“Ah.” He shifted in his seat, angling so he faced her. “Right, forgot about that.”
She huffed a breath from her nose. “If only I could. I can think of few things that have been more irritating in my life than all this unknown waiting we’ve been doing for the past two weeks.”
“Surely these past weeks haven’t been all bad.”
She smirked at him. “Maybe there have been a few moments here and there.”
His answering smile was warm, though brief, as though he hadn’t meant for it to slip out. He busied his hands with his cloak once more, folding it and then sliding it between his body and the wall behind him. His leg brushed against hers when he repositioned himself, then gestured to Elyria’s hood. “You plan on keeping yours up all night?”
“We may be tucked away in the corner here, Sir Knight, but even this dim tavern lighting can’t hide purple hair and fae ears. I’d verymuch like to avoid making a scene.”
“Can’t you just...” He waved a hand in the air, wiggling his fingers. “You know.”
Elyria snorted. “No, I can assure you I don’t know. What is this”—she mimicked his hand movement—“supposed to be?”
“You know,” he repeated. “Magic. Glamouring? Isn’t that what you call it?”
“You’re thinking of our shapeshifting fr—” She averted her eyes, taking a long drag from her mug. “Sylvans can glamour themselves, should they choose. Change their skin tone, their hair, eye color. Some can do much more than that, as you well know.”
Cedric frowned. “One of your guards is sylvan.”
“Right.”
“But I’ve never seen . . . What was his name again?”
“Young Shep.”
“Right, Shep.”
“YoungShep,” corrected Elyria.
Cedric arched a brow. “How young is he, exactly?”
“Oh, six hundred and fifty, give or take a few decades,” she said with a grin.
The knight’s eyebrows jumped halfway up his forehead. “And that’s young?”
“Well, it’s certainly not old, not by sylvan standards. But that’s kind of the point? It’s just a joke. Shep is older than even Dentarius, by the order of a solid century or so.”
“You get to call him Shep, but I have to call him Young Shep?”
Elyria shrugged and took a quick sip of cider. “When you’ve earned it, you can drop the ‘Young.’ ”
Cedric cleared his throat. “At any rate, I’ve never seenYoung Shepappear as anything other than himself. If sylvans can glamour themselves, why wouldn’t he?—”
“Why should he have to?” she snapped. The brusqueness in her tone made Cedric rear back, his head colliding lightly with the wall behind him.
Tristan, Ollie, and Thraigg all looked up from the drinking game they’d been playing.
“Why should he have to be anything but who he is?” she continued,crossing her arms over her chest.
Cedric raked a hand through his hair, as if doing so might cover the fact that he was clearly rubbing at the spot where he just hit his head. “I’m not saying he should,” he said tiredly, his words starting to slur together. “I only meant that it might be easier, might make people more comfortable if?—”
“Your comfort is not his responsibility.”
“I don’t meanmycomf?—”
“Now, now, children,” chided Tristan, “let’s not fight.”
