Chapter 17 #2
Ainsworth couldn’t deny that he was curious.
Head slightly spinning from the evening’s merriment, he skulked through the quiet corridor as though he were a thief in the night, passed the stairs that led to his and the other guest rooms, and headed straight for the door to the left of the kitchen.
A dim glow floating from underneath it suggested residents were beyond.
He had not seen Spin. Perhaps she was in her room?
He hoped Alvea’s room was not too hard to find. What did she say? To the right?
Ainsworth opened the door and winced at its loud creaking.
He slipped in and shut it behind him just as someone left the tavern hall and entered the corridor.
He heard the thundering that suggested someone was going to retrieve something or other from upstairs.
Then he heard Bren and Ashe starting up their music again.
It drifted through to him—a rather upbeat tune at odds with his stealthing.
He wished to return to that music and merriment quickly, and so he set off.
Tiptoeing across the floor, he identified the door from Alvea’s instructions and inserted the small, silver key attached to the large gold one that secured the corridor door.
It would not turn.
He cursed under his breath and rattled the doorknob. Alvea should have warned him about a stiff lock—
The door swung open inward, and he stumbled forward—straight into Honey.
“What are you doing here?” she gasped, catching him by the shoulders before he could topple onto her.
“I— I could ask you the same thing!” he replied, shooting to his feet. “What are you doing in Alvea’s room?”
“Alvea’s room?” Honey took a step back. She had removed the dangling trinkets from her horns, and her hair looked softer than usual, some errant, curling strands drifting around her head. “This is my room. But my room or not, you should not be back here in the staff corridor.”
She glowered at him, and he felt for a moment like all the heat in the inn rushed to meet him, sending a violent wave of warmth from his head to his toes.
How he wished the floor would swallow him!
“Oh, Honey, I’m so very sorry!” he said, taking a step back. “She—Alvea—said the second door on the right, but perhaps I misheard? Or I have miscounted? She wished me to seek some jewelry in her room!”
Honey’s eyes narrowed. “Oh, did she, now? This is my room—second to the right, as you can see. I suppose she’ll spin some tale that she was too addled by ale to remember the correct instructions, or…something on that order.”
Ainsworth paused. That Alvea had sent him here, intending him to run into Honey…Was this the chef’s idea of trickery?
But there was something more pressing at hand. “Why are you in your room?” Ainsworth asked. “The evening is still young! I thought you had just nipped to the bar to get a drink.”
“Oh, I did,” Honey said, leaning on the doorframe. Ainsworth resisted the urge to peer past her shoulder to see how she arranged her room. “I took it back to the table. You were gone.”
“Yes, Tryll asked me to dance.”
“I could see that,” she responded coolly.
“I— Okay, admittedly she did not ask me to dance, she dragged me to dance.”
Honey folded her arms. “Well, it seemed like you were having a merry time, and as I said, my singing had tired me out. My throat hurts a little, actually. So I decided to retire. Is that all? Or is this interrogation for a pivotal chapter in your book?”
Ainsworth stood for a second, puzzled by her demeanor, so different from their interactions earlier that night. Honey had started to say something back at the table before she retrieved her drink, and…and he had simply continued drinking ale before being dragged off.
Wait…had Honey wanted to dance with him?
Tryll’s flirtatious grin flashed in his mind, as did the way the girl lingered behind Alvea waiting to snatch him back.
Was Honey…jealous?
No. He knew jealousy. He knew it in Enach’s snide comments, his refusal to let Ainsworth speak with certain people without Enach’s presence. This didn’t feel like that. And besides, he and Honey were just friends! But it did feel like she was disappointed at…something.
Ainsworth feared he had stood for a second too long in contemplation when Honey awkwardly cleared her throat, winced in what he assumed was pain, and made to close the door. “Alvea’s actual room is over the hall—”
He reached out and stopped the door from closing. “Yes. Yes, actually, this is important research for my book.” In holding the door open he had taken a step forward, closing the gap between them.
She looked up at him, startled. He hadn’t noticed the scattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose before. “Oh?”
“Yes,” he continued, a tad breathless and daring to step a little closer. “You see, I believe I will include—in the appendices—a note of remedies suitable to soothe the most talented bard’s voice I’ve ever heard.”
“A-Ainsworth!” she scoffed, hitting him gently across the chest. He did not know what possessed him to do it, but he caught her hand and held it in both of his, letting go of the door, which now remained open.
She looked up at him, the amber light from the hall lantern casting her gently aglow. “You’re being ridiculous!”
“No, I’m not. I believe this is an important contribution to knowledge! Very much of interest to the public. Wait here while I go to the kitchen and bring you a tray of remedies—if you are willing to be my research subject this evening?”
She rolled her eyes but smiled all the same. “Fine, then. I suppose the evening is still young, as you say.”
“As I did! Excellent. I won’t be a moment.”