Tom started looking around once they got close to the Keep, and spotted a bakery. He gestured to the elves to follow, and approached a woman standing outside the shop.

“Excuse me, miss. Is this the best bakery in the city?”

“Either this or Cook's Pastries, I'd say,” the woman replied, with a curious look at the elves behind him.

“Thank you very much,” Tom gave her a warm smile, and then led the others inside. Let's see whether they give us any trouble.

Orvan gave a sniff or two the moment they stepped inside, and immediately walked over to the counter, peering at the sweets on offer but not touching them. Tom turned to the others. “You see, you say, I get,” he told them.

“What the hells are elves doing in here?” one customer snarled.

“Buying sweets,” Tom told him firmly, looming over him a bit. “Did you think they came in for a haircut?”

“They're unclean!”

“Some would say the same about you. Should we object to your presence, then?” Tom raised his voice. “But this is for the proprietor to decide. Excuse me, miss,” he called, “is it all right for my elves to be in here? This man seems to have a problem with it.”

The woman behind the counter locked eyes with him for a couple of moments, then looked around, gauging the mood of the customers.

“I was hoping to buy a lot, but if I should go to Cook's Pastries instead, I understand,” Tom prodded politely.

“No, no problem here. You're welcome in Sally's Sweets,” the woman declared firmly. Apparently, she had decided that the novelty factor would draw more customers than it would drive away.

“Thank you very much.” Tom grinned at the complainer, who left in a huff.

The shop had to serve two people ahead of Tom and the elves, then they stepped up to the counter. “It's their first time having human sweets. Could we start with an assortment?” he asked with a grin. “Then I'll buy more of whatever they like best.”

“Of course, sir.” The clerk beamed up at him, then busied herself wrapping items in tiny squares of cloth.

Tom braced himself for the price, and handed over the silvers without protest. He passed the sweets to the others and led them outside. There was a low stone wall where some people were sitting. It had plenty of room for them to sit all in a row.

Orvan gave everything a look and a sniff, and asked Tom for names. Tom only knew some of the words, but shared what he could. Kervan gave a pleased grunt when he bit into a brownberry cake. Varga eagerly devoured two pretty little white cakes, grinning as she almost always did.

Diavla took a bite of a beet cookie and froze for a moment, then moaned in pleasure as she started to chew on it. Tom's heart quickened a bit as he watched her with a smile. She didn't gobble her sweets like Varga, instead savoring them with lots of happy noises. In between bites, Varga smirked and made a comment to Diavla in Elvish that sounded like, “(something) the cookie teach me.”

Diavla elbowed her friend with a grin and continued to savor her dessert. Tom pulled out several silver and handed them to Kervan. “You want, you get. I go to Keep. I go here soon.” He took a moment to look around at the passersby, checking for any hostility. Varga waved at him cheerfully. Diavla was fully absorbed in her second beet cookie. Tom turned and headed into the Keep.

“Treasury?” he asked the guard at the entrance. She was a different one from his previous visit. She smiled at him and pointed.

“First hall on the right, then it's on the left, sir.”

“Thank you very much.”

Tom made his way there and, once he admitted to the clerk that he couldn't read, managed to store his gold without difficulty. They kept it simple for him; he paid five silver for a box and deposited 25 gold coins. The clerk did a little magic thing with a drop of Tom's blood to make sure no one else could take the coin.

“Ah, can I bring someone in and give them permission to access the box as well?”

“Certainly, sir. We will simply need a drop of their blood as well.”

“Thank you.” Tom resolved to give Diavla access later, just in case something happened to him and the elves needed their gold. But for the moment, he wanted to hurry back and make sure the elves were all right in public.

When he returned, Diavla was having an animated conversation with a young girl while her mother looked on. Several other adults were spectators as well.

“You know words and words, yes?” Diavla was asking.

“I know lots of words!” the girl declared proudly.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

“I want lots of words too,” Diavla agreed.

“How old are you?”

“I no understand. Please say?”

“I'm eight! Eight.” The girl pointed at herself, and then held up eight fingers after a moment of consideration.

“Saa. Years I get, you want I say?”

The girl had a giggle fit and nodded. “You talk so funny!”

Diavla held up ten fingers. “This is…ten?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I get ten and ten and ten and eight years.”

Tom blinked.

“Wow, you're old!” the girl exclaimed.

“April, hush!” her mother chided. “You look much younger than that, dear,” she told Diavla.

“She say, she see you more small years,” Tom translated. Diavla nodded and smiled at the woman.

“Wow, you speak Dwarf?” April exclaimed, staring at him with wide eyes. Tom stared at her, then burst out laughing, as did a few other people.

“April, they aren't dwarves, they're elves,” her mother explained, sounding embarrassed.

April looked at her mother, then at the elves. “Oh.” Undeterred, she turned back to Tom. “You speak elf?!”

Tom got his laughter under control. “Elvish, yes, a little. I am learning Elvish, and they are learning Western.”

“What's Western?”

“Western is what we speak, April,” her mother explained.

“Oh. Is that ‘cause we're in the west?”

“Yes.”

Tom turned to Diavla with a bemused smile. “You are thirty-eight years old? Um, ten, twenty, thirty…” he gestured.

