Page 130 of Cursed Shadows 5

Forranach has no answer as he abandons the plate for the now-whistling kettle on the stove.

I watch as he pours a hot cocoa, then polishes it off with a dollop of cream.

“The sign came.” He sets the steamy mug on a wooden tray, then fixes the plate beside it. “I’ll get the boy to mount it tomorrow’s Warmth, once he’s had enough to eat and some rest.”

“Where does he stay, if he is orphaned?”

“His landlord booted him last month. He’s been sleeping in the lane at the back of a bakery.”

I don’t ask why. Don’t need to. It’s a prime spot to find tossed food, waste, stale lumps of bread, but food all the same.

“He has no other family?” I ask.

Forranach draws the tray to nestle on his lap. “He does not. But he reads—and he read the sign for help wanted on the window. He rolled his dice.”

“He rolled well,” I say and step back for the swing door. “Will he stay here now?”

“I offered him the room at my dwelling,” he says with a curt glance at me, a gruff smirk prying at his lips. “The room for strays.”

My smile is dim, a struggle to break through my melancholy, but it lingers for a second or two.

I ask, “Where is the sign?”

“Behind the bar.”

My spine presses into the door. I back into it more, drawing it open all the way to make space for Forranach and his wheeled chair.

I let him by, watching as he wheels his way around the tavern to the half-sleeping boy on the armchair.

I consider him for a moment longer, the torn wool of his lumpy coat, the moss that arches over his pointed ear, the oiliness of his nose and hair.

If Forranach didn’t offer him the room at his dwelling, then I would demand he stay here, where there is warmth and shelter and food, and a much-needed washtub upstairs.

That springs a thought through the mist.

Hedda.

I will need to have Hedda familiarise with the boy.

She is fine with folk around her, since we walk Kithe each day to the watering hole, or she accompanies me to the shops and stalls for supplies—but to allow another upstairs into our home, our dwelling, is a different matter. And the boy will be expected to climb those stairs, pass our dwelling door, and head into the storage room frequently.

Hedda mightn’t like that.

Yes, they better get used to one another, and soon.

Because we open in just a few phases now that we have the sign, the same polished blackwood board I wander to behind the bar.

It is custom.

Not the one Eamon ordered, that was made and delivered, but never mounted above the doors to the tavern. It was left in the tavern for months before the phase Forranach took it away and ordered its replacement.

That sign said, ‘NARI’S’

But it isn’t mine, the tavern.

Not in heart, not in soul.

I crouch beside the new board, then shift the linen sheet to expose the honey-painted letterings.

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