Chapter 2
If Audra possessed enough courage to follow her dreams, she would have been a murderer by now.
As it was, the fantasy of shoving the men in the seventh room of her family’s inn off the balcony replayed in her mind, her gaze trailing from the stain she scrubbed on the filthy floor to the cast-wide balcony doors where three men lounged on the balcony, sloshing bottles of dreg-laden whiskey amid a haze of acrid cigar smoke.
Audra’s fingers clenched painfully around the bleached wood handle of a scrub brush as she watched the eldest brother smash the glowing ember of his cigar directly onto the mosaic embedded in the small table—the table her father had hand-carved himself and her mother had adorned, tile by painted tile.
For three days, these brothers had lodged at the Fernwell Inn.
Each morning, when Audra made her rounds, she found shards of shattered whiskey bottles scattered across their room.
Yesterday, some of her honey lavender porridge had been left to congeal unceremoniously into a glue on the wall, fusing to the striped wallpaper.
And now … this. A mystery stain seared onto the original herringbone wood flooring. Between the unfulfilling protest that morning, the sweat that dripped from her brow, mixing with the soap suds, the ache in her lower back, and the persistence of this stain, Audra had had enough.
Experience told her that they weren’t the type to leave a gratuity at the end of their stay. Though the brothers, or the Three Boars, as she’d begun to call them in her mind, most likely considered their frequent, leering offers to warm her bed at night as tip enough.
She would rather fling herself over the balustrade than let one of them into her bed.
Audra wiped at her brow and gave the floor one last futile swipe with the stiff-bristled brush before dropping it into the bucket of sudsy water with a splash.
No matter how much soap she used or how vigorously she scoured, the stain persisted.
Now she would have to make the journey down the icy cliffs to the harbor to purchase a rug at the market to cover it.
If left visible, the stain would eat at her resolve, her perfectionism unable to deem the room tidy enough for new guests.
She tossed an escaped braid away from her face as she clambered to her feet.
She took a moment to gather her rage and remind herself that, while she might not be about to push them off the balcony, she could glean at least a little satisfaction from this interaction.
Then she strode out of the room onto the balcony.
“Finally come to join us for a drink?” the youngest of the Three Boars, whom she’d come to think of as Little Boar, asked, his dull gaze fixed firmly on her chest. Audra rolled her eyes.
The gangly youth hadn’t the decency to even feign possessing enough respect to look her in the eyes when speaking to her.
“As I’ve said the other fifteen times you’ve asked, no, not ever,” said Audra, her voice calmer than she felt within.
“Why come out here, then? If not to drink with us,” the eldest, Big Boar, asked with a sneer that revealed tobacco-yellowed teeth.
He was probably fifteen years older than Audra’s twenty-three.
Unlike his dullard youngest brother, the eldest met her gaze when speaking to her, though she wished he wouldn’t.
His eyes were menacing, calculating, and cruel, with not an ounce of kindness or empathy in them.
Audra wanted to make some sharp retort. Instead, all she could do was stare at the ash caked in the crevices between the mosaic tiles on the table’s surface.
Her heart ached to see her mother’s art so maltreated.
She procured a rag from her apron pocket and began to wipe.
And if some of the ash landed in the youngest’s lap …
Well, that could hardly be helped. At least his gaze was now diverted from her chest.
“I came to bring you this,” she chirped as she withdrew a hideous lump of hardened, fired clay about the size of her hand from the middle pocket of her apron. Neither beautiful nor artfully made, the item was crudely molded by Emyre, Audra’s adopted little brother.
Emyre had no talent for sculpting, just ample enthusiasm, and this was his most recent gift to her.
One of about seventy. She kept all of them, placing the glowering, goblin-like creatures on various surfaces around the inn—hoping their uncanny flat eyes would deter the guests from impudent behavior.
She hung the least offensive pieces of Emyre’s “art” in the corridors and residence hall, but this one …
She’d had to suppress a shudder when he’d given it to her.
It was a thick disk curved into a shallow bowl, onto which Emyre had carved a smiling face.
Truly, when one looked at it straight on …
Well, Audra was almost certain she’d had a recurring nightmare about a demon wearing this exact face when she’d been little.
