a very desirable fashion. “Something like that.”
Levent was making me very nervous, hovering around the room like he was. At the moment, he was inspecting a rather delicate display of dishes I had received from Gorn's wife while she was still his fiancée. I frowned, and after a second of silence I finally said something.
“Would you please sit down?” A touch of annoyance reached the last syllable, but the kin just turned around toward the table Morrense and I were at. His silence was really grating on me, and it did not help his first impressions. If he did this in front of the villagers, we would all be toast. I massaged my temples. Sleep seemed completely out of the question at this point.
“I’ll go make some tea.”
I went into my kitchen, rustling around in the cabinets for some trace of tealeaves. I had rarely had guests besides Morrense and his family, but whenever they were over I would serve them tea. It just seemed like the proper thing to do. However, it had been since before Gorn’s wedding that they had visited, and I had to search for several minutes before I remembered that the tealeaves were stashed behind several jars of preserved fruit.
Burning long-dead wood for heat was something fauns did allow, seeing as it does go with the natural cycle of things, so it was no big deal for me to toss a bundle of kindling into the stove to boil water. I unburied my small metal teapot from a pile of old books, washed it out briefly and then set it down full of water on the stovetop. I would need a lot of tea to survive this day.
The next task was to change out of my half-dried clothes, as they had taken to sticking to my skin unpleasantly. I made for the narrow stairway that led to my bedroom, peeking into the living room briefly to make sure nothing was amiss.
I scowled a little as I watched Morrense flipping through one of my many books rather nervously. Levent seemed to be attempting to stare through the far wall. I shook my head and moved on.
It felt good to be in my room again, and I found myself staring at my bed longingly. The feeling of warm covers on my skin would have been so nice. I was forced to shake myself out of it. There was no way I could sleep right now.
Having selected a new set of clothes from my closet, I traded them with my uncomfortably wet blouse and skirt, putting them in a pile to be washed later. The