Chapter 11
Rylana sold another oven the next day and deposited another bag of gold on Jildarin's desk, which prompted him to suggest she spend even more time away from the diner during work hours. She wouldn’t take him up on that.
There was too much to do to stabilize his business and set it on a sustainable path forward.
Her latest project was calculating the costs of all the meals that Jildarin made and coming up with prices for a menu that they could post outside the door.
That would ensure the diner didn’t lose money on any of the dishes and that the amounts didn’t fluctuate depending on who served the patrons.
Rolf, in particular, always added a goblin tip.
By the end of the day, Rylana had posted the menu and felt accomplished.
Needing a touch of exercise, she took off before the dinner hour to accompany Sylin on a jog.
She vowed not to be gone for long in case the servers needed help.
As the bookkeeper, carrying trays and washing dishes probably wasn’t one of her duties, but, since she wanted the place to succeed, she felt obligated to assist whenever it was useful.
“There’s plenty of space in the room I’ve leased if you want to sleep there,” Sylin offered as they trotted through the streets of Tranquility.
With spring creeping into the northern city, the days were growing longer, and twilight hadn’t yet descended, but the gnomish fire-fliers were out, the buzzing contraptions applying flame to the streetlamps that brightened the intersections after dark.
“I’ve paid for it through the next two weeks, and, as we discussed, I’m not using the bed. ”
“That does sound more comfortable than sleeping on the hard floor of Jildarin's storeroom.” Rylana wiped sweat from her brow.
The air was cool, but Sylin’s pace always pressed her.
Since Rylana didn’t plan to return to the mercenary life, she supposed she didn’t need to keep training, but she’d continued sparring and doing jogs with her elven comrade since they’d left the south.
It seemed wise to remain fit, for more reasons than her increased consumption of delicious food.
She hoped she wouldn’t see Vormalt again but couldn’t help but believe she would—and that trouble might come with his appearances.
There was also something unsettling about the peacekeepers being around the diner so often.
Maybe it was simply because Jildarin had changed into his native form the other day, but she had a feeling that walking at a dragon’s side—and working in his diner—might also deliver trouble.
“There were only two drunken knocks on the door during the middle of the night,” Sylin said, “by men who’d seen me go upstairs and hoped I was lonely and pining for their company.”
“Only two men bothered you? That’s a quality establishment.”
They turned onto the waterfront street, jogging north, away from the cargo docks and deeper into the heart of the city.
With the weather decent, numerous humans, dwarves, gnomes, orcs, and people with mixed blood were out.
In a bump-ball court on a sandy beach, a goblin team battled a dwarf team, none of the contestants daunted by the net being strung for taller competitors.
“You’d think my aloof and chilly demeanor would deter men,” Sylin said.
“No, they like a challenge, and they’re always certain they’re the ones with the ability to melt the ice statue.” Rylana didn’t find her elven comrade icy but had heard many others describe her that way.
“I’ve noticed alcohol further bolsters their self-confidence.”
“It’s a powerful elixir, yes.”
As they neared the ferry that could carry passengers, horses, and wagons across the lake to the estates on the monied west side, Rylana had a view of her family’s castle perched on its rocky point to the south of the landing on that shoreline.
Though plumbed and otherwise modernized, it still looked like a vestige from the time when Tranquility had been little more than a troll-fishing village with a few family farms stretching between the water and the forests.
Back then, the gnomes, who’d eventually traded for much of the land, had lived in the mountains, much like the dwarves, many of whom remained there, preferring subterranean homes.
“Of course, you might get an even more appealing room if you visited your family there,” Sylin said, following her gaze across the lake. “One less frequented by drunk males.”
“True. The men in my family haven’t been that prone to drink, unless my uncle Chanlin was visiting.”
“Even if he were, I would assume he wouldn’t knock on the door to your room seeking a mating experience.”
“Probably not,” Rylana said. “High society frowns upon incest, though there have been some plays involving the topic published and performed and lauded by critics. But my beauty isn’t as great as yours and as likely to tempt men to foolishness.”
“Your beauty is fine. It’s not your fault you don’t have any elven blood.” Sylin veered to run up a street perpendicular to the waterfront.
As Rylana followed, she saw the reason why her comrade had rerouted.
