13. Chapter 13 The Table
Sif walked beside me with her hands loose at her sides, daggers on her hips, silver hair catching the late-morning light. She hadn’t stopped looking pleased with herself since we’d left the shop.
A beastkin woman I recognized from the clinic stopped on the opposite side of the avenue. I’d treated her son’s broken wrist two weeks ago, and the name was either Marta or Magda. She lifted a hand and called across the foot traffic. “Looking good, healer.”
I raised my hand back. “Thanks.” I almost added the name, then didn’t, because I was only about sixty percent sure of it.
“It’s Magda, by the way,” she called back.
“Right. Magda. Sorry.”
“What was that all about?” I whispered to Sif.
Sif’s mouth curved. She didn’t say anything.
A human merchant coming the other direction did a visible double-take at the robe, his eyes tracking from the stonethread collar down to the boots and back up. He didn’t say anything either, just kept walking with his eyebrows slightly higher than they’d been a second ago.
A kid, maybe eight, stopped dead in front of a fruit stall and stared at me with her mouth open until her mother tugged her along. I wasn’t sure what to do with any of it.
“You’re noticing,” Sif said.
“Is it the kit? Do I look stupid?”
“No, silly, that’s not it.” She looked up at me with those blue eyes, and she wasn’t even trying to hide how pleased she was. “You looked like a man who slept in a supply closet this morning. Now you look like what you are.”
“A healer who got ambushed by a wolf-kin with opinions about fabric.”
“A healer who let a wolf-kin with excellent taste dress him because he knew she was right.” She bumped her shoulder against my arm. The ash-colored fur on the backs of her hands caught the light as she tucked a strand of silver hair behind one ear. “You’re welcome.”
“I didn’t say thank you.”
“You didn’t have to. Your face did it for you.”
I opened my mouth to argue, but she was already looking ahead, and the angle of her jaw said the conversation was over and she’d won it.
She wasn’t wrong. I just wasn’t going to say so out loud, because she’d be even more insufferable for the rest of the day than she already was.
I enjoyed her company and the way she challenged me.
We were halfway back to the apartment when I spotted Liv coming up the avenue from the direction of the fletcher’s side street.
She had a new bowstring coiled over one shoulder and a wrapped bundle under her arm that clinked with the particular sound of arrowheads in oiled cloth.
Her ears were up and forward, which meant she was either excited or hunting, and since she was on the main avenue in broad daylight, I was going with excited.
She spotted us from thirty feet out and stopped in the middle of the street.
Her ears went straight vertical.
“Daniel.” She said my name like she was reading an inscription.
She looked me over from the robe collar to the belt to the boots and back up, and her whole body went still for one second before everything came alive at once.
She closed the distance in four quick steps, the arrow bundle bouncing against her hip, and put both hands flat on my chest, right on the stonethread.
She spread her fingers across the fabric and pressed.
“You look incredible,” she said. The scar through her right eyebrow caught the light as she tilted her head back to look up at me. “You look like a real adventurer. You look like someone who walks into a dungeon and the dungeon gets nervous.”
“That’s a lot of looks.”
She slid her hands down from my chest to the belt, testing the leather, then back up to grip the robe’s lapel. She was touching me in the middle of the avenue and she didn’t care who saw it. “Gods, my panties are getting so freaking wet right now.”
“From the healer outfit?”
“Hell yes. Sif, did you do this?”
“You know I did,” Sif said.
“I love you,” Liv said to Sif, her eyes still on me. “I love you so much. I’ll never say a bad word about you again.”
“You’ve never said a bad word about me.”
“And now you know why.” Liv finally stepped back, but she kept one hand on the robe’s lapel. Her ears had a slight tremble to them that meant she was trying not to bounce. “Okay. I need to show you both what I got.”
The arrow bundle and bowstring told the story. “Upgrades?”
“Broadheads. Dungeon-grade tips. And a sinew-core bowstring that’s rated for twice what my old one could handle.” She gave the bundle an affectionate pat. “I found a fletcher who actually knows what he’s doing.”
“Lunch first,” I said. “The Brown Hen. You can show us everything at the table.”
Sif seconded it with a nod. “I haven’t eaten since forever. Daniel has at least feasted on pussy this morning. He should be satiated.”
“Shit, Sif, there are kids around,” I said, coughing with embarrassment.
“Blah, blah, blah, there are kids around, blah, blah, blah,” Sif replied with a cute pout.
