Chapter 6
A plump woman with curly brown hair stood outside the diner when Rylana returned with her dress draped over her arm.
Since it was late afternoon and between the lunch and dinner services, Rylana assumed she was a passerby reading the menu posted by the door, but when the woman turned, Rylana halted, recognizing her.
“Cousin Tharla?”
“Yes. I was looking for…” Tharla’s eyebrows rose as she looked Rylana up and down. “Pixie’s pilfering, Uncle Gavlin said you’d changed, but, uhm.”
“I was a mercenary until recently.” Rylana tried to smile, but, as her cousin’s gaze lingered on her combat boots, it may have come out as more of a grimace.
When she’d been dodging enemy patrols in the steamy southern jungles and longing for the peaceful city of her youth, it hadn’t occurred to her that all her relatives and old friends would think her years as a mercenary had made her… odd.
“He said you’re a partner at this diner now and keep the books.” Tharla looked up, but her gaze snagged on Rylana’s short hair. “You can’t dress a little more… feminine?”
“I just bought a dress.” Rylana lifted it, though she had no intention of wearing it for work. After so many years in trousers and boots, she’d grown accustomed to them. Besides, Zilek’s teasing aside, she liked having pockets. Lots of them. Dresses were usually skimpy in that department.
“Oh, that’s a very nice hue.” Tharla ran an appreciative hand over the garment bag. “Did you buy it from Lomasina’s?”
“The boutique run by the gnomes down the street.”
“Oh, Tranklin’s. The tastes of the proprietors are a bit pedestrian, but the gnomes are exquisite tailors. Do they still have the golem? Did you get shoes? A purse?” Tharla peered at Rylana again, as if expecting to find numerous shopping bags stashed somewhere.
“I let the gnome talk me into a few accessories, but I don’t carry a purse. I have pockets. And the dress is long enough that I wasn’t worried about shoes.” Rylana shuddered at the memory of the heeled slippers Tranklin had held up with enthusiasm.
Mouth in a stunned, “Oh,” Tharla blinked a few times in distress.
“Look, it’s nice to see you, but I’m sure you didn’t show up after seventeen years to talk about clothes.”
“That is something I enjoy discussing, but no. As I said, I spoke with your father and...” Her gaze drifted to Rylana’s feet—her boots.
“It’s still early enough in the afternoon that you could go back for shoes.
Or, oh, that artisan half-ogre cordwainer has a shop at the end of Acorn Street.
Despite having hands as large as kite shields, she has a gift for craftsmanship and can custom-make wonderful and beautiful footwear.
She’s been in the business for decades and was one of the bellwethers who started the trend, in this very city, of fitting shoes differently for the left and right foot.
You know, instead of using straight lasts.
They’re wonderfully comfortable, and the trend has, from what I’ve heard, swept throughout the lands. ”
“I’ll keep that in mind, though, since summer is coming and I’m no longer traipsing across battlefields littered with shrapnel and arrowheads, I might go barefoot.”
An expression of stricken horror took over Tharla’s face.
Across the street, a handful of raucous goblins walked out of Mya’s bakery with a large square-shaped box with bumps on the front.
Usually, the boxes were rectangular with the bumps on the top.
The grandmotherly dwarf must have baked something extra custom for their needs.
The goblins chanted, “Stag party, stag party,” as they reverently carried their box away.
“What did you say brought you?” Rylana, feeling she’d been gone from work for long enough, wanted to return to her duties.
“I, oh my. That’s that bakery, isn’t it?” Tharla pursed her lips in disapproval as she gazed at the window, though the cupcakes and cookies on display were perfectly chaste.
“The scones are delicious.”
As the goblins continued down the street, their chant shifted from stag party to boob cake. Something told Rylana that they’d started their celebration early, enjoying liberal libations at the tavern in the next block.
“I… can’t imagine.” Shaking her head, Tharla turned back to Rylana. “Uncle Gavlin asked me to have a chat with you.”
Wariness crept into Rylana. “About what? You don’t want me to do your math homework again, I trust.”
“No, but it’s related to that.”
“Something with the family business?” Rylana guessed.
“Tangentially.”
The word made Rylana think of right triangles, but she doubted her cousin had geometry in mind.
Tharla opened her mouth to go on, but two snickering university students walked out of the bakery. They carried individual desserts in circumspect brown bags, but they were pointing and whispering as they glanced at each other’s purchases.
