Alvery climbed the stairs toward his room in the inn after concluding his business with the tailor, Mr. Sim feeling exhaustion inhabit every fiber of his being.

He had had three long days of walking, and his stamina had been shot to hell during his time at the Gestov dukedom. While he reminded himself that it was a good thing he was feeling the pains he was, admonished that it would take him a while to recover his former health.

Eyes heavy and legs aching, Alvery opened the door to his room, but given that he was in the process of rubbing his eyes under his glasses as he did so, was unaware that there was someone else there until the door was gently closed behind himself.

“Good afternoon!”

“Kir!” Alvery jumped, his hand flying to his chest and his glasses slipping down his nose.

His heart racing, Alvery stared into the warm amber eyes of the peri girl who everyone had been telling him to stay far away from.

“What are you doing in my room?” he demanded while straightening; his panic rising in his throat. He eyed the desk ladened with his work she sat in front of with her feet crossed on the chair.

“I came to see if you needed any help,” she responded while smiling sunnily at him.

“I don’t want anything to do with you. Get out,” Alvery breathed, though he found his hands trembling…

Why was he so terrified? She wasn’t Gestov!

She stared at him, her smile fading with her head tilting over her left shoulder. “Ah. You’re experiencing echoes.”

Alvery blinked in alarm. “W-What?”

“Echoes. Something really terrifying happened, and if you get scared again it’s like it’s happening again, even if it isn’t the same. An echo from the first big scary splash.”

“Get out,” Alvery repeated, his mind starting to turn blank.

Tia’s mouth twisted to the side. “I get like this too sometimes. You know what helps me?”

“I don’t need help, get out!” Despite wanting to move farther away from the peri girl, Alvery found that his legs were anchoring him to the floor.

“Take deep breaths and count to three. Then think about what you smell, hear, and a color you like in the room.”

“I-I don’t… I don’t need-” Alvery couldn’t finish his sentence as his legs finally gave out and he slumped to the floor while trembling.

“G-Godamnit,” he cursed quietly, while trying with all his might to make the shaking in his hands stop.

Tia rose from the desk and silently padded over to him. She then sat down three feet in front of him.

“I’ll keep watch if you need to close your eyes, don’t worry. In a little while, you’re going to feel very tired. You can go to sleep when you’re ready and I can go then if you like.”

“Stop,” Alvery breathed while clasping his hands tightly in front of himself.

The peri girl thankfully listened to his order, and sat calmly on the floor. She didn’t even stare directly at him, she merely crossed her legs again and stared up at the ceiling in idle thought.

As the minutes ticked by, Alvery could feel coherent thoughts dribbling back into his mind like cold clear water drawing him back to the present.

“Why are you in my room?” he asked softly, his gaze still glued to the floor.

“I told you, I’m here to help. My peri gift is luck, and something told me you might need assistance today,” Tia answered with a small musical laugh.

“Why do you stay in a town where everyone hates you?”

“Hmm,” Tia smiled to herself as she continued peering around the room. “Do they though?”

“You’re banned from all their businesses and sleep in a rotting caravan,” Alvery pointed out glibly.

“But I’m not starving, or sick. I’m fully clothed, and I’m free,” she sighed, then proceeded to stretch out on the floorboards that had been warmed by the afternoon sun.

Speckles of dust caught the light above her, making it appear as though a whirling constellation was dancing in front of her eyes.

“Why aren’t you with a peri troupe?”

Tia’s eyebrows twitched thoughtfully, pain passed through her eyes, but Alvery couldn’t see this occurrence from where he sat…

“I tried joining one once. It didn’t go well.”

“You mean the people here in Aniselle treat you better than they did?” Alvery struggled to quench his rising curiosity.

The peri girl smiled. “Yes. I didn’t realize it until I left, but… I think they really do care about me.”

“To me it sounded more like they just wanted you around to keep other peris away.”

Tia shrugged.

“So… is it because of that peri troupe you experienced echoes?” Alvery queried while allowing his head to gently fall back against the wall.

Thinking of questions for the girl was helping him settle back down…

“Mm… I guess they are part of it, but not really,” she responded vaguely.

Then, before Alvery could ask another question, she rolled over onto her belly and rested her chin on the back of her hands to stare at him.

“I heard you’re extending your stay here in Aniselle. Mr. Cremont is nice, but… you won’t be able to get any work done while you’re there,” Tia informed him seriously.

Alvery felt his stomach flip. “What do you mean?”

Tia gestured with her head toward his desk. “You’re an inventor or professor or something, right? Your notes have a lot of calculations on them and pictures of stuff I’ve not seen before.”