Two elven males in green cloaks with blond-green hair to their shoulders and bows on their backs had been heading toward them.
Their weapons were knotted with tranquility ribbons, so their arrows weren’t a threat, but Sylin picked up the pace, regardless.
“Are you going to avoid the elves who live in the city for as long as you’re here?” Rylana asked.
“As assiduously as the drunks in the tavern, yes. And as assiduously as you’re avoiding your relatives.” Sylin slanted her a don’t-judge-me-lest-I-judge-you look, and Rylana waved her fingers in acknowledgment.
But as they jogged up the slope away from the waterfront, she looked thoughtfully back across the lake.
As part of her return to Tranquility, she’d hoped to reconnect with some of the friends she’d grown up with, but they likely still lived over there on their family estates.
If Rylana crossed the lake to visit others, she would feel compelled to see her father.
Maybe she should have felt compelled to do that regardless, out of a sense of familial duty, but the thought made her grimace.
Ahead, on one corner of an intersection, Rylana spotted a gnomish newspaper dispenser.
“Hold up,” she said, remembering Yerin’s visit.
It was probably too soon to expect a review of the diner, but more people than usual had visited during the breakfast and lunch hours, so she wondered if a piece about it might have already been published.
As Gniknik had said, even a poor review could increase business.
“Are you tired already?” Sylin asked. “We’ve only run four miles.”
“Yeah, but the last mile was uphill at a flee-from-wyverns pace.” Rylana wiped her brow again, then fished in her pocket to find a copper for the dispenser.
“A flee-from-elves pace only.”
“For you, that’s as brisk. Do you think your people will attack you if they see you? Here in Tranquility?”
“They attack with words as readily as with weapons. I do not seek to engage with them.” Sylin looked back down the slope as Rylana exchanged her coin for a newspaper. “Since you also battled elves for years, I would think you would likewise desire to avoid them.”
“I doubt any of them would recognize me.” Rylana opened the paper and found the culture section where events such as the dwarven opera, ogre wrestling matches, and the latest plays were reviewed. “If I see one with an arrow scar beside his eye, I’ll run the other way.”
“They are all arrogant, supercilious, and best avoided. Unless, of course, one has an assignment to eliminate one.” Sylin said the latter words as if she were remembering a pleasant experience, one she hoped to relive one day.
“You’re going to have a hard time transitioning to a new line of work, aren’t you?” Rylana ran her finger down the columns, looking for something about diners.
“I also enjoyed the challenge, and I was among the few to lament the end of the war. I even debated remaining with the mercenaries in the hope of more unrest arising. Tranquility is…”
“A brilliant and blazing start under the leadership of an atypical bellwether.”
“I assume you refer to the diner and not the city,” Sylin said.
“Yerin refers to the diner that way.”
“Though the gnomes are atypical, and some people with peace-loving demeanors do think the city brilliant.”
Busy reading the column, Rylana didn’t answer. “Huh. It’s approving.”
“That is a review by the food critic?”
“Yeah, he even liked the spruce-tip bacon.”
“All of the bacon was good.”
Rylana lowered the newspaper. “When Jildarin said Yerin was a fellow chef and a rival in the cooking competition, I assumed he would write a scathing review.”
“Maybe he’s honorable.”
“He stole my bicycle chain and hid it in the flower garden when my brother and I wouldn’t come play with him.”
“Mischief undertaken at a young age, presumably. People can mature.”
“Like the people who knocked on your door in the middle of the night?”
“Some people can mature.”
Rylana supposed that was true. Unlike Vormalt, she didn’t have any reason to be suspicious of Yerin. He’d been a quirky kid but not a mean one, crimes against bicycles notwithstanding.
Trusting the elves had passed on the waterfront street, Rylana gestured that she wanted to head back. She’d had enough exercise and wanted to show the newspaper to Jildarin.
Sylin allowed Rylana to change their route, but she eyed the waterfront warily and turned a block before it to walk back on a parallel street.
“Is it more than wanting to avoid some unpleasantness that has you dodging elves?” Rylana looked across the lake to a stone manor perched three estates down from her family’s castle.
Assuming the property hadn’t changed hands in the years she’d been gone, it belonged to the Molingvars—Yerin’s family.