All three brothers eyed the horrifying bowl-shaped clay face as she slid it to the center of the table.
“Since you are too lazy to flick your ashes over the ledge”—Audra cut her eyes to the edge of the balcony, which was well within arm’s reach of each of these man-children—“then your ashes go in this.” She pointed at the clay monstrosity for emphasis, just in case they were too idiotic to gather what she was referring to.
“I’ll dispose of the contents when you depart tomorrow. ”
Audra felt a slight pang of guilt before remembering Emyre loved when his art had use. And this piece would protect part of the inn, which was Emyre’s first love.
The middle brother, who was about Audra’s age, whose nose hairs were so long they mingled with his mustache, snorted before taking a pull from the whiskey bottle clutched in a spindly-fingered hand.
His eyes shifted between his elder brother and her.
Audra suspected Mustached Boar, seemingly lacking a brain of his own, was waiting to see how the leader of the pack would react.
Big Boar took his time pulling a fresh cigar from a worn leather case, striking a match on the table, and lighting it.
He pulled in a breath, filling up his barrel-sized chest with smoke, before blowing it out, right into her face.
It took all of Audra’s restraint not to react, not even to flutter her eyelashes when the smoke stung her eyes.
“Tomorrow? We paid up for another three days. And—” He tapped the cigar, purposefully bypassing the clay nightmare face so the ash landed on the table.
It settled directly onto a painted boat, the detail remarkable for how tiny it was, if one would only take the time to notice. “We don’t take orders from wenches.”
Mist take them whole, they were aggravating.
“How vexing,” she remarked. Her tone, she was proud to say, was collected, though she was all heat and anger inside as she plucked the freshly lit cigar from his meaty fingers and tossed it over the railing.
Big Boar blinked for several breaths, as though he wasn’t quite sure what had happened before his anger caught up with his eyesight.
He roared, standing up to lean over the railing to watch the descent of his precious cigar as it fell three hundred feet to disappear into Salt Hollow Bay.
He turned to look at her with rage seared onto his face as surely as that stubborn stain had been seared into the floor of room seven.
If only she could throw a rug over him and call it a day.
“Bitch,” Big Boar hissed, spittle flying. “You’ll pay for that.”
“Actually, you will be the one paying. Due to the extensive damage done to your room, tonight will be the end of your stay with us. Any remaining remittance,” she said, squaring her shoulders, “will be used to restore the room to its former state.”
Big Boar clenched his fists and took a menacing step toward Audra.
Which, given how tiny the balcony, was all it took for him to be right in her face, hot, vile breath and all.
This wasn’t the first time she’d had a heated discussion with a customer, but still, a thrill of distress went through her.
Yet she held her ground, just as her mother had taught her through example.
“Wench, I told you before, we don’t take—”
“I heard you,” she said. She wanted more than anything to take a step back, yet she didn’t dare cede any ground.
“But you know who you would take orders from?” She arched an eyebrow, the hint of a smile playing on her full lips. “At least, for as long as you managed to survive in the cesspool that they call a jail? The Coastal Watch.”
The eldest’s cruel, bloodshot eyes narrowed when the corner of Audra’s mouth settled upward into a smug smirk.
Mustache Boar finally spoke. “We were assured that Fernwell Inn was a safe harbor … That is, that the proprietors of Fernwell Inn wouldn’t betray travelers to the Coastals.”
Audra’s eyes widened, as understanding dawned as to why the middle brother had remained tight-lipped around her until now; his voice was as squeaky as the peep of a freshly hatched chick seeking its mother. Audra mentally changed Mustache Boar’s moniker to Squeaker Boar.
“Jed,” Squeaker Boar continued, shifting his attention to his brother. “She wouldn’t, would she?”
“Quiet, Joco. The wench has no good reason to call the Coastals, and she knows it.” Big Boar’s hand flashed out, his grimy fingers encircling the circumference of Audra’s wrist. “And even if she did send for the Watch, we all know they aren’t going to climb all those damned stairs for an offense as small as a few patrons making a mess in a swamp-hole inn. ”
More painful than his grasp was the insult to what her family had built from the ground up. As if he could sense the nerve he had struck, Big Boar grinned, tightening his grip as he leaned closer still.