Alvery leaned forward, his eyes wide. “I’ll have you arrested for going through my things. That isn’t any of your business!”

Tia raised an eyebrow, unbothered. “You won’t do that.”

“Like hell I won’t.” Despite exhaustion clawing at his consciousness, Alvery stood, fully intending to go alert the innkeepers about his unwelcome guest. He should have done that first and foremost regardless!

The peri girl responded by sitting up again, but she didn’t look all that worried. “You’re too scared of getting caught and kicking up a fuss to report me.”

Alvery’s hands curled at his side. “Who are you really? Why do you know so much about me?”

Bringing herself up to her feet, Tia gave a long, languid stretch. Alvery noticed then how small she was, and how even though she claimed she wasn’t starving, she was so slender that she could’ve passed for a boy if she hid her hair and drew a cap down low.

“I’m Tiaznia, and I know so much about you because you and I are both hiding from people, so I know what it’s like. I’ve told you all of this before, though,” she informed him matter-of-factly, albeit with a note of impatience.

“Look, if you know I’m running away, you’ll also know I don’t want unnecessary attention, and you get a lot of attention,” Alvery explained, hoping that perhaps a logical approach would work better with her.

“Which is why I’m meeting with you in private,” she pointed out just as reasonably.

“You broke into my room. This is… this is closer to a hostile negotiation than a meeting.”

“Well… how about we agree to meet at a certain time! When you go to Mr. Cremont’s farm, I’ll meet you the second morning you arrive in the barn. He’ll have you feeding his horses in the mornings and mucking the stalls.”

Tia bobbed her head with a smile while ambling over to the door.

“No, no. You aren’t hearing me, I don’t want you near me. Look, I can only take care of myself right now, and you seem like you are surrounded by chaos.”

Tia looked around herself and raised an eyebrow with a cheeky smile. “I think I’m a pretty calm person.”

“That isn’t what I meant!”

Tia laughed and reached for the door. “Don’t worry, you’ll see! We’re going to get along famously in no time.”

“Wait! Don’t-” Alvery didn’t get the chance to tell the peri girl not to contact him again, as she slipped out of his room without another word.

When he dove for the door and poked his head out in the shadowed hallway to catch up with her however, he found that she had disappeared, as though into thin air. He closed the door again and rubbed his face furiously.

“Diolla almighty…”

Just why in the world did the peri girl have such a fixation on him?!

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

With a sigh, Alvery ambled over to his desk and stared down at his calculations and diagrams…

Then it occurred to him.

Does Tiaznia know how to read?

He blinked in surprise. Peris that could read were quite rare as most never attended any schools given that they traveled with their troupes so much.

Had the people in Aniselle allowed her to go to their school?

Alvery’s head began to ache as more and more questions brewed in his mind.

The academic in him was struggling with his survivor’s instincts.

He needed to keep to himself as much as possible, and yet…

He eyed the closed door to his room.

Goddamnit. I need to find out what the hell is her story.

***

The night after Tiaznia had broken into his room he had tossed and turned, but by dawn, had come back to his senses.

There was no time to solve the peri girl’s mystery!

He had work to complete before he prepared for the next leg of his journey.

Once Alvery had settled down his inquisitive nature, the rest of the week in the inn went by peacefully. He was able to pick up his new shirts and trousers from the tailor, and he spent his days holed up in his room perfecting his notes so that when he saw Georgie they could get everything together as quickly as possible.

However when he wanted a change of scenery, Alvery had found there was a small bookshop in the town called: The Bookworm’s Kitchen.

Of all the store names he had come across in Aniselle, it was his favorite.

Though it wasn’t hard to win first place in his heart. If a shop had an abundance of books, Alvery had a propensity to fall in love with it.

Though this particular shop was a little… odd.

It was narrow, but stood three stories high with its door and window frames made of polished oak set in its large stone walls. Inside matching oak hardwood floors and shelves gleamed from tender care and polish. The books sat quietly along their shelves as they slumbered between readers. There was a lovely leafy plant by the door and several other smaller potted ones huddled on a corner of the counter that opened out right onto the small square of black and white tiles that made up the entrance.

When Alvery had first gone in, he’d found behind the desk sat a woman in her late thirties, her hair cropped to her chin, donning a bright red cardigan. The rims of her tiny round glasses perched on the respectable bump of her nose were painted the same color of her sweater, and Alvery felt himself smile when she didn’t even bother looking up from her tome upon his entrance.

He didn’t like distracting someone when they were reading anyway.

Turning to his right, Avery perused the first long line of shelves that led perhaps sixty feet back, under the second floor balcony, to a backdoor.