“I don’t speak blah,” I joked.
Sif punched me in the arm. “Shut up.”
Liv tucked herself against my side as we walked, her hand staying on the robe, her ears tipped forward.
Between her on my left and Sif on my right, I looked like a man who’d figured something out.
I hadn’t. But the robe fit, and the two women beside me seemed happy, so I decided to stop arguing with the picture and just walk.
The Brown Hen hadn’t changed. Same timber frame, same slate roof, same smell of bread and roasted meat coming through the open windows.
I’d lived here for my first weeks in Halver’s Reach, and the building was still the closest thing I had to a starting point.
Garric’s voice carried from somewhere in the back, loud enough to identify but too muffled to make out words. Probably yelling at a delivery.
We took a table near the window. Sif pulled a chair out and dropped into it. She’d been moving all morning and she was ready to stop. Liv set the arrow bundle on the table with a metallic clink and hung the bowstring over the back of her chair.
Brenna came around the bar.
She noticed me from across the room and her steps slowed by half.
I could see the recognition land in stages as she took in the stonethread, the robe, the belt.
She’d known me in the gray Mildred coat, the scuffed boots—the quiet healer who checked into the Hen and kept to himself and then one night didn’t keep to himself at all.
Now I was sitting in stonethread with two women and a pile of arrows on the table.
She stopped at the edge of our table and looked down at me with those lovely hazel eyes. The freckle on her cheekbone sat just below the line of her smile.
“Look at you,” she said. Direct and warm and not even a little shy about it, because Brenna didn’t do shy. “I almost didn’t recognize you. Almost.” She took her time, collar to boots and back. “Somebody’s been spending money.”
“Somebody else forced me into spending it,” I said.
“That would be Sif,” Liv said helpfully.
Brenna’s eyes went to Sif, who gave a lazy salute from her chair. “Guilty as charged. The man needed a makeover,” she said.
“You did a good job.” Brenna turned back to me, and the warmth in her expression had an edge to it, not sharp, but familiar. The kind of look that said she remembered exactly what I looked like without the robe, and the coat, and everything else. “You clean up well, Daniel. Damn.”
I blushed. “Thank you, Brenna. You look pretty nice yourself.”
“He’s not wrong, is he Liv?” Sif said, eyes sparkling with flirtation.
“No, he’s not. Brenna is a hottie. I’ll never forget that beautiful night with her and Daniel up in our apartment. That was some good fucking.”
Sif’s eyebrows went up, and Liv made a small sound that was trying not to be a laugh.
“I was there too. I was just not in the… middle of things. Unfortunately,” Sif replied.
“No one told you to stay out of it. You think Daniel would have kicked a sexy naked wolf-kin out of the bed?” Liv asked.
I raised my hand a little. “Just for the record, I would not have kicked you out of the bed.”
“Ah, regrets. I don’t have many but missing out on that fun is definitely one.”
“Remember that for next time,” Liv replied.
“Next time? What kind of girl do you think I am?” Brenna asked with a sly grin.
Liv blew Brenna a kiss. “A dirty slut.”
Brenna’s mouth dropped open. “A slut? I’m a nice girl.”
“She is,” I chimed in.
Liv nodded. “She’s a very nice slut. I remember her eating me out that night and she was very kind to me.”
Sif laughed and kicked me in the shin under the table.
“Fuck! What are you kicking me for?” I objected.
“Come on, Daniel, you like it rough.” Sif laughed as she motioned like she was spanking something.
“Am I going to have to kick you three out of the Hen?” Brenna asked.
Liv poked her bottom lip out. “We’ll be good.”
Brenna pulled a cloth off her shoulder and draped it over her forearm, unfazed.
“What can I get you three?”
We ordered. The Hen’s menu hadn’t changed: stew, bread, roasted vegetables, ale. Brenna wrote nothing down and disappeared toward the back.
Liv unwrapped the arrow bundle before the food arrived. Six broadheads gleamed on the oiled cloth, their edges sharp enough to catch the light. Beside them, four dungeon-grade tips with reinforced shanks, heavier and blunter, designed for punching through hard targets.
“These are the broadheads,” Liv said, touching one with her fingertip. “Standard razor edge, good for anything soft. These ones” —she moved to the dungeon-grade tips— “are for armored targets. Chitin, bone plating, stone-skinned mobs. The fletcher said they’ll hold their edge through a full run.”
“How much did the set cost?” I asked.