Everyone knew Reide Hafiless. The shop vendors, most of the shoppers, the artisans. And everyone wanted to know who it was he had with him.

"What size?" the dressmaker asked.

The leatherworker slung a satchel over Andreya's shoulder and patted her arm. "For you, it's half price."

"A recipe for a recipe if you know any foreign delicacies, Miss Dreya," said the chef with a wink.

The thing that surprised Andreya most, however, was how every person had toothy smiles. Every face was ruddy, every eye crinkled, every arm open and welcome. Conversations struck as soon as people saw one another, laughter broke out seemingly every moment. She had not been in a town in so long, Andreya had forgotten what people were like.

"The last thing I might need is some more arrows, but I suppose those can wait," Reide was saying as he led her along in her brightly-colored Isantadi commoner clothes. Her dark hair was hidden now in a scarf made of beads and her eyes had been painted to alter their shape, something forbidden in Nasavte because it affected one's natural appearance in accordance with the age-class system. When she'd glanced a mirror in the dress shop earlier, she had not recognized the young woman who usually haunted her reflection.

Andreya looked to the sky, orange and pink pigmenting the clouds, and hurried to keep at Reide's side. "Are you positive we will reach Feledir today?"

"Oh, no." He spared her a surprised glance. "Feledir is a day's ride from the forest in a carriage. Did I not tell you?"

Andreya frowned and stopped in the street. Reide stopped a moment later. "You did not. Should I take that to mean we will be camping on the side of the road come nightfall?"

"You know, for a lady who nearly froze to death in the woods, you are quite demanding." He chuckled. "But no, if it is not her desire, I will not subject a lady to camping if I can help it... though I am sure it wouldn't kill you."

Andreya's frown turned to a scowl. "You make light of my curse."

He registered surprise. "Surely not! Forgive me, my humor was tasteless." Then his smile crept back as if it were his natural state—admittedly, it looked quite good on him. "There's an inn here we can stay at tonight, if you'd like. I know the keeper, a woman named Calever. Lovely lady, wonderful tambourinist..."

Dusk followed in what could have been an instant or three days. Half of Andreya would really rather not have listened to Reide's rambling, but the other half was oddly endeared. Another emotion she didn't know what to do with. One way or another, they found themselves in front of the inn, an old but kempt three-story wooden building, lamplight pouring through the windows and the chaos of many conversations drifting muffled through the walls. It was a poor establishment, but perhaps only compared to the prestige of Marivatan Manor with its carpeted floors and velvet draperies and plush lounges. Canopy beds, marble dinner tables, ivory walls, hand-painted navy accents on every doorway trim.

Reide held open the creaky door and Andreya wished to shrink away, retreat back to the comfort of that faraway place.

Instead, she nodded in thanks as she stepped through the threshold into a room crowded with men and women of all age and breed, pink in the face, roaring with laughter or else half-asleep, though the moon had barely shown itself yet. Some appeared to be telling stories, others reacting or clinking glasses. It was pandemonium in the form of twelve-or-so circular tables and forty people, most shamefully inebriated. The smell of alcohol was enough to be sickening if the noise weren't already having the same effect.

"Miss Andreya?"

She turned to Reide, whom she'd forgotten about completely. He nearly shouted over the surrounding cacophony to be heard.

"Are you well?"

"Yes, thank you." Certainly not. She was disgusted. "Where is the room?"

He canted his head and said, "I haven't asked for one yet" at the same time a woman across the room yelled, "Ay, Reide, you scoundrel! You haven't been here in months!"

"Miss Calever!" Reide called back, grinning. Several other rowdy guests seemed to recognize either his voice or his name and joined in the racket of reunions.

Andreya had never stayed at an inn before, but she couldn't have imagined it worse than it was. Reide weaved between the crowded tables to greet them properly while she stood precisely in her place near the door, hands folded in front of her and trying to mentally plug her ears. Still, she was glad that in a place this crowded, her clothes alone were enough to make her blend in. People would not notice her Nasavtean features or her grimace whenever someone said something at a particularly high volume.

"Miss Dreya Lenestrie! This way, please!"

She practically leapt past the tables to get to Reide and the woman Calever, who would show her to someplace less populated. She noted the back door—the only other exit—before following them up the stairs at the other end of the room and past several doors in the hallway, the sound from downstairs growing increasingly distant.

"So you two are traveling together?" Calever was saying. "Where to?"

"Feledir," Reide answered, and the three of them stopped near the end of the hallway as Calever procured a large ring of keys.

"Feledir," she mused. Andreya stared at the woman's hands as she filed through the keys. "That's almost to the Court. Stopping by your family's place, by any chance?"

