The second I walked into the pub, I spotted Solaris and his followers sitting at a table eating and drinking like they hadn’t abandoned me to a brushfire. My first instinct was to march over and punch him in his pretty little face. But I had a feeling, with a guy like him, that ignoring him completely would sting way worse.
I walked toward the bar at the back of the room, my eyes slowly adjusting to the dim golden light from globe sconces with flames dancing inside them. Was electricity out of reach, or were they avoiding it for the aesthetic? I nearly tripped over my own feet as a horrible thought occurred to me. Did they have flush toilets? Was it chamber pots or outhouses?Oh, god.
“Well, well,” the rickety old man behind the bar said as he eyed me up and down with a pair of sunken blue eyes. “Haven’t had a human in here in an age.”
I reached over the bar to offer him my hand. “Wallace Crowne. Nice to meet you.”
“Lars Bodach.” He shook hands with me. “What brings you to the edge of Summer?”
“The edge of Summer?”
“Mmm,” he said with a nod. “Trilgare is the last village before the Fields of Gibford that stretch to the Forest of Buxwick at the center of the courts.”
“I might’ve just come in from the Fields of Gibford, then.” I pointed the way I’d come into the village, and he nodded again.
“Had to hit him while he was moving, unfortunately.”
I squinted at him. “You what?”
“So,” he said with a smile, “you’ll be wanting some food and a drink, right?”
“Uh, well, yeah. The thing is, though, I don’t have any cash.”
He waved that away. “You can earn it pouring pints.” He leaned on the bar toward me, one eye squinted shut and the other staring. “You can pour a proper pint, can’t you?”
I’d never done any such thing in my entire life.
“Yes, sir, I can.”
I was hungry, dammit.
“Brilliant!” He pointed to a gap in the bar beside the wall. “Get on back here so I can show you how we do it, and I’ll have someone fix you up a plate to eat before we get busy.”
I’d seen a few TV shows where someone poured a pint and got harassed by those who didn’t think it was good enough. I knew I was setting myself up for trouble by accepting this task, especially if there was going to be a rush of people wanting that perfect pint fast. So when he showed me how to do it, I watchedand listened closely, knowing my next meal was going to depend on doing it right.
“Ah, that’s a beauty,” Lars said with a smile as he looked at my very first pint. He handed it off to the big man sitting at the end of the bar, and a rush of relief went through me as Lars poked his head into the kitchen. “Can I get a large plate of fish and chips?”
I tried to take it in stride as Lars patted my back and grinned at me, like of course I could do it well because I’d said I could. Thank god I was a quick learner.
Lars sat himself on a stool and pointed to another one, so I gratefully sat down for the first time in what felt like days. I assumed it was the very dry air that was helping to dry my clothes out faster than normal.
“So,” he said, “what’s your plan then?”
“My plan?”
“What are you going to do?”
“Oh. Well, I guess I need to find someone who can work with fairy rings and send me home. But some guy out in that field said there’s a curse right now and fairy rings aren’t even supposed to be working.” I shrugged. “I guess I need someone familiar with the curse, then.”
“That would probably be the prince. And anyone with enough knowledge to do something would be at the castle.” Lars frowned hard at someone in the room. “Not that any of us know what they’re doing over there. Could be nothing.”
“I heard the prince needs to learn a lesson to break the curse.”
“Oh, is that what you heard?” He crossed his arms. “At least that much got through. He needs to learn a lot of lessons.”
I couldn’t quite tell if Lars meant the lessons learned from fists or books. Or beating the prince with books, maybe.
“Who’s teaching him?” I asked.
