Berry chittered something brief and indifferent.
“They say they agree with my packing and bag distribution,” I offered.
She rubbed a palm down her face. “They said five syllables. You do not speak florin.”
“I am interpreting the spirit of the communication.”
She stared at me for a long moment. Then she laughed—a warm, unguarded note that she sometimes seemed startled by herself, as if she had not expected joy to arrive so quickly. I would never tire of causing that glorious sound.
Sammy held her hands palm up in defeat, then clasped them together. “Alright. Let's go see the sheriff then.”
The village was alreadyalive when we stepped into the town square.
Havenlore moved differently in the mornings than it did at other hours. A particular quality of the light gave it an ethereal glow—the way it caught the dew on the slanted thatched rooftops and turned them briefly silver. The cobblestones were slick and clean, glinting from a recent rain. Market stalls opened theirshutters with the slow, creaking rhythm of daily ritual. A family of gnomes passed us on the path, the smallest of them waving at Sammy.
She waved back with equal enthusiasm, and something in my chest expanded the way it always did when I watched her love my home—our home.
She had come here as a stranger. Now, she belonged to this place and to me. I would never take for granted the gift the fates had granted me at meeting my little human.
“Morning rolls first,” she announced, and pivoted toward Baxter’s bakery at the corner of the main square without breaking stride. “Then, the sheriff.”
I snorted at her. “You are a general, my love.”
She held up her pointer finger. “I am a woman who knows what she wants.”
Baxter stood at the door, watching our approach. The wooden sign above his head read,The Rambling Bun,in a scripted font. It was the name given to his cafe and bakery after the villagers held a contest to see who could come up with the most creative names for the places in town.The Rambling Bunwas the clear winner for Baxter’s as the chatty shop owner and his delicious morning rolls were the stuff of legends. Although, I had heard—much to my chagrin—Mrs. Robinson, a cougar shifter, once declare the minotaur’sotherbuns as the real prize winner.
I shook my head of such thoughts as the aforementioned Baxter greeted us.
“Lady Sammy,” he called, with the ceremonious gravity he afforded all of his most valued customers. His spiral hornscaught the morning light. “And the large orc who follows her about.”
I let out a bark. Baxter and I had known each other for many years, and I genuinely didn’t mind his good-natured teasing. But I had to play along. “I do not follow.”
“He absolutely follows.” Sammy nodded solemnly.
Baxter laughed, a sound like a barrel rolling downhill, and ushered us inside. Stepping behind the counter, he reached beneath the smooth marble top. Two warm rolls, wrapped in brown paper, appeared on the ledge between us. “Knew you'd be early today. Had a feeling.” He leaned forward on his forearms. “Something’s in the air, aye? Your pink friend there has been unsettled since yesterday, and the florins always know.”
Sammy paused in the middle of unwrapping her roll. Berry made a small, confirmatory sound from my shoulder.
“Word travels fast,” she said.
Baxter shrugged his enormous shoulders, unbothered. "Village is small. You heading to see the sheriff?"
“Yes.”
"Good." He nodded once, with the satisfied air of someone whose prediction proved correct. “He'll have something for you. Travelers came through the eastern gate two nights ago. Don't know the details, but they mentioned—” He glanced around the bakery with the habitual caution of a creature who knew prying ears were everywhere. “Strange lights,” he finished quietly. “From the direction of the falls.”
Sammy's hand found my forearm.
I covered it with my own.
“Thank you,” I said.
Baxter waved us off with a large, flour-dusted hand. “Eat the rolls while they're warm.”
The sheriff’soffice sat at the opposite edge of the square, built into the old stone wall that marked our village’s original boundary. The gargoyle was particular about a good number of things, but especially about his desk items, such as the amount of oil in his lamp, the angle of the stack of papers, and of course, never for anyone to touch the painting of his mother and him as a wee-one that sat framed on the corner. He even had an approved method of knocking when visitors stopped in. Although he had recently added a new rule, which Sammy discovered through a combination of curiosity and relentless questioning: onecouldenter without knocking if one brought a morning roll from Baxter’s.
She produced the second roll—she had carried it the whole way—from behind her back as the door opened.
