Chapter 10
Rylana resisted the urge to fling herself behind the bar to hide from Vormalt—after all, he’d already seen her. She needed to deal with him. Reminding herself that she was a combat veteran who’d faced dragons, she walked to the table.
The food critic looked up, blinking curiously at her a few times. “Rylana Avandar?”
“Yes,” she said. His name clicked for her between one breath and the next, and she added, “Yerin Molingvar, right? You’ve changed.”
He hadn’t worn spectacles as a kid, and his freckles had been more pronounced, but she remembered him riding past the castle on his bicycle and asking if she or her brother wanted to come out and play.
He’d been fond of making elaborate sandcastle villages on the beach while lecturing the other kids on proper structural support and engineering challenges.
The rest of the children in the neighborhood, Rylana and her brother included, had been more interested in throwing balls or tossing sticks into the water for the dogs to fetch.
“You’ve changed too.” Yerin adjusted his spectacles and considered her face—or maybe her hair.
“Yes, quite. What did you do to yourself, Rylana?” Vormalt waved at her hair. “That used to be lush and long, and now it’s… Did you cut it yourself?”
“Actually, a comrade did. She’s skilled with knives.”
“Not that skilled.” Vormalt smirked.
“I’ll admit her blade moves are more for assailing enemies than cutting hair, but the only scissors in our unit were in the doc’s medical kit, and I was loath to be trimmed by something used for snipping off sutures and removing bloody bandages.
Besides, I’ve found it practical to have my hair shorter.
And you’re not as charming as you used to be, Vernest.”
The smirk turned into a dazzling smile in a face that remained handsome, the flecks of gray in his hair doing little to detract. “You remember me too. I’m touched.”
“Why are you lurking at the Dragon Diner?” Rylana looked at his wrist, relieved to spot a golden marriage bracelet there. Whatever had brought him by, it wasn’t a quest for a wife.
She’d asked the question to Vormalt, but Yerin lifted his notepad and answered. “The newspaper sent me to try the food and learn if there’s a story here. This diner is developing quite a reputation.” He raised his eyebrows, as if to ask if she knew more and would gossip. “Do you… work here?”
“Yes, but only since yesterday.” Rylana eyed the notepad, glimpsing lists of ingredients, several with question marks after them.
Was Yerin trying to deconstruct Jildarin’s recipes?
She had no idea if that was typical for a food critic but supposed it might be.
He would want to mention specifics in whatever write-up he did.
Hopefully, he wouldn’t pick out the spruce tips and make scathing comments about being fed tree branches.
“Are you a waitress now? At a diner a block from the docks?” Vormalt’s smile shifted back into a smirk—a condescending one. “Does your father know? He would be terribly disappointed in you working such a menial job, I’m certain.”
“I’m the bookkeeper. But I used to kill people for a living.”
Vormalt blinked. Maybe that wasn’t the wisest thing to announce, especially in Tranquility, but Rylana felt the need to let him know that she’d changed and that she wouldn’t be pressured by whatever he wanted.
“Gavlin Avandar might also be chagrined by that career choice,” Yerin murmured.
“I didn’t tell him about it,” Rylana said. “Vormalt, you must need something since you keep coming by this lowly diner a block from the docks. Do you want to step outside and discuss whatever it is in private?”
“I would like to speak with you, yes.”
“I gathered when we saw you peering through the window last night.” Rylana arched her eyebrows as she waited to see if he would deny he’d been the window-peeper. He did not. “I assume it wasn’t a desire to monitor the bacon preparation that brought you by.”
“The bacon is excellent. Write that down.” As Vormalt slid out of the booth, he waved at Yerin, almost knocking over a water glass near the edge of the table. It wobbled but remained upright.
“The Chronicles’ hobbyist archaeology journalist isn’t going to advise me on my restaurant column,” Yerin said.
Since when did Vormalt write for the newspaper? Or have an archaeology hobby? Rylana vaguely remembered him enjoying reading history books, but hadn’t he been assiduously climbing the ranks in her father’s business when she’d last seen him?
“Excellent is a pedestrian word with no inherent descriptive meaning,” Yerin added.
“I’m always fortunate that you’re willing to tutor me in the ways of scribes.” When Vormalt stood straight, he towered over Rylana, as he always had. He’d been gangly at twenty-five but had filled out since then.
