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The building sat in a curve of the road, as if it had been there hundreds of years, with posts for horses and extensive stables. A cottage garden thrived on one side, flowers nodding in the light breeze. The peaked gables likely housed cozy little rooms with fireplaces, and the wide doors stood open, inviting passersby into the common room. A young boy with coppery bright hair began pumping water for the horses.
Liam led the soldiers to the horse troughs, where they joked heartily, dismounting and edging the horses aside to splash their faces with water. Darling made a prodigious leap off his riding pad and daintily jumped onto the narrow rim, swiping at a horse that snorted at him. The dragonfly girls danced inside, giggling, and Larch stood at my stirrup, ready to help me down and take Felicity for her own refreshment.
“The Inn of Seven Moons,” Starling told me, finger-combing her hair, her eyes bright and cheeks a becoming pink. “I love this place.”
“You’ve been here before?”
She nodded with enthusiasm. “They brew the best lager this side of the Glass Mountains.”
“These would be the same Glass Mountains where your mother was imprisoned by a dragon?”
Starling laughed. “Of course! It’s not as if there are two sets of Glass Mountains.”
“No—of course not. So what’s on the other side of them?” I followed Starling into the cool interior, Darling trotting beside us, sniffing the air. The mullioned windows were thrown open to the lovely day, and window boxes of flowers in all shades of violet and crimson showed through. Starling made a big deal of picking the best table and held a chair for me. Darling settled himself at another, peering expectantly at the empty space of table in front of him.
“The other side of what?”
“The Glass Mountains.”
She looked puzzled. “How would I know? Why do you think there’s something on the other side?”
“Because,” I explained, in my most patient tone, “you said this is the best lager onthisside, which implies there’s another lager—possibly even a better one—on the other side.”
She pursed her lips and wrinkled her nose at me. “This is that critical thinking thing again, isn’t it?”
“Pretty much, yes.”
“Can’t it just be good beer? Try it!”
One of the dragonfly girls—with a striking shade of hair a romance novel would call titian—set mugs in front of us and burst into a fit of giggles. The mugs were glass, white with frost, and foam spilled over the sides. Darling got a bowl of it, which he began lapping like milk.
Starling lifted hers and gave me an encouraging look with her wide brown eyes, waiting for me to lift mine. I did, tapping my mug to hers. “Happy days, as my grandmother would say.”
Okay, the lager was delicious. Reminiscent of Harp, maybe, but with a deep resonance of flavor. They’d chilled it just enough to be refreshing, but not enough to kill any of the rounder notes. The scent, pleasantly yeasty with hints of cinnamon and something of chicory, filled my head along with the pleasant buzz of alcohol hitting my bloodstream on an empty stomach. Once again I’d managed to skip the most important meal of the day. Maybe that wasn’t true in Faerie, since so much else wasn’t.
“See?” Starling nodded, answering her own question. “Best ever—on either side of the Glass Mountains. So there!”
I drank deeply, savoring the lager that might, indeed, be the best ever. Another dragonfly girl brought us a basket of honest-to-god chips—the homemade style potato chips like the Welsh pub I frequented in college used to serve—and a vial of what could only be balsamic vinegar.
“You sprinkle the vinegar on the chips and—”
“Actually, I know the drill on this one.”
Bemused, I dashed a little onto one chip and bit in. Absolutely, bizarrely, exactly right. Darling meowed impatiently and I gave him a little pile of his own. He did not want the vinegar, however.
“How long has this place been here?”
Starling shrugged, her mouth full of chips. “Forever, I guess.”
We were the only ones in there. Liam and his men crowded onto long benches at one side of the room, while the Brownies and dragonfly girls sat mostly on the tables by the door. Everyone had chips and beer. No one else was in evidence.
“Who owns the place?”
“Oh, Mistress Nancy. You’ll meet her when she brings out the bangers and mash.”
“Bangers and mash. Really?”
“With applesauce. It’s the—”