“Yes. I am elf, Tom. More years small. Eh…small person, big person, years? Humans?” She gestured for child height, then adult height.

“Child. Adult. Humans are adult at fourteen years old. Ten and four years.”

“Elves are…adult…at…thirty years,” Diavla explained haltingly. “Tom, you years?”

“Eighteen. Ten and eight.”

“You are four years adult?”

“Yes. You are eight years adult?”

“Yes. We are same, Tom.” Diavla wiggled her hand. “Small no same.”

I wonder what that's like…to be almost thirty years old and not be an adult yet. Tom was puzzled, but set it aside for the moment.

“You all like food?” Tom asked. A chorus of agreement came back. Diavla clutched her latest cookie and beamed at him.

“Tom, I very, very, very, like beet cookies.”

“You love the beet cookies.”

“I love the beet cookies.” Good to know.

“Brownberry cake,” Kervan volunteered, holding up a piece he had nearly finished. “Very good.”

“I love food,” Varga declared, amusing everyone in hearing.

“White cake very good,” Orvan declared. “Brownberry cake good. Cinnamon,” he enunciated carefully, then paused. “Food… no water?” he asked in Elvish, pointing at the dessert he held.

Tom took a moment to lean back and squint so he could see. “Raisins.”

“Raisins good, raisins no very good. They get more good raisins, they get more good cake,” he opined.

“Tom,” Kervan spoke up. “Night soon. What we do?”

Tom lifted his head and looked at the sunlight on the buildings and the shadows lengthening. “We need to find a place to sleep.” He stressed the last word and everyone seemed to get the idea. The elves stood and dusted themselves off.

“April, I am happy we talk,” Diavla told the child. “Thank you.”

April turned to her mother. “Mommy, can we buy an elf?”

Tom froze, and his blood ran cold a moment.

“No, sweetie, they are very expensive.”

“Oh. All right.” The child sounded sad for a moment, then perked up and started waving. “Goodbye, Diavla Walker!”

Tom's soul stuttered for the second time in a few heartbeats. Diavla Walker. Tom looked at the amber-eyed elf, who had a confused expression on her face, and quickly looked away.

With very mixed feelings, Tom led the elves down the hill. Let's get rooms for the night. Think about the rest later, Tom.

∘ ⛥ ⛯ ⛥ ∘

They got ready to visit the bathhouse, then Tom brought the elves to the closest shop with household items. He picked up a basket and went to get soap. It turned out that there was a bewildering variety. For himself, Tom simply grabbed the middle-priced one, but he wasn't sure whether elven skin and hair were different from human, so he got a couple of every kind. Diavla protested and Tom tried to reassure her.

“I get today. I no get tomorrow. You do, do, do…” he pointed at the different kinds. “You say…um…” He was forgetting the word in Elvish. “Tomorrow, you choose one.”

“Choose. Yes, Tom. Thank you.” Diavla fidgeted a moment, then asked, “How do I say, I ask coin, coin, coin?” She pointed at an item on a shelf.

“You say, ‘How much is this?’ Or ‘How much does this cost?’ ”

“ ‘How much does this cost.’ ”

“Yes.”

To his amusement, Diavla proceeded to pester one of the shop clerks by asking the price of item after item. It took him longer than it should have to realize what she was actually doing: learning to read number runes. Soon, she was saying the prices and asking for confirmation.

After enough of that, Diavla came back and took Tom's arm. The next time he stopped to look at something, she said loudly, “Tom, I ask. This is one silver, yes?”

For a moment, he stared at her blankly. Why? She knows I can't read—. Then, he again figured out what she was actually doing.

“Yes, very good, Diavla, that says one silver.”

“And this is one silver and ten and ten copper?”

“Yes. Ten and ten is twenty.”

“ ‘Twenty,’ ” she repeated.

Tom leaned over and whispered into her elegant ear, “Thank you, Diavla. You are very smart and you are good…you help me.”

“I help you, I am happy,” Diavla whispered back, giving his arm a squeeze.

Once Tom had paid for a number of useful items and stowed them in his pack, they headed to the bathhouse.

Tom paid for them all, and led them back to the wash rooms. There was a confusing moment when all four of the elves started to follow him into the men's wash room.

“Ah, Varga, women go there, men go here.”

“What? Why?”

Diavla nodded to Tom that she had it in hand. “Saa. I'll (something.) Human men and women need clothes…” Diavla led her friend towards the other side.

“We meet back here,” Tom called. “We go here.” The women waved to him absently and continued their conversation as they disappeared through a doorway. Tom was nervous about letting them out of his sight, but stifled the reaction and led the men into their side.

It took a few minutes, but he started to relax a bit more while getting properly clean. It had only been two days since his last bath, so this was a luxury for him. Sometimes you just couldn't get all the grime from the road off in a single wash. Kervan peppered him with questions of all sorts which he did his best to answer.

As soon as they were done, one of the women working there brought them their discarded clothes, which had been washed but were still wet. Tom had warned the elves to bring a full change of clothes so that they would have something dry to wear. He thought about the dinner ahead of them, and hoped he could find the kind of person he needed for the next step at the Floating Duck.