{-Rhenei-}
Farrar didn’t seem nearly as interested in answering any of her questions the next morning. She tried asking if he had any other stories to tell her, and once about the letter he’d received earlier. The closest he got to answering any of them was a couple of mumbles and a louder reminder for her to keep up. Of course, she kept asking, wondering if he simply wasn’t a morning person.
After that he stopped giving any kind of response to her questions at all.
“I don’t like it,” Kalleira grumbled. “He’s not even hiding that he’s keeping anything from us.”
“Well, I guess we’re keeping something from him, too,” Rhenei pointed out quietly. “Maybe he thinks it’s fair.” Knowing that there was really nothing more they could talk about, she asked, “Have you felt anything different? Anything else starting to come back to you?”
Kalleira paused to consider it. She sighed and shook her head. “I feel like there’s something, but I can’t remember what yet. I’ve been here before, but… with who? And what was I doing..?”
“Maybe we just need to go a little further,” Rhenei offered. “You’ll probably remember something by then, right?”
A grumble from Farrar interrupted them. “We’re almost to another town. We’ll stay there the night—it’s the closest we’re going to be able to reach by nightfall.”
“Do you know this innkeeper like you knew the last one?” Rhenei asked innocently.
“No. But if there’s one thing I know about people, it’s that no matter who they are, they’re willing to do anything for the right price.”
They continued to walk in silence up until the moment he was about to push open the door to the inn. A bird came and tweeted until he took the letter it had brought. Whoever it was from, he grumbled a curse.
“Stay here,” he instructed, “and don’t do anything.” He left without another word or even a bit of explanation.
Rhenei blinked. “I think we should do something.”
“That sounds like a bad idea,” Kalleira remarked.
“There’s a lot here, and these people look like the ones back in the city! I’m not going to learn anything on my own unless I go out and talk to people.”
“What are you gonna do if he realizes you moved?”
“It looked like that was going to take him a while. It’ll probably be fine.”
So, with that presumably concluded, Rhenei motioned for Kalleira to follow her into the crowd. Rhenei clearly had no intention of doing something specific, just wandering and observing everything around her. There was so much here… maybe she’d be able to enjoy the sights, instead of like when they were still in the city.
If, of course, Kalleira would actually accept the moment to relax. “I still don’t have a good feeling about this.”
“It’ll be fine, I promise! No one’s going to know who we are here. I don’t plan on talking to anyone, just looking around.”
She still grumbled something but didn’t show any more obvious opposition. By now she probably recognized there wasn’t a point in trying.
It seemed to be just like the streets of the city. Parents gently telling children to stay close or to behave; couples wandering, muttering things that spanned all kinds of topics; large and small groups of friends alike meeting up, laughing with each other, or uttering farewells; a collection of creepy-looking men mentioning her name…
Wait, that wasn’t normal.
Rhenei, also aware of Kalleira’s panic, stepped out of sight. She wasn’t sure if she intended on listening to what they were saying, or simply couldn’t get herself to move from the spot.
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“Someone said the two of them went in this direction,” one of the men remarked. “They should’ve stopped here by now.”
“That’s assuming they’re smart. I don’t know about you, but I got the impression that we’re dealing with little kids here.”
“They’re both teens, going off of the descriptions their parents gave us.”
“What if we randomly started shouting their name around town? That might not directly draw them out, but it’ll get more people aware of them.”
“Yeah, along with making them know they’ve got to leave as soon as possible.”
“We could threaten them—use force to lure them out and drag them back.”
“Except that one guy is paying good money to keep them from getting hurt.” There was a bit of grumbling that almost sounded like, “I hate finding missing people. Bounties are better—they can be brought back dead or alive.”
A sigh. “You’re right. To think we thought this would be easy money…”
“Keep looking around town, but don’t draw too much attention to yourself. Trail them until you know it’s the right kids, and then confront them. You might want to let the rest of us know when you find something—sounds like one of them’s going to be a pain in the ass to deal with.”
Kalleira dared to step closer to them, and flinched the moment one of them looked in their direction. “I think we should go. Far away from here.”
“We need to tell Farrar,” Rhenei whispered back. She was slowly stepping away from them and hoped none of them would notice her. “He’ll know what to do.”
“They know we’re with him, it’ll make us more obvious.”
“But he’d figure out a way around it. This has to be something he planned for.”
Kalleira nervously glanced between her and the men. “Fine. I’ll keep an eye on them—I’ll tell you if they start getting close.”
Rhenei nodded and, after a failed attempt to calm herself down, started back towards the inn. She didn’t know where she was going; she didn’t want to take the paths she used to get there in case someone else was there. Every time she walked faster, she had to force herself to slow down again. She couldn’t bring attention to herself.
Every time she looked back, Kalleira seemed more anxious than she was. They’d probably end up talking about that later, but Rhenei told herself that getting back to the inn and talking with Farrar was more important.
She was, somehow, able to hold a semblance of casualness when she actually needed to be out in the open. Perhaps a part of it was the relief of the inn being so close or, oddly, the way Farrar had a very unamused expression after seeing her.
“What did I tell you not to do?” he sighed the moment she got closer. He held the door for her, wandered to the innkeeper and mumbled some things to him, then came back to her.
“I—I did hear something…” She said it so quietly she wasn’t sure if he’d hear her. But his expression said it all.
He already knew.
Yet, he still asked, “What was it?”
Rhenei cautiously looked around and hoped that no one was really listening to them. “I think there’s a couple of men looking for us.”
Farrar cursed and mumbled, “Alright, this is something we can work around…” He gestured for her to follow her. “I’ve already got us a room, so we can talk more there.”
“Something’s wrong,” Kalleira muttered.
Despite the warning, Rhenei nodded and followed him to the room.
She wandered to one of the beds but he stayed by the door.
“How many of them were there?” he asked.
“At least five of them. I couldn’t tell if there were others listening.” She paused. “I don’t think they’re going to hurt us—one of them mentioned that they couldn’t.”
He grumbled things that she wasn’t quite sure she wanted to understand.
“Is… this about those letters?”
“You don’t need to worry about that part.”
“It kind of sounds like I should.”
His glare proved he was going to tell her nothing else. “The letters don’t matter.” Finally, after a moment of consideration, he went to the other bed. “Did they say anything about knowing where we’ll be going next?”
“They just knew that we went in this direction and probably stayed here. Should we really stay here, if they’re looking for us..?”
“It’s a hell of a lot better than staying outside.”
“So do you have a plan..?”
“As long as neither of us draw any attention to ourselves, I don’t think the innkeeper’s going to rat us out to anyone. I doubt those guys are getting paid enough to be willing to buy information. We’ll try to keep a low profile and visit as few towns as possible along the way—and the bigger they are, the better. I should be able to get someone to give them false information about where we went…” He went more into mumbling that she had to tell herself was just him trying to work out all the details.
It seemed like they’d had a plan, and this really wasn’t that big of a deal. So why did Kalleira still look like that..?
Why was Rhenei still so anxious?