“I remember why we didn’t play with Yerin when we were kids,” Rylana murmured as she walked toward the front door with Vormalt. She glanced down the hallway, wondering if Jildarin was still peering out of the kitchen, but he must have returned to his work.
“He’s all right.” Vormalt held the door open for her. “Just ambitious with a need to prove himself.”
“Are you doing anything to prove yourself these days? Writing for the newspaper instead of working for my father?”
“He let me go years ago. Shortly after you left, as I recall.”
“He didn’t blame you for that, did he?”
“I think he was more upset after someone told him a story that I’d poisoned one of his dogs.” Vormalt gave her a sidelong look.
“You did bring the cookies that made Darter sick.”
“Your father should have held the baker accountable. As to my ambitions with the newspaper, my contributions are infrequent, usually made after I go on digs. I have become an archaeologist and take expeditions into the mountains every year.” Vormalt looked up and down the street, his gaze lingering on two dwarven females who walked out of the bakery with a box similar to the one Sylin had described the day before—maybe that particular cake was a popular menu item.
Vormalt pointed to the coffee shop. “A drink?”
“All right, but I can’t stay for long. I’m on the clock.”
Vormalt regarded her as they navigated around a wagon and across the street. “I do remember that you had a knack for numbers. Your father badly wanted you to go into the family business, not be an empty-headed trophy on some man’s arm.” He smirked as he looked at her hair again.
“That wasn’t ever going to be my fate.”
“Are you going to let that grow out again? Now that you’re not… what did you say you did before? I assume you were jesting to intimidate Yerin.”
Yerin wasn’t who she’d been delivering that message to, and Rylana bristled at the insults to her hair. “Until recently, I was a mercenary and fought in the Ore War.”
Vormalt stopped in front of the coffee shop and stared at her. “You’re not joking?”
Rylana showed him her right hand. In addition to scars on the back, her palm was calloused from training with swords, and the tips of her draw fingers were in a similar state.
“I don’t know what I’ll do with my hair now, but it’s hardly any of your concern.
I see that you’re married and presumably not looking. ”
His eyebrows lifted. “After you fled from our engagement—”
“We were never engaged. Father was the only one to agree to your proposal.”
“I thought our marriage was a certainty. Regardless, I did indeed, after nearly perishing from a broken heart, have to seek the embrace of another. Pennigrew Timberport, in fact.”
“An older lady, goodness. But quite well-endowed, so an obvious choice, I suppose.”
“Well-endowed in family assets, certainly. Less well-endowed in personal assets, alas. We’ve had an open marriage, and, as far as looking goes, I do occasionally seek the company of others.”
“Is it as open for her as it is for you?”
“Certainly.”
Rylana grimaced as she perched on the edge of a chair at a table for two, less interested than ever in speaking with Vormalt.
“She’s an agreeable enough wife, especially given the great wealth that she was raised amid, but I travel quite a bit, and pining with loneliness prompts me to seek out others from time to time.”
“I don’t need the details of your affairs,” Rylana said. “What do you want with me?”
“I simply heard you’d arrived back in town and was quite curious what became of you and what you’ve been doing all these years.”
“It had to be more than curiosity that prompted you to come by three times in the last two days.”
“It was only twice.”
Vormalt waved for a blue-haired gnome—or maybe she was a half-gnome, because she was on the tall side for one of their diminutive species—to bring them coffee. One of the owners—Brella—was roasting beans again, and the air smelled wonderful.
“A latte for me,” Rylana told the girl. Then, feeling obligated to at least attempt to turn this into a work-related business excursion, she added, “Will you ask the owners—I met them yesterday—if they have any interest in purchasing a better-than-new gnomish commercial oven?”
The girl blinked.
“They mentioned that they get their cookies from the bakery next door, but it would be less expensive if they made their own here in the shop. Further, you could incorporate your coffee into the batter. I enjoy dipping a wafer biscuit into my lattes, don’t you?
I’m certain all manner of treats could be enhanced with espresso powder if not whole delicious beans from your fine local roastery. ” Rylana waved toward the equipment.
“I… will see if they are interested.”
“Your father must lament daily that you chose not to go into the family business,” Vormalt said dryly. “You almost make me want to buy an oven from you. At the least, the cookies one could make sound appealing.”
Turning back to Vormalt, Rylana asked, “You weren’t the one stalking me in the streets last night?”
“Certainly not.”
“Just peering in the windows?”
“I was hoping to speak with you and thought you might remain at the diner after closing.”