Page 64 of Tusks, Tails & Teacakes
“Korl didn’t have his dad help him make an oven forme.” Sass gave a firm shake of her head. “That was all for you.”
“The oven is for the tavern.”
Sass barked out a laugh. “If the oven was for the tavern, why didn’t they bring it when it was just Durn here? Or when his wife was cooking, and Durn said it gave her no end of trouble?”
Lira had no answer for that.
“You use the oven.” Sass held up her fingers and counted her points. “You had problems with the oven. Your life would be made easier with a new oven.”
This was all true, but Lira still had a hard time believing that Korl had done it for her alone. “Maybe he likes having a place to come for supper again, and hedoeslike my scones.”
“Pip likes your scones and you don’t see him wheeling in kitchensupplies.” The dwarf patted her arm. “Some suitors bring flowers. Yours brought you a stove.”
Lira swung her head to Sass then tugged her to one side and dropped her voice. “I think you’ve forgotten about Val.”
Sass let out a wistful sigh. “I most certainly have not forgotten her.”
Lira gave the dwarf a curious look, but before she could press the matter, Sass put her hands on her hips and huffed out a breath. “I don’t know what to tell you, except that I think he’s got it bad for you. Two-ton stove bad.”
Lira groaned. As much as the orc made her pulse flutter, she didn’t have time to figure out a guy who was too shy to talk to her and spent all his time with another woman. A striking, intimidating woman.
This was why she’d avoided men when she’d been part of a crew. This was why she’d spurned Malek’s advances and even handsome Vaskel’s attempts to become more than friends. They’d been complications she didn’t need.
Just like this one.
Lira smoothed her hands down the front of her pants. “Well, we have enough to worry about with reviving the tavern without worrying about something as hypothetical as this.”
Sass mumbled something about fancy words not making the big orc go away, but Lira decided there was no point in thinking about any of it.
Not with her gran’s spell book still trapped behind a wall along with enough gold to make a wyvern giddy.
Thirty-Seven
Lira couldn’t bakewhile her new oven was being installed, and she wasn’t fond of having time on her hands. Durn had been roused by the noise and had come to observe the commotion, but had since decamped behind the bar, polishing glasses with particular menace. Sass was preoccupied chatting with Val by the fire, and Lira could swear that the guard’s chair had a new decorative cushion that the large woman had tucked behind her head as she knit.
It was the perfect time to slip down to the cellar. Lira hadn’t been there since she’d gone with Iris, and part of her wanted to check on the hiding place. Nothing would have changed, but it was likebrushing your fingers over a touchstone in your pocket. She would feel better once she’d done it.
She slid a lantern from a hook on the wall and lit it quickly, giving a cursory glance around the great room before holding her breath and opening the cellar door. Once she was on the first step, she closed the door noiselessly behind her.
Lira stifled the urge to gag. “We havegotto clean this place out.”
It was easy to forget with all the improvements upstairs that the subterranean level had been untouched. Of course, she’d preferred it that way. The fewer people down in the cellar, the better. And with the stench, not many folks would brave more than a few steps before retreating.
She hurried down the wooden steps with a hand on the rough bannister in case one of the rickety planks gave way. When she reached the dirt floor, she released a breath and shook her head at her unreasonable worry. It didn’t matter how many people traipsed through the cellar. They could even serve supper down there, although she couldn’t imagine that being a cheery meal. Still, no one would imagine that anything was buried behind the stone wall.
The glow of the lantern pooled gold on the floor which caressed the walls as it swung in Lira’s hand. Despite providing faint light, it didn’t make the underground space any warmer, and Lira wished she was wearing more than a thin dress and simple cardigan.
Lira reverted easily to her old ways, walking on her toes and holding her breath as she listened for any sound. There was nothing aside from the scraping and clanging overhead. She crept around the corner, keeping her distance from the baskets of rotten produce, and she extended her lantern arm.
There was the wall. There were the stones, all snugly tucked into the wall. And there, on the ground in the corner, was significantly more loosened mortar than there had been when she and Iris had left.
Lira went still, swinging the lantern wide, although she was certain she was alone in the cellar. She would have felt the presence of anotherbeing bigger than a rat. The back of her neck would have pricked, and it hadn’t.
“Hells and cinders,” she said, taking quick steps to the wall and crouching low so she could touch the corner stones.
She remembered vividly how much mortar had been scraped free. She remembered how much of the stones had been exposed. The corner stone was still set into the wall, but notably less mortar held it in place, and significantly more dusted the ground. She and Iris had not done this, but someone had.
Lira straightened, her mind racing. Who else knew about this?