"Perhaps, but Miss Dreya... will only need to go as far as Feledir." He cast her a glance Andreya couldn't interpret.

"I see. Well, you two can stay as long as you like, there's life downstairs just about all night, always someone to talk to, leave the key on the desk when you leave. You know the spiel. And Miss Dreya—"

Andreya froze as Reide took the key.

"—once you get to know Isantad, you might find it's a wonderful place to be." Calever smiled and swished her dress. "Well, have fun, kiddos!"

What did that mean? The woman was halfway down the hall by the time Andreya finally looked back to Reide. He held the door open and gestured inside.

The room was poorly lit with worn plank floors and frameless beds—one on each end of the room, small enough for only one person each—and a single desk in between. A window let in sparse moonlight above the desk, and an unlit candle offered little consolation. It was a peasant's paradise and a noble's garden shack.

"Which bed would you like?" Reide asked as he closed the door, and Andreya, true to her heart, could not care less. Still, she picked the left and dared to prod at the mattress with her hand. Thin blankets, slightly scratchy, an understuffed pillow. She was not impressed.

"I am curious."

Andreya looked to Reide, who sat on his bed on the other end of the small room, undoing the braids in his hair and giving her a side glance.

"I am curious. What life were you running from?" He separated a tangle with a small wince. "Who were you when you were in Nasavte?"

She continued to watch him sit there for several moments before bringing her hand to the scarf of beads in her own hair with no idea how to remove it. Her voice was quiet. Subdued, almost. "I was a noble. The last of my house. I... didn't leave much behind."

"No friends? Extended family?"

She scoffed. Not with the hostile manner in which the Radenbutans had bid her riddance. "A long time ago, perhaps. As I said, I am the last of my family. My grandparents disowned my father when he got married and my mother had no siblings. But it matters not. They are all dead now."

She plucked a pin out of her hair, laid it on the bed, and paused at his stare.

"You have no family?" It was the most disheartened she had ever heard from him.

"I take it you do, then?"

"All but my mother," he said. "With no friends, weren't you lonesome?"

Instead of answering, she pulled another pin from her scarf and startled when a string of beads fell down and brushed her nose.

Reide snorted. "Would you like some help?"

"Not when you say it like that."

"My apologies." He stood and crossed the room in three strides, not seeming sorry at all. The mattress creaked when he sat to her side and turned her shoulders so she faced away from him. He removed the remaining pins as if he had memorized where they all were and began unstringing the scarf from her hair. Andreya raised a brow she knew he couldn't see.

"Do you have a sister?" she asked.

"Two brothers."

"Then... a lover?"

His hands stopped abruptly and she imagined he was blushing.

"How, then, are you so skilled at undoing my hair?" she said.

"I just watched Miss Geraila when she did it earlier."

"Right." Andreya stared down at her lap as he gently tugged the beads loose. Persisting ruckus from the downstairs late-nighters provided the only sound, and she registered the air in the small room suddenly as unrecognizable. Andreya had not been this near to someone since her family died—that had marked the last true relationship she had ever held with other people. Yet here this man was, speaking frankly and acting the same as if she were some old friend. And, most surprising of all, she did not shove him away. Her body had at some point gained a mind of its own or else the mind she did have had betrayed her.

When he finished with her hair and returned to his own bed, she asked, "Why are you helping me?"

"That's a silly question."

She frowned. "You think I am a ghoul, yes? And are helping me despite it? Why?"

"I have told you on several occasions, Miss Andreya, that I was mistaken in calling you a ghoul. I have found you to be quite an agreeable lady."

She pursed her lips as he untied his boots and slipped under his covers, not sparing her another glance. Finally, she decided he was not going to say anything else and did the same. The blankets were just as scratchy as her initial analysis, but though this day had been one of her most exhausting, she still gazed up at the ceiling for several minutes, silent but with many buzzing thoughts.

"Miss Andreya?"

"Reide?" she whispered back immediately.

"May I call you by your first name only?"

She tightened her grip on the edge of her blankets and was disgustingly exhilarated by the idea. "Whysoever would you want to do that?"

"Because I am fond of your name."

In the pause that followed, she may have stopped breathing. She should not have cared that he liked her name. The smile that grew on her lips was entirely unsolicited. "Well, in that case, I suppose you may."

"Wonderful." Another pause, then, "Goodnight, Andreya."

He really had turned her into a clown.

"Goodnight, Reide."

──── xxx ────

Bonjour, beans! What an out-of-place little moment here, Andreya's so weak to temptation XD. Any thoughts, suggestions, critiques? I'd love to hear them! Don't forget to vote if you enjoyed this chapter and show some love to other great books in the ONC community!