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I dipped my head to acknowledge the warning in his words, but I was disinclined to respond otherwise. My actions would soon prove my worth far more than any assurances I uttered.

“Best eat up,” Master Hobb advised as he turned away. “The evening has only just begun.”

I settled back into my previous seat as the tavern keeper and Misha turned their backs on me.

Taking their advice, I set to eating the food I’d been provided while it was still hot and made a point of watching the faces of the other patrons between bites.

I noted Rue reappearing. She slipped through the kitchen door with the water crock and a cloth. She was a small thing, but she practically glowed with magic in an otherwise utterly magicless environment. Even when I wasn’t glancing her way, I was aware of her progress as she moved methodically around the room, clearing dishes, washing tabletops, and avoiding the patrons.

Once warmed by the food in my belly, I leaned back and surveyed the room, rotating the half-full mug in my hands. This job might prove to be more of a test of my ability to remain focused and alert even when nothing interesting was happening.

Rue

Festival days were my least favorite days to work at the tavern. The main room of the Hart and Hare filled early with regulars and strangers and remained full far into the evening. The patrons’ emotions, relationships, and tensions filled the air, draining me beneath the constant drone of their conversations.

At least Master Hobb had hired an enforcer who appeared to be competent and dutiful this year, despite his strange quirks like keeping his hood up even inside and never drinking the entirety of his allotment of cider each night. In the weeks since he’d hired on, the tavern’s common room had been unusually calm. Our usually restless patrons had become abnormally subdued; at least they had until today.

Someone banged a mug on a table, and dishes rattled. Voices ebbed and flowed. The rhythm only changed when a man shouted with laughter, or a woman squealed. Then, chairs scraped, and a party of younger folk left, which signaled I needed to move.

I ducked between customers, dodging elbows and feet, as I hauled a bucket of soapy water and a damp cloth to the tables at the back. Someone had made a mess on the corner table, and I needed to clean it before the next customer arrived.

Mashed cottage pie coated the rough-hewn tabletop. I grimaced as I thrust my hand into the bucket to find the scraper. Chilly water met my fingers. Finding the hard edge of the wood-backed brush I needed, I dragged it from the water and started scrubbing at the grease coating on the table surface.

“Five stews and a cottage pie on the board, girls. Serve it up before the food goes cold!” Broan, the cook, bellowed from the kitchen.

“Rue!” Misha called over the crowd as she leaned over the counter to refill a customer’s mug with cider.

Straightening, I glared at her, but she didn’t meet my eye. Her loss. Turning back to my work, I resumed abusing the table surface.

“Rue!” Misha yelled again.

“Leave her be,” Janessa bellowed back over the general hubbub of the full room. “She is clearly busy. I will deliver the food.” As Master Hobb’s wife, Janessa’s words had more weight than anyone else’s except his. She rarely frequented the tavern since birthing their son, but she was helping with the festival rush.

Keeping my head down, I moved on to the next table. It hadn’t been cleared yet. Stacking dishes and linens, I eyed the surface beneath them. Someone had spilled cider all over the wood and onto the floor. My shoe unstuck with a nasty sucking sensation.

Grimacing, I washed the sticky substance from the table and then ducked underneath to scrub the floor. There wasn’t time to fetch the mop before the table filled again.

“This one looks empty,” a male voice called above the crowd. Heavy footfalls approached as I frantically worked the sticky spot with my brush and cloth. The chair near me scraped out from beneath the table, flooding the dimness with light.

“Look, this one comes with an extra bonus.” A second male voice crowed in amusement. “Grovel, grovel, gremlin, as you should. Crawl back into your hole. We will be sitting here.” A muddy boot toe nudged my ribs with more force than necessary, but not enough to bruise.

I backed hastily away from the boot, the voice, and the nasty sensation that came with them. Dragging my bucket and tools with me, I straightened to a kneeling position and glared up at the man looming over me.

“I am not a gremlin,” I retorted.

The man ignored me. Stepping between me and the table, he pulled back a chair, almost hitting my face with it, and sat down as he resumed his conversation with his companion. I felt a small measure of amusement when one of them moved their boot under the table and it made a sticky squelch as it lifted from the floor.

Placing my brush and cloth into my bucket, I climbed to my feet and moved to the next table. Thankfully, this one wasn’t as disgustingly dirty as the last.

“Did he hurt you?”

Surprised, I straightened to find the new enforcer standing across the grimy tabletop from me. I hadn’t heard him move, but that wasn’t necessarily surprising. The surrounding room positively throbbed with sound. He glowed with magic. Kent had consistently appeared slightly illuminated when I peripherally caught sight of him, but never had the effect remained when I looked at him directly—until now. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what that meant.

I blinked up at him. Had he asked me a question? “Pardon?”

His striking blue eyes studied my features. “Did he hurt you?”

“No, well, not enough to bother. I won’t have a bruise.”