Page 67 of A Tale of Mirth & Magic

“Bar,” Telen said, putting a bracing hand on arm, “I hate to suggest this, but do you think she may have… left town?” I shook my head slowly, looking around the square again. She went on, “Maybe Elikki changed her mind about the market and decided to—you know—cut and run without an awkward conversation?”

I thought about it. The way she’d looked last night when I confessed that I loved her. Her face stricken, miserable. How she disappeared through the door as quickly as she could…

Maybe. Maybe she had left town altogether this morning. A large part of me immediately accepted that and all my worst insecurities agreed. But in my gut, it just didn’t ring true.

“Something doesn’t feel right about this,” I said. “Maybe I’m being naive, but I don’t think she’d leave without saying goodbye. And she’d been planning for this market for days. Working so hard on her new pieces, her magic—pouring her soul into them. Even beyond her just needing the money, I know she’d come to show off her work.”

Telen still looked skeptical, but she didn’t argue for once.

“Let’s head back up the road. Elikki said last night that she was going to stay in a different inn. She can’t have gone far. We’ll just check in with the few near ours.” I knew I probably sounded desperate to my sister, but my concern was real. Something felt very wrong. But I forced myself to say, “If we don’t find anything strange at the inns, I want to check back here one more time. And if we still can’t find her after that… we can head home.”

A brisk walk later—Telen huffing and red in the face—we decided to split up to cover ground faster. Or, I guess, she decided. Shouted “Your legs are twice the length of mine, you knob! I’m taking this street, and you can speed off fast as you like that way!” before stomping off. Fair enough.

I strode to one, two, three inns on the streets surrounding where we stayed. All smaller travelers’ spots, they were usually just a couple of rooms above a pub. But I checked everywhere that had a ROOMS FOR LET or VACANCY sign up. No one had rented a room to an elf with reddish-brown hair last night.

After the third “sorry, mate,” my stomach was in knots. I was about to head back and see if Telen had had any luck, when I spotted another wooden sign in a dirty window across the road. It was just a dubious scrawl reading ROOMS HERE, but I made my way over and pushed open the creaky front door. It was dark inside, despite the bright sunny day, and empty but for the sole obligatory drunk slouched at the end of the bar.

“Hello?” I called into the back room. “Anyone here?”

After a minute, an elderly man in a stained apron shuffled out to the bar. “You wanting a pint then, son?” he asked.

“Oh no, but thank you. I was wondering if you’d seen a woman last night, with red-brown hair and gray eyes? She’s white, curvy, and about this tall.” I motioned with my hand. “An elf. You may have rented her a room?”

“Yeah, I saw her. Certainly tied one on, she did,” he replied with a chuckle.

My heart leaped into my throat. Rushing my words, I said, “She was here, drinking? Did she stay here?”

“Oh no, her friends brought her in. Already passed out, she was. They said she’d had a few too many. Let her sleep it off in their room.”

“Who were these friends? Are they still here?”

The barman, bleary-eyed though he was, was starting to look a bit suspicious. “Eh, what’s it to you, then?”

“She’s my—she’s someone I care very deeply for. And I just need to make sure she’s all right.” I kept eye contact with him, putting every ounce of sincerity and worry into my words that I could.

After an assessing moment, he said, “Aye, prob’ly good of you too. I didn’t love the look of this one fellow who rented the room.”

“What did they look like?”

“The woman, half-dwarf I think, was fine. Grumpy, but fine,” he said. “The man, though—greasy fellow. Bit of a dick. Got a face only a mother could love. Always sneering, sticking up his nose. But they paid good coin in advance. Fesmit was his name. Or Feltsim?”

My blood iced over.

“Felsith.”

“Aye, that’s the one.”

And Maerryl, from the sound of it. The bounty hunter was still working with that scab of a man, and it sounded like they’d found Elikki last night and knocked her out. What were they planning to do, cart her all the way back to Povon so she could be sentenced and do time? If they hurt her…

I already knew the answer but had to ask. “Have they left yet?”

“Yeah, must have been early this morning,” the old man said. “I didn’t hear a peep. Just came down here myself an hour ago to let Jerod in.” The drunk raised his pint glass shakily.

“I saw the lass,” he croaked. “Was waiting outside when they left. She didn’t look too good.”

Pacing closer to Jerod, I said, “What do you mean?”

“The pretty elf, she was hanging between the two of ’em. Head all bopping around, feet dragging, like. I’m not one to judge, I’m not. Still, seemed a bit of a mess. They piled her into a carriage and set off toward the main road.”