward Sass. "Take this with you."

Sass clunked the dirty tankards onto the bar and eyed her friend and the bundle. "Take what where?"

"Apple cider cake.” Lira jutted the wrapped cake toward Sass again. "And as for where, well... Vaskel might have mentioned that you needed to find Val.”

Heat crawled up Sass's neck. "He told you?"

"Only that you wanted to explain everything to her, which I get. You are good friends, after all.” There was no tone of mockery in her voice.

“And if I know Val, she's where she feels most at home, and that means Korl's dads. I thought that if you were going there, you should take this.” She cut her gaze to the bundle. “It's their favorite."

“You made me a bribe?” Even as Sass raised a brow, she had to admit this wasn’t Lira’s worst idea. It was loads better than her vanishing spell that almost became biscuits.

“If you ask me, a slice of cake and a sprinkle of kindness can solve any problem.”

Sass eyed the cake. “And you didn’t do anything funny to it?”

Lira’s jaw dropped then she jerked one shoulder. “I guess that’s fair, but this is regular cake. No magic. I did promise, you know.”

Sass finally took the cake from Lira, the warmth of it seeping through the cloth and into her fingers. “I suppose baking solved a lot of problems when we were trying to attract folks back to the tavern. Didn’t you also use an apple cider cake as a thank you after Korl made you an oven?”

Lira's cheeks flushed pink, but she laughed. "I might have, which is how I know it works. No magic needed.”

Sass lifted the wrapped cake to her nose, inhaling the rich scents of cinnamon and tart apple cider that wafted from the cloth. “If this works, I’ll owe you one.”

Her friend squeezed her shoulder gently. "That's what friends do. Now go on, before you lose your nerve and the cake loses its heat.”

Sass gave a determined nod as she left her apron on the bar and strode from the tavern.

The door of The Tusk the stream gurgling on one side and horses' hooves shuffling in the distance on the other.

As she approached the stone bridge that spanned the stream, Sass could smell the lingering traces of heated metal and wood smoke from the day's work at the blacksmith's forge.

The combined blacksmith and wheelwright workshops stood on the far side of the bridge, and smoke still drifted from the forge's chimney, suggesting that Vorto and Klaff had been working late into the evening.

The house attached to the workshops spilled golden light from its windows, and Sass could see movement through them as she hurried across the bridge.

She paused when she reached the door, her heart knocking against her ribs. The cake in her arms was leaden, and she couldn’t seem to raise an arm to knock. What if Val was angry at her? Or worse, what if she’d misread the situation entirely and Val didn’t care?

One foot was poised to spin her around, but she gritted her teeth and rapped one knuckle on the door before she could talk herself out of it. When there was nothing but silence inside, her heart plummeted.

“Hells and cinders,” she muttered as she looked back at the bridge and wondered how fast her short legs could take her back over it. “This was a mistake.”