“Maybe we could talk inside.” Tharla pointed at the diner, though her finger shifted toward the coffee shop. “Or over there. I’ve heard the beverages are delicious. And not inappropriate.”
“They are good.” Rylana didn’t think there was a way to make coffee inappropriate, but she didn’t want to prolong the conversation, so she led her cousin to the shop.
Rylana and Tharla stepped inside to scents of freshly brewed coffee, vanilla, and baking cookies. A chalkboard sign by the door listed a couple of daily specials and proclaimed that rare and exotic coffees would soon be added to the menu for a limited time, noting: Be sure to come back for details!
Rylana opted for a table near the window so she could keep an eye on the diner, not that it was in danger now that the troll curse had been lifted and Jildarin wasn’t signed up for culinary competitions overflowing with scheming rivals.
Only their landlord was a concern. And perhaps the elves standing alongside the building with dwarves, arguing over wrought-iron materials they were unloading from a wagon.
The future exterior stairs? Another group was using a rope, pulley, and magic to lift stacks of slate tiles up to the roof.
Construction of the new seating area had begun.
“Hello, Rylana,” Tezilly said cheerfully, coming to wait on the table personally.
Her curly black hair, much more flamboyant than Tharla’s, bounced as she hopped to a stop and peered out the window.
A few threads of gray marked that hair, and the corners of her eyes were creased, but her curious expression made her look younger than her years.
“I’m not expecting the special shipment to arrive until tomorrow,” she admitted, “but I keep checking for a messenger with news of its unloading. We’ve invested quite a bit in it.
” She waved to her gray-haired partner, Brella, who was cleaning the roasting equipment that filled one corner of the shop from floor to ceiling.
“I hope everything will be well-received. I’m sure it will be. I can’t wait.”
“Yet you still won’t share any details of it? Even with regular clients?”
“No. It’s a secret.” Tezilly winked. “A latte for you, and…” She stretched a hand toward Tharla. “What can I get you? We’ve got a gnomish espresso machine and can make anything.”
“I would certainly hope so,” Tharla said. “I’ll have a double-shot, no-foam, vanilla-bean cappuccino with a dusting of crushed lavender and rose petals.”
Tezilly’s eyebrows twitched only slightly at this order, though Rylana didn’t think any amount of gnomish magic could produce what sounded like atypical ingredients.
“I’ll see if we can handle that,” Tezilly said.
“The coffee shop on Sunset Hill university handles it without trouble or comment,” Tharla said.
“How much do they charge?” Since Sunset Hill perched in the middle of the richest part of Tranquility, at least on this side of the lake, Rylana had a notion.
“For my drink?” Tharla asked. “Two silver.”
“That’s a lot for coffee.” Rylana knew where one could buy entire bags of beans that would make dozens of cups for that.
“I don’t mind paying for quality service and goods.” Tharla threaded her fingers and placed them on the table, leaning forward intently. “As I started to tell you, my husband and I visited the castle the other day, and your father kept mentioning you.”
Another grimace tempted Rylana’s lips. Once the troll curse had been lifted, she’d had Zames relay a message to her father explaining the mess Vormalt had made in the library, but she hadn’t caught him when she’d visited.
Since Rylana hadn’t seen Father since they’d had coffee in this very shop, she didn’t know why he would be talking about her to the rest of the family.
He was usually straightforward, so if he had a problem, why wouldn’t he have come himself?
“Was it about how I’m now the partner in a very successful diner with a talented and newly award-winning dragon chef?” Rylana asked, catching the raised voices of an argument in the kitchen.
That sounded like Brella saying, “Nobody is going to a florist to fill an order!”
And were the hushing sounds that followed from Tezilly?
“He did mention the diner and the Golden Whisk victory.” Tharla didn’t seem to hear the kitchen argument. “He sounded pleased that you’ve changed careers and are finally putting your education to use, but he’s distressed that you want to work there instead of in the family business.”
“It comes with free spruce-tipped bacon.”
Tharla opened her mouth, but didn’t seem to know how to answer that.
Tezilly delivered a steaming latte with a heart design floating in the milk and extra cookies perched on the saucer.
Maybe that was a thank-you for not being difficult.
Tezilly held up a finger to Tharla, then nodded to the half-gnome server Vilma who was trotting out the door behind Tharla’s chair with a purse in her hand.
“If Father has a problem with me, he should come to me,” Rylana said.
“Exactly what I told him. And he said he would as soon as work slows down and he isn’t so busy.”
“So, after he retires?”