He could hear Havilar on the other side of the door, the thud and crack of her pretending to thrash someone with her glaive. On the road from Neverwinter, he’d watched her and even stepped in to spar with her a time or two. It left him with no doubt at alclass="underline" this girl was lovely and funny, and she could kill him in the span of a few heartbeats.
And now she was angry at him.
Don’t flatter yourself, he thought. As surely, if he apologized to Havilar, she’d wrinkle her brow and ask what in the world he meant by that? Don’t even mention it, he told himself.
He hesitated another moment, listening to the rhythm of her feet striking the floor in a complex dance. Dancing, he could have handled, and bladework, well enough, even against Havilar. But no one had given him lessons in dealing with girls, and he felt rather sure it wasn’t supposed to be difficult. If you were fond of a girl, you simply told them so or made some grand gesture or gifted her with something-and then you were in love and everything went on as it was meant to. You never worried she was the wrong girl to head down that path with. You never worried she might laugh at you. You certainly never worried about her glaive.
Perhaps it was better to go on avoiding her.
Coward, he thought, and he made himself rap on the door.
Havilar opened it, glaive in hand. The tawny skin above her open collar was beaded with sweat and her breath came hard. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, and he could hear the faint tap of her tail starting to flick against the floor. The sound made Brin’s nerves rattle.
“Oh. Brin.” She took a step back. “Did you want something?”
He shook his head-just say it, he thought. I’m glad you didn’t go. I would have felt like an utter plinth-head, and … She stared, just stared, at him-angry, surely angry. “How are you?” he said.
“Fine,” she said. “All right, anyway.” She folded her arms across her stomach. “Farideh’s not here.”
“I didn’t think so,” he said, then added hurriedly, “It didn’t sound as if she were. I’m impressed you can do any practicing in these little rooms.”
“Oh.” Havilar blinked at him. “Do you want to come in?”
Yes, yes he did. Constancia wasn’t right, but she wasn’t entirely wrong either. Havilar wasn’t the sort of girl, the sort of woman he was supposed to look twice at. She wasn’t human, she wasn’t ladylike, and she stood over him by a noticeable amount, even if you didn’t count her horns. She was wild and a little silly, and entirely too attached to her polearm.
And yet, despite-or perhaps because of all that-a part of him would be very pleased to be alone with her in a room, with all their weapons set aside.
“No, I just wanted to see you,” he said. “To say … to see how you were.”
Havilar frowned at him, as if she couldn’t tell if he was being serious. “I told you already. And you?”
Ye gods, could this go any worse? he thought. Sune’s bright face, he knew how to talk. He could be a little charming-charming enough for court. Why did it all fall apart when it was Havilar looking down at him? It had been so much easier on the road, when they weren’t just standing there, looking for things to talk about, when they had things to do to distract them …
“I have to go to a counting house,” he said, “to see about some coin. Would you … you could come along.”
Havilar blinked at him. “I haven’t got coin to count.”
“Oh.” Brin looked away. “No. I didn’t mean-”
“When did you get coin?” she asked, leaning against the door jamb. “I thought you were sleeping on Tam’s floor.”
Brin flushed. “Did he tell you that?”
“Well … I mean, I asked.” She looked down at the point of her glaive, worrying it into a knot in the floor. “You weren’t going to tell me.”
“You didn’t ask me,” he pointed out. Gods, what a mess. What a total mess. “I wasn’t asking if you needed to go as well. I was wondering … Look, I’m a little nervous about this and I’d just like some company. Would that be all right?”
“Oh.” She considered him a moment. “Do you think you might be robbed on the way back, is that it?”
He started to say that he didn’t think that, that he wasn’t planning to take much coin at all-if in fact he took any-and anyway, she didn’t need to worry about him. But he caught himself-that was worlds better than having her think he was asking her to see his accounts. “Yes,” he said. “Oh, that’s most definitely a worry.”
Her smile grew. “Let me change.”
If the previous shops Farideh had encountered had been shabby, Master Florren’s might better have been described as only recently crawling up from “midden heap” to “shop.” Light struggled through the torn curtains covering the windows, spearing the dusty air where it broke through. A lamp burned behind a cracked shade, casting the array of over-sharpened weapons laid out beside the counter in an oily light. She shut the door behind her gingerly, loath to close herself into the musty shop.
Her eyes adjusting to the shift of light, Farideh edged forward, toward the counting bench. She said a silent apology to Havilar, but Adolican Rhand had been right-no one was going to give her the price she needed. Two more days of furtive searching and she still had no ritual book. Lorcan was still trapped somewhere in the Hells, suffering gods knew what torments, and she still couldn’t do anything about it.
“Well met, girly,” a voice called out. She startled. A halfling man-the shop owner-stood beside a rack of staffs, watching her, much as every shopkeeper had watched her, with a cautious, appraising eye. Only, Goodman Florren seemed assured that she posed no threat to him. He may have only come to Farideh’s hip, but the halfling held himself as if he knew exactly how to bring her down, should it come to that. “You lost?”
“I’m looking for a ritual book,” she said. “Someone told me you had them for a fair price.”
“ ‘Someone,’ eh?” Goodman Florren’s dark gaze swept over her. “Seems I do excellent business with Goodsir Someone.”
“I’m sorry,” Farideh said. “What I meant-”
“Ritual books are on that shelf,” he said, waving a hand at the far end of the shop. One of the staffs spit a jagged spark of purple energy. He cursed and turned back to arranging the implements.
The shelf was sagging and the options sorry. Three worn books slouched against each other: the first thick as her fist, but with a binding so worn it might not make it out of the shop; the second better, but full of faded, yellow inks and missing pages that left a hollow, fragile feel to the magic; and the third blooming with mildew and missing any sense of magic around it at all.
“How much are these?” she called.
Goodman Florren came to stand beside her. “Fifty. Forty-three. And … Hells, let’s call that one twenty-two.”
“Gold?” she said. “That one’s not even a ritual book.”
“I’ve got better in the back, if you don’t like the quality.”
“For double the price, I’m sure.”
He chuckled. “More like triple.”
“That’s robbery.”
He shrugged, unperturbed, and went back behind his counting table, climbing onto the high stool there. “I’ll take a trade. Weapons, scrolls, jewelry. Might make the price more palatable.” He gave her a wicked smile. “Mayhaps I can think of something.”
“You want me to steal for you?”
“Did I say that?” Goodman Florren said, all innocence. “It sounded to me like I was trying to make you a good deal by offering to take what you don’t need. For Someone’s sake.”