The man nodded again.

“Good,” Elijah said. “Run along now. I don’t like to be kept waiting.”

He activated shadow step, flickering backwards and appearing on the roof once again. He peered down at the man over the edge of the roof. The man slowly looked around, realizing that Elijah had vanished. After a moment, the man darted off back through the village.

Elijah waited for a few more minutes before slipping down from the roof and making his way back to the inn. He peered up through the window before he got too close - nobody was in the room. There were no lights inside the tavern, so he used Shadow Step to blink up to his floor.

The assassin silently walked back to his room. He unlocked the door with his key and stepped inside, shutting it behind him. Avery still hadn’t returned. That was fine with him.

He hopped into the bed and slipped under the covers, placing his dagger between the edge of the bed and the wall, with the hilt protruding just enough so that he could grab it in a single motion if he needed to.

It didn’t take long for him to fall into a light sleep. A little over an hour later, Elijah awoke to the sound of something clicking in the door handle. It swung open as Avery stepped inside.

She took a glance around the room, frowning slightly in disapproval.

Elijah grabbed a pillow and tossed it at her. “Here. I called dibs on the bed.”

She grabbed it out of the air and closed the door behind her. “The floor is preferable to sharing a bed with you.”

Elijah didn’t respond. He was already asleep again.

The rest of the night passed without issue. The following morning, a short while before the sun rose over the edge of the horizon, Elijah blinked himself awake. He rolled out of bed, grabbing his dagger on the way, and yawned.

Avery had fallen asleep with her legs criss-crossed on top of the pillow. She had her back braced against the wall and her crossbow rested on the ground in front of her. Her eyes opened as Elijah stood up and she sighed.

“Have sweet dreams?” Elijah asked. “I know I did.”

“I did. I imagined a world where I’d been reincarnated without you. It was magnificent.”

“What a coincidence,” Elijah replied. “I dreamt the same thing.”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

He slipped the dagger into its sheath and waited until Avery was on her feet before opening the door and grandiosely gesturing for her to go first. She rolled her eyes and walked outside.

They headed down the stairs and entered the common room. Kat had beat them to it. She sat at the table nearest to the stairs with multiple large travel packs around her and dark bags under her eyes. The girl’s hair was frazzled and a cup of steaming dark liquid sat on the table before her. Her eyes lit up when the two of them sat down at her table.

“You look like you slept well,” Elijah said, chuckling.

“I’ve slept better,” Kat admitted, rubbing her eyes and taking a long sip of the drink. She pursed her lips. “And I hate this stuff. It’s this world’s equivalent of coffee, and it sucks.”

Elijah glanced at Avery out of the corner of his eye. She gave him a small shrug.

“Where were you from on Earth?” Elijah asked.

“Southampton. It‘s a city in England,” Kat said. “And for the next question, I drowned.”

“Drowned? That’s unfortunate,” Elijah said, grimacing. “Doesn’t sound like a good way to go.”

“I’ll say,” Kat muttered darkly. “The kicker is that I was on a ship that was supposed to be unsinkable.”

“Unsinkable?” Avril asked, cocking her head. “You aren’t talking about the Titanic, are you?”

“I am, actually. When are you from? Not everyone knows about it,” she said, taking another sip of her drink.

“I suppose time travel is hardly the weirdest thing that’s happened in this new world,” Elijah said, rubbing his chin. “We’re from somewhere around twenty forty. I stopped counting once I hit ninety years old.”

Kat’s eyebrows rose several centimeters across her forehead. “Ninety years old!? You’re old enough to have been my grandad’s dad.”

“Thank you,” Elijah said dryly. “I was a pretty spry and good-looking ninety year old, but you should have seen—”

Avery cleared her throat, cutting Elijah off before he could finish the sentence. “Elijah, we should consider moving before the rest of the town wakes up. There was a reason we rose before sunrise.”

Elijah blinked and raised an eyebrow at Avery. Then he nodded, rubbing the back of his head with an easygoing grin. “That’s probably a good idea. How far is Volville? I don’t think we asked, but I figured it was only a day or two. Do we need to get supplies?”

“No, your guess was right,” Kat said, finishing off the rest of the dark liquid in her cup and grimacing. “It’s only about a full day of travel. If we leave now, we’ll get there in time to sleep.”

“Well then let's get going.” Elijah said. “The road can’t be that uncommonly traveled, so it should be safer the earlier we leave.”

Kat practically leapt up from the table in her haste to get out the door. Elijah and Avery exchanged a glance as they stood up and walked after her.

“Don’t leave too fast,” Elijah said once they’d stepped outside the tavern. “Avery and I haven’t eaten. We don’t like eating early in the morning, but we don’t have much in the way of food except for a deer — wait. Avery, where’s our deer?”

“I left it with the stable boy last night,” Avery said.

“Stable boy?” Kat asked. “I don’t think there’s a stable boy at this inn. The innkeeper helped me with my horse himself.”

“Then who was the boy sitting by the the stables?” Avery asked. Her lips pressed thin. “Damn it. Did I really get scammed by a little kid?”