When we returned to the inn, and my stomach was growling.
“Do they serve dinner here?” I wondered aloud.
“If they don’t, it’s about time they started,” Rio said menacingly, rubbing his stomach. I still had no idea what leverage the half-blood had on the innkeeper.
When we opened the door, the sweet scent of apples and cinnamon washed over me. Skipping dinner and going straight for dessert suddenly felt like the proper thing to do. Then my stomach sunk. I had forgotten that the innkeeper’s wife was a faun.
“Good evening!” Rio shouted joyfully, heading through an archway and into a dining area.
Levent waited until I stepped forward to follow him. There was no way to get out of this one.
“Good evening,” I female voice said cheerily, her accent similar to my own. Well, this was it. Time to see if I knew this faun. I stepped out from behind the doorway to see a faun slightly taller than myself, with long brown curls.
She did not seem to recognize me as as she smiled jovially, and though a sense of the familiar washed over me from seeing a faun for the first time in twenty-four years, I did not know her.
“Will you be joining us for dinner?” She asked. Though her husband practically bowed to the half-blood, the faun did not act like she owed any subservience to him, holding up a pen ready to write our bill down.
“I do believe we will,” Rio answered for all of us.
She scribbled down our names then smiled again, ushering us toward a table in the middle of the room. Around the walls were more tables, already stacked with food.
“Please help yourself,” she said, and was gone.
I sighed a little in relief. She had been kind enough not to ask why I was hanging around a half-blood and a dragon-kin.
“Let’s eat,” Rio said cheerfully before grabbing a plate and perusing the tables.
As I had predicted for myself, I headed straight for the pie. I was not going to risk losing out on this delicious morsel. After I had added a few dinner-like foods to my plate, I turned and set it down on the central table. Rio had already filled one plate and was piling food on another. The dragon-kin, however, looked somewhat at a loss.