“There are many reasons why doing so is prudent.”
Rylana gave Sylin a sidelong look but didn’t pry further.
Her elven comrade opened up to her more than she did most people, but she knew Sylin didn’t share everything.
The captain had known some of Sylin’s secrets that Rylana had never learned, and he’d never spoken of them, even after he and Rylana had become intimate.
It wasn’t healthy to dig deeply into the pasts of assassins.
“All right,” Rylana said as Sylin started jogging again.
Rylana would have been content to walk back, but she coerced her cooling muscles into a trot with thoughts of visiting the coffee shop or the bakery for some cookies later.
“Let me know if you need me to cover for you if any elves come to the diner to seek you out.”
“I assume you will cover for me whether I suggest it or not.”
“I suppose that’s true. You’ve saved my life multiple times over the years, and I would be bereft of companionship if something happened to you.”
Two blocks from the diner, Sylin slowed, then stopped altogether, easing behind a fountain featuring two goblins wrestling while spitting water from their mouths. She swept the hood of her cloak over her green hair, putting her face in shadow.
With eyes practiced at picking out targets at great range, Rylana had keen vision, almost as good as that of an elf, and she spotted what had made Sylin pause. A figure with blond-green hair, who wore a green cloak and a bow on his back, was peering through one of the front windows of the diner.
“I believe that fellow’s ears are pointed.” Rylana joined Sylin behind the fountain, though she continued to watch the elf through a gap between the goblins.
“It’s one of the males we saw on the waterfront.”
“You’re certain?” Rylana asked, though she agreed. “Elves all dress so similarly, and most have some green in their hair.”
“I’m certain, and so are you. But where’s the second one?” Sylin looked around, her gaze lingering on the nearby rooftops. Probably more because she was thinking of vaulting up to one and disappearing into the city than because she believed an elf was perched up there.
The door of the diner opened, and the other green-cloaked figure walked out holding a bag that reminded Rylana of the one Rolf had packed for Yerin.
“Acquiring a dragon-spice aphrodisiac apparently,” she said.
“I do not believe it’s a coincidence that they are visiting an establishment where I’ve been lately,” Sylin said.
“Probably no more of a coincidence than Vormalt knowing to seek me out there. Do you think there’s a spy at the dragon diner that tells the world when interesting new customers—or employees—arrive?
” Rylana asked the question jokingly, but she did wonder how Vormalt had so quickly learned she was in the city and at the diner.
She supposed he might have found out via Yerin, who might be keeping an eye on the establishments of his competitors.
And the elves… Well, they were an observant people, and Sylin had mentioned spotting one at the coffee shop the day before.
As an assassin, she was good at seeing others without being seen herself, but if she’d been sipping coffee at a table, and distracted by assessing the elevation at which the beans had been grown, she might not have been applying all her talents at remaining unnoticed.
“While I’ve been about in the city,” Sylin said, “I’ve heard several different people mention that diner. Dragons visiting Tranquility are rare, and one opening a business is unheard of. I do not know who would pay to have it spied upon, but I don’t doubt that many are keeping an eye on it.”
Two gnomes in peacekeeper uniforms walked past the fountain with a short-furred, copper-colored dog on a leash, the animal wearing a green vest that said LOG INSPECTOR.
They were doubtless on the way to one of the parks or beaches to look for stolen goods stashed by goblins or—even more likely—pixies, stumps and logs being a favorite spot for them to tuck items. Rylana doubted the search team had anything to do with the diner but thought of all the times she’d seen peacekeepers and golems loitering nearby the last couple of days and decided that Sylin was right.
A lot of people were keeping an eye on the diner and its dragon owner.
“I will depart.” Sylin pointed up a side street. “Should you desire to sleep separate from the dragon, my room at the Dockside Lodge will be available.”
“Will you be in it?” Rylana wouldn’t be surprised if her comrade left the city to avoid the elves.
Sylin waved noncommittally and trotted into an alley.
By the time Rylana reached the diner, the elves were walking away with their bag.
Their faces were beautiful but haughty and aloof, and they gave her long, cool looks as their paths crossed.
They didn’t, however, stop her. For Sylin’s sake, Rylana hoped the elves weren’t holding a grudge after the war and looking for assassins.