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Thea passed a hand over her face. ‘There isn’t any tea, by chance?’
Everard laughed. ‘I’ve never known someone to come to the Singing Hare and ask for tea…’
‘First time for everything,’ Dratos drawled.
Everard shrugged. ‘Indeed.’
‘I could use a cup myself,’ Anya declared. ‘Got any peppermint?’
Thea did a double take.
‘What?’ Anya asked with a frown.
Thea suppressed a smile, watching Everard go about setting the pot of water over the stove. ‘Make it two, please,’ she said.
Anya gave her a strange look, before her gaze dropped to the fate stone that had slipped from the folds of Thea’s shirt.
‘You gonna ask me about it?’ Thea prompted her, taking the piece of jade between her fingers and rubbing her thumb along its edges.
‘I don’t think I want to… Those things never did anyone any good.’ Anya turned back to Dratos. ‘When are you gonna ease up on Gus, eh?’
Glad for the change of subject, Thea tucked her fate stone away and wrung her hands, still feeling that creeping sensation along her skin, her stomach fluttering strangely.
Dratos gave a groan. ‘When are you gonna ease up onme?’ he griped. ‘I’ve been watching over that kid since he was trying to eat mud. And after what he said to Adrienne… He deserves a fucking hiding.’
‘She still upset?’ Anya asked, her voice softening.
‘She’ll be fine.’
‘Not what I asked.’
Dratos rolled his eyes and gave Thea a pitying look. ‘You’ll never be free of this shit now.’
Thea stopped her hand from going to her fate stone again. Her limited time left in the midrealms flashed before her, each day, each month passing by like a grain through an hourglass.
She said none of that. Instead, she told the shadow-touched ranger, ‘It doesn’t seem so bad. A bunch of people caring about one another.’
He scoffed. ‘You’ll be singing a different tune after a few more weeks with this lot.’
Thea laughed, and gratefully accepted the steaming mug of peppermint tea Everard set down before her. ‘What happened to Cal and Kipp?’ she asked Marise and the tavern owner, whom she’d last seen with her friends.
‘Drunk and Drunker? Ah, they left our party a while after midnight in search of finer company,’ Marise told her. ‘I believe one had more luck than the other, if you catch my meaning.’
Thea snorted. ‘Kipp does seem to have a surprising effect on women.’
Everard snorted. ‘Not him, the other. The Flaming Arrow, or so their countless toasts called him.’
Thea blinked. ‘Cal?’
‘That’s the one. The archer. Saw him sneaking off with a lass a few hours ago.’
A laugh bubbled out of Thea, and she wished she could have seen the look on Kipp’s face as Cal at long last won the girl. She shook her head with a grin. ‘Good for him.’
‘He had the right idea,’ Dratos complained. ‘I made the mistake of choosing to drink with you sorry lot.’
Anya made a choking noise, tea slopping over the side of her cup. ‘Like that was a choice. I didn’t see any women lining up to —’
Dratos spread his wings in a flash of red. ‘Didn’t think you wanted me to show the good people of the Singing Hare these beauties.’
