A small snort came from behind. “Tiring work, scholar? You might try standing up every once in a while.”
Ainsworth turned in his seat, placing his arm on the back of his chair to peer out the open front door of the inn. Ashe had stepped inside and was leaning on the doorframe. Outside, the wind continued its loud procession down the mountain range to assault the windows. “It is. Perhaps you’d know that if you ever had to use your brain.” Insults wouldn’t exactly win him any favors with her, but, well, she started it…
She gave another snort, then called to Bren for an ale to warm her up. Ainsworth wanted to point out that closing the door and sitting by the fire would be more efficient. “You could come inside properly, you know. Just for a moment, if you’re cold.”Or you couldshift into a creature who could weather the chill better,he thought. Why didn’t she?
The freckled skin of her forehead furrowed in a scowl. “I have a feeling about today. I think something is coming. What if it’s a gretlem flying overhead to snatch our chickens, and I was lounging around inside like some lazy scholar?”
Ainsworth shuddered to picture the ghastly batlike, bloodthirsty gretlems. One of his friends back in Hinslyth was an illustrator for the Skarrow Library, and his work—even when documenting the accounts of grotesque, violent creatures—was fascinating. Ainsworth had spent many an hour pondering pages depicting such creatures, but he had no doubt that many residing on Mount Vengeance would be new to him. “How often do creatures attack the inn?” he asked.
Ashe clutched the staff in her hands tighter. “Oh, not too often. But if I do a patrol around the area, I usually find a few to chase off. They go for the goats in the stable, too, when they venture down here.”
“And you’ve been here how long…?”
“Nine years, just about.”
“Nine—! And this is how you are content to spend your days?”
She tossed her staff idly from one hand to the other. “It’s important work. In addition to fending off many beasts from Mount Vengeance, I have had to chase away the occasional bandits who fancied a go at our coffers. And some guests, should their behavior warrant it, need to be swiftly accompanied up the road, too. Anyway, what’s it to you how I spend my days?”
Bren appeared with an ale, and Ainsworth automatically leapt to his feet to retrieve it. Quiddle was occupied giving the kitchen the “scrubbing of its life,” as the boy anticipated the return of his superior any day now. Bren gave a brief nod before returning to his seat by the window behind the bar, a small notebook in hand. Ainsworth made a quick note to ask the barkeep about that at some other time.
Ainsworth handed the ale to Ashe, shivering as a breeze swept in through the open door. “You’re right; I suppose it isn’t any of my business.”
She downed half the tankard in one large gulp. “Find anything interesting in the attic, then?”
Ainsworth felt his eyes light up, surprised she had asked him a genuine question. He nodded and held up a finger to excuse himself while he retrieved the notes from his table. Although his own writings had not yet afforded him the chance to record these details, he had finally made some progress in the attic archive that very morning.
Honey had joined him for a rare half hour, cradling a steaming cup of tea and idling by the steps as Ainsworth recorded the contents of some of the boxes farthest from the leaking attic window. Its chilly draft was accompanied by the light, rhythmicthudof escaping rainwater, now falling neatly into a bucket instead of onto the floorboards. If he had not placed the bucket there, it would not have taken long until a water stain seeped through the ceiling into the room below.
“I cannot recall the last time I was up here before you arrived,” Honey had said, voice small and somehow distant despite her close proximity. “I admit, you’ve organized the mess well in such a short space of time.”
Ainsworth uttered a noncommittal “Hmph,” trying not to distract himself too much from the parchments he recognized as old supply orders and invoices from Wenslykirk, the closest town. An illegible scrawl had signed off on all of them; the oldest he had found thus far was from about sixty years back. Honey’s grandmother, perhaps? He was not overly familiar with the life spans of tyflans. They were not long-lived, he was certain of that. The long-lived were funny about discussing ages with those who had shorter life spans. It was considered rude and insensitive. Enach had only been forthcoming about his age because he was a young elf, of an age with Ainsworth. They could pretend, for now, that they were progressingthrough life at the same rate—though Ainsworth’s life span would be a mere candle-flicker to Enach’s.
As always, he pushed that uncomfortable notion aside.
Rifling through a box of documents, he decided it was not yet time to ask Honey about her family’s history here. He suspected it was a touchy subject for a few reasons, and the fact she had not mentioned her family made him wonder if they had a strained relationship. He needed her to warm to him first—but he wasn’t doing a very good job of that, he reflected grimly. “I may have sorted everything into orderly stacks and piles, and salvaged some boxes into my room below, but so far that organization is merely down to how little each artifact has succumbed to damp, water damage, hungry visitors, or the drunk guests who may have stumbled up here. I do believe one box by the corner was ruined by one of them, er, relieving themselves.”
“What?” Honey shrieked, then gave a small groan. “I knew I should have come up here earlier; I knew I should have faced all this.”
Why hadn’t she? Was it mere procrastination, or perhaps an unwillingness to face the past, her family’s history? Ainsworth had come across the latter in his time as a historian. He had witnessed the uncovering of family trees, of secrets, that left steady trails of devastation. Through reflective works of more experienced scholars, he’d also read about descendants of historical figures and heroes finding it difficult to discuss the exploits of a family member they were not exactly on good terms with. Not that the scholars ever had to deal with the aftermath. No, they went on their way with whatever they had sought.
Or perhaps Honey was just a terrible business proprietor.
Honey asked where the urine-soaked box had been placed, but Ainsworth did not answer. Instead, he gave a triumphant yelp that had Honey almost dropping her mug.
He may have found it accidentally, but it was the kind of discovery that would lead him to many others, he hoped.
“Look here!” he said, beckoning her over. “This is— This parchment is enchanted with a foreverlyt spell.”
He had felt the brush of Honey’s curls on his shoulder as she knelt over and peered at the document in his hand. Her closeness might have alarmed him if he had not been so enthralled by his discovery. “How can you tell? And what’s the big deal?”
Ainsworth scowled at her lack of enthusiasm. “The markings around the margins deem it so. It means the parchment is impervious to most elements that might damage it. You should thank your…great-great…great-grandmother?” Ainsworth’s eyes widened in disbelief at the date scribbled in the top right corner. It was, he recognized, an old account of a trade agreement permitting the current holder of this residence to buy and trade goods, including perishable ones. But thedate…“Honey, this must have been signed soon after the inn was built! Or at the very least, soon before it became operational. This is…This paper is approximately two hundred years old!”
It had been a tremendous discovery, and now he snatched up the copy of the document he had made to show Ashe—did she know she stood guard across such ancient doors?
Before he could tell Ashe, she jumped up, rigid, and shot back out the door. The way she had grabbed her staff suggested to him that something was approaching. Trouble? Was her hunch correct?
He surprised himself with how quickly he followed the wildeshifter—or that he followed her at all. She stood on the path heading back up the hill Ainsworth had stumbled down days previously. Eyes closed, Ashe seemed completely undisturbed by the wind that was whipping her hair and chilling Ainsworth to the bone. The muted purples of the heather bushes atop the hill tried their best to bring a spot of color to the land amid the dense gray clouds that surrounded it, infusing everything in a ghastly gray light.
