5. Penny #2
He’d suggested as much back in Eastcliff, trying to cheer me up when the weight of responsibility for the farm was crushing me.
And I told Sayla that was what I wanted, too.
The idea of it still felt almost too whimsical.
Walking away from the farm life that had been laid out for me since birth had been challenging enough.
I wasn’t sure if I had really grappled with it yet, how dramatically my life had changed since I met Kit.
How much it could continue to do so. It was liberating, invigorating, and more than a bit intimidating.
As much as I’d dreamed about venturing outside of Eastcliff, doing something with my life beyond steering a horse and plow down row after furrowed row, with the door finally opened to me, I hesitated to step through it.
I was eager to leave Ashpoint now. Eager to marry Kit and be a good husband to him. Not a layabout or hapless homemaker.
Maybe I should be a baker.
The serving girl bustled by to ask what we wanted to eat.
There were only a few options, and that night they were beef stew with bread or a potato hash.
We both picked the stew, then settled together.
I put aside my flirtation and opted for cozy comfort instead, leaning on Kit’s arm and letting my mind wander to a place and time in the increasingly near future.
The food arrived, and we ate. Music played, and others returned to the dance floor. Kit and I watched them twirl about while sipping ale, mine leaving a foamy mustache on my upper lip that Kit snickered about before daubing away.
In a way, I would miss this place. It was ingrained in me as much as Eastcliff, just as pivotal in the creation of the man I was now. Far more a man than the boy who left his family farm half a year ago, ignorant of the world, but hopeful. In spite of it all, I was hopeful. Even now.
For several hours, we lingered, leaned together.
Maybe it was easier here than at home, like the tension that had brewed since Kit fled Eastcliff could be contained elsewhere for a while.
This was a separate place, a safe one, and with my stew settled in my belly, I was ready to ask Kit for another dance.
Before I could, the tavern door flew open, striking the wall with a bang.
A mountain of a man barged in, bearded and broad and familiar in a way I wished he wasn’t.
Our fellow initiate, Anders, had either escaped or been released from his cell in the Ossuary.
He looked half-crazed, but somehow delighted, and his long dark robes were an almost comedic contrast to his usual shirt and trousers.
“What’s he doing here?” Kit hissed.
“What’s he wearing?” I asked in response.
“Ceremonial garb,” Kit replied, keeping his voice low as a hush fell across the large room. “For a Sentinel.”
I frowned. “Anders isn’t—”
“I’ve been sent to inform you all that Levitt Yost is dead,” Anders boomed.
His declaration silenced my protest at the same time it stalled my heart.
“He has been succeeded by our most esteemed Shroud Warden, Merrick Oliver. You may expect a formal ceremony to follow tomorrow.”
I blinked as Kit went rigid beside me. The statement replayed in my mind until it all muddled together, then came painfully clear as a single, unavoidable fact: our most valuable ally was dead.
The other patrons murmured, unsure of how to take the news. Anders glanced about, clearly pleased, then headed toward the bar in search of a drink. To quench his thirst from shouting like a town crier? Or to celebrate?
I looked at my ale, feeling so wretched I might break my promise not to puke.
With Anders’s wide back to us, Kit began to move, scooting toward the open edge of the booth and pulling on me to follow.
“Pen, we need to go,” he whispered, his face more pale than usual. “We have to get out of here right now and get to Eastcliff. Your family’s not safe, and neither are we. We need to leave before your brother finds us.”
My head spun as that barrage of words joined the ones Anders had left like litter in my brain.
We’d only just returned. Only just met with Levitt and been gifted so much good news.
Only just talked about Forstford, and a bakery, and leaving Ashpoint behind.
But not on these terms. Not like this. Not yet.
Rushing but trying to be stealthy, Kit and I rose from the booth. No sooner were we on our feet than did Anders spot us out of the corner of his eye.
“You two!” He stabbed a meaty finger in our direction. “Don’t move.”
I froze, but Kit did not. As Anders passed us on his way to the door, Kit took hurried steps in the opposite direction, dragging me by the arm so I had no choice but to chase after.
We skirted the edge of the room with haste.
I expected Anders to fall in behind us, but he ducked out the front door and into the night.
Kit angled toward the kitchen. “There must be another way out. Through the back,” he said between rapid breaths. We weren’t moving fast enough to have him winded, so I knew it was panic making him gasp. “Don’t stop. Don’t slow down.”
We reached the doorway to the kitchen area where a few cooks perked at our intrusion. Several tables crowded the room, spread with half-chopped vegetables and beef, and cooking pots hung over roaring hearths.
The smells of the food turned my anxious stomach, and I clutched at my gut as Kit and I scanned the walls. No doors, but a window. We could clamber out that way?
In the main room of the tavern, three others joined Anders in his return, blocking any hope of escape through the front door. I recognized those faces, too: Matina, Klaus, and Otis all wearing the same ominous garb as Anders.
Kit whirled toward the sound of their boots on the floor.
The kitchen window beckoned, but I had a feeling I’d only be halfway through with my legs kicking in the air before one of the Sentinels grabbed my ankles and hauled me back.
There simply wasn’t enough time or distance between us.
Less between them and Kit as he stepped in front of me, shoulders back and posture stiff.
“Penny, go,” he growled.
But I didn’t.
Otis, with his pale hair and eyes and his black robes, looked almost ghastly in the tavern’s muted light. He sneered at Kit. “Noble of you to think you can protect him, but there’s no need.”