As he studied the titles before him, Alvery found himself growing more and more flummoxed.

“The Duke’s Desires… A Scoundrel’s Seduction… A Handful of Handymen… Diolla.” He halted in his tracks as he gradually realized what type of books he was staring at. “Wait… not all of these are… no. They can’t– Oh, this one’s called Annie’s Animals, it has to be–” Alvery plucked the book up, took one look at the cover, and put it back on the shelf as carefully as possible, his eyes bulging from his head.

He stood motionless in the aisle. He was at a complete loss as to what to do.

“Can I help you find something?”

Alvery jumped, and turned around to see the woman in her red cardigan clutching the book she was reading to her chest as she cast a judgmental eye over him.

Her bold yet unenthused appraisal succeeded in making Alvery all the more uncomfortable.

“Err… I-I’m looking for engineering books.”

“Oh, you want books with engineers? That’s a tricky one, do they both have to be engineers, or is only one of them alright? How about this one, The Perfect Love Angle.” She reached on her tippy toes toward one of the higher shelves on her left, and proceeded to pull down a thin volume. She turned to look at Alvery, only to find he was backing away with his hands in the air as though she had pulled a knife on him.

“N-No, I mean… academic books. W-with numbers?” He hoped to Diolla that she didn’t have an erotic book with engineers and actual numbers.

… It turned out she did.

He watched as the shop owner tapped her mouth, her eyes dancing with the love of a challenge. Then she pointed to the ceiling, and began wagging her finger and nodding at the same time as she made her way all the way down the hall to the shelf nearest the back door, and plucked out a dusty mustard colored book that she handed to Alvery proudly.

He looked down in relief, until he read the title.

The Engineer’s Threesome Equation

“Erm… Missus…”

“Miss.” The shop owner gave a small chuckle. “I am Miss Annalise Jardine. What else can I help you find? I must say, it is refreshing to have a customer with such specific tastes, but don’t worry. I do love a challenge!”

Alvery could tell from the fire in Annalise Jardine’s eyes that things were going to proceed in much the same manner if he didn’t find the words to describe exactly what he wanted.

“I-I’m looking for books written by Gary Tenor. His three volumes on the study of sound specifically?”

Annalise blinked at him through her spectacles.

He began to worry that the shop did not, in fact, have any other books outside of romance novels.

However Annalise then broke out in a beautiful smile.

“Oh! Of course! Such a brilliant man that Gary Tenor. I read the first volume at least twice, his theory on how sound moves absolutely stunned me!”

Alvery’s eyebrows shot up, and before he could overcome his shock that Annalise had not only heard of him, but read his work, she was again moving expediently toward the narrow stairs that led up to the second floor, then took a sharp left to continue up the stairs to the third floor.

“Not many people stop in here for those kinds of books, you see. Aniselle gets the vacationing folk that enjoy some light reading for the season.”

Alvery was too busy panting behind the surprisingly spritely woman to give a proper response, but she didn’t seem to mind as they arrived on the third floor where the primary source of light was through a small round window at the top.

Unlike the first floor, the shelves that lined the space were made of cedar, and they were only three rows high, ending perfectly where the ceiling began to slope toward its peak. In the middle of the space was a large table with three oil lamps, and four chairs.

“Gary Tenor should be over there, on the top shelf. Can I help you with anything else Mr. Robin?”

Having at last caught up to the woman, Alvery couldn’t quite bring himself to respond as he worked on catching his breath.

“No thank you, but how did you know my nam-”

“Oh, pish. The whole town has heard about you. Now, I am brewing a fresh pot of tea, and I happen to have a fresh tin of biscuits, would you like some?”

“No thank you,” Alvery responded while setting his briefcase on the table.

“Oh nonsense. I can’t drink a full pot to myself, I’ll be up with a cup soon.”

“No, I really don’t-”

It was too late to stop her. Annalise Jardine had already bustled over the stairs and had reached the second floor before he could assure her he didn’t need any tea.

For a book lover, she was incredibly lithe.

Then again the novels on the first floor definitely cast her outside of the norm in Avery’s opinion…

Sighing, he decided that perhaps a cup of tea wasn’t the worst thing in the world, and so Alvery began pulling out his work, before then locating the books he had come for.

Regardless of the baffling first few minutes of his arrival, he was finding that he was already feeling calmer than he had in more than a year.

How could he not?

Surrounded by books and quiet, there were hardly any greater pleasures in the world.

And so, without needing much more convincing, Alvery took to making The Bookworm’s Kitchen his favorite haunt in the town of Aniselle.