Chapter 4 — The Second One
I nudged the dish I'd set on the table off to one side.
That humans hunted Gumiho, I could understand. Even in the tales of my past life, the two had rarely been on good terms. But the fact that people with fox ears and fox tails were chasing Ara down too felt like a different matter altogether.
"The beastfolk as well?"
"Having the same ears doesn't make them my people."
Ara touched the tip of one ear with a fingertip, then let her hand fall.
"If anything, they hate me more. Because something that looks like them goes around bewitching people. They say other beastkin get pointed at and whispered about on my account."
"So that's why they hunt you?"
"They've decided I'm something that needs to be removed."
Her tone was flat, but the tip of a tail trailing beneath the table swept the floor once. I started to say something and stopped. It was strange enough that she should answer for another's behavior just because their faces happened to look alike. That she should have to die for it was stranger still.
"And the humans — is it the same reason?"
"That's a little different."
Ara nudged a dry crumb of bread across the table with one finger.
"Some of them want me dead. Some want to catch me and sell me. I'd be worth money to whoever kept me — I can charm people for them, and then there are those who'd simply want me at their side."
The laugh tacked onto the end of that was brief. I found myself recalling that only moments ago I'd been looking at her face and thinking it beautiful. The same face, it turned out, was something someone could put a price on.
"This charming of yours — can you control it?"
Ara's hand stopped.
"If I could, I'd have switched it off long ago."
I couldn't answer that. She studied my expression for a moment, then looked away.
"There are people who come close without my saying a single word. Do them one small kindness and they decide I'm in love with them alone. Refuse them, and they get angry. Sometimes they even fight each other over it."
"Then you'd have no choice but to keep away from people."
"I can avoid them, I suppose. As long as I go without meals and without sleep."
Only after saying it did she press her lips together.
"Not that I'm blaming you."
"I know."
I had come this far needing food and a roof too. The gap between being short on money and being hunted for your life was a wide one, but I did know that needing something didn't mean you could always have it.
Ara looked at my face.
"So that's what was so odd about you. You'll look right at me and never come a step closer, and when I'm the one who walks over, all you do is hand me a room key."
My eyes drifted, despite myself, to the key on the table. I hadn't known that handing a guest the key to their room could be taken for something so strange.
"The way I remember it, we talked and had a meal."
"Exactly."
Ara didn't explain any further. But for the first time, I understood a little of what she meant. For her, even the ordinary guest treatment I took for granted had apparently been a rare thing.
Still, sympathy alone wasn't going to settle everything. I folded my hands on the table and asked what needed asking.
"Are the people chasing you anywhere near here right now?"
"I shook them loose before I entered the city. And no one saw me come in here, either."
Ara stopped there for a beat, then added:
"As far as I know, anyway."
"You don't even know how many of them there are?"
"It's never the same bunch twice."
I exhaled slowly. This was not something to be working through on my first day at a new job. The plan for today had been to finish the cleaning, eat dinner, and lie down content in the knowledge that tomorrow night I'd get to sleep in the same place again.
Instead, my very first guest had turned out to come with complications.
While I said nothing, Ara nudged the key a little toward the counter.
"You don't have to refund the room fee. Now that you know, if you tell me to go, I'll go."
For all that, she didn't get up right away. All she'd done was wrap the strap of the bundle beside her chair around her hand. I looked between that hand and the window. The sunlight that had been slanting long across the floor had all but disappeared behind the building across the road.
"If you left now — would you have somewhere to go?"
"I can find one."
That was a no.
I pushed the key back across the table to her.
"Then rest here tonight."
Ara looked at me. This time she didn't even ask me to repeat myself. Her expression plainly asked whether I had actually been listening to a word she'd just said.
"I'm not much of a fighter. I can't promise to settle things no matter who comes through that door."
It seemed wise to get that part perfectly clear. A man who'd been thrown out of the mercenary hall after announcing that his one skill was splitting firewood with an axe had no business daring anyone to come at him — least of all a day into the job.
"Even so, no one has actually come looking yet, and we don't know that anyone is outside at all. I don't see how sending you out now would make anything better, Miss Ara."
"Maybe. But I'm the only one it gets worse for."
"And from where I stand, if I start studying every guest's face and handing back their room fees, I won't last long in this business."
I rose from my seat and gathered the dishes.
"If there's anything else I ought to know, please tell me. It's better than knowing nothing at all."
Ara unwound her hand from the strap. When her fingers reached for the key on the table, they moved more slowly than they had when she'd first come in.
"...All right."
I set the dishes down in the kitchen and went back upstairs. Ara followed a few steps behind. Partway up the stairs I glanced back and found her tails threading carefully between the banister and the wall.
I was glad I'd cleared the boxes out of the hallway. I'd assumed that a space wide enough for one person to pass would be enough. Apparently, the width a guest required varied by guest.
"This is the room. I cleaned it earlier."
When I stopped in front of the first room on the right, Ara took out the key. Once inside, she checked the window before she so much as glanced at the bed. Only after confirming what lay beyond the glass did she back toward the wall side and set down her bundle.
From the doorway, I gave the handle an inspection of my own. The lower screw sat a little loose; I pressed at it with a finger, then nipped it tight with the small blade from my pocket. Doors in the country loosened like this now and then, too.
"Would you close it and try the lock for me?"
Ara gave me a look, then shut the door. I heard the key turn and pulled the handle — no rattle this time.
"It locks nicely now."
A moment later the door opened just wide enough for a hand. Ara's face appeared in the gap.
"And where are you, usually?"
"Downstairs. In the dining room or the kitchen, most likely."
"At night too?"
"I sleep in a room behind the kitchen as well. Knock if anything urgent comes up."
I was turning to leave when I added:
"I checked the window latch as well — it's sound. Shall I bring you some water?"
Ara nodded, so I went down and brought back a water pitcher and a cup. When I handed them over at her door, she took them in both hands — and still didn't close the door.
"Anything else?"
"Sorry?"
"That I'm supposed to do."
I thought for a moment. The room was paid for, the meal was finished, the house rules had been explained. I had no intention of putting a guest to work on the washing-up.
"When you're done with your dishes, just leave them outside the door. I'll collect them."
Ara looked down at the cup in her hands, then raised her head. She seemed on the verge of asking something more, but this time she said nothing at all.
"Rest well."
I started toward the stairs. The door I'd expected to close before I'd gone three steps stayed open until my foot found the first stair. When I glanced back, Ara was watching me through the gap.
Our eyes met, and when I dipped my head in a small nod, only then did the door shut.
The sound of the key turning followed a beat later.
Downstairs, I filled the washing-up basin. While the guest rested, the caretaker had a pot with potatoes scorched onto its bottom to see to. There was a reason this post came with room and board.
I set the pot to soak, wiped down the table, and opened the ledger. I noted the day's takings and checked off the entries for lodging and meals beside Ara's name.
For a first day's revenue, it wasn't bad. If you left out the part where the customer count had been exactly one.
That was when the bell on the door rang.
The man who came in wore a short cloak slung over one shoulder. A scabbard hung at his waist, and fine grit dropped from his dirt-caked boots with every step.
I glanced at the floor I'd wiped down not ten minutes earlier, then lifted my head.
"Welcome. Will you be staying the night?"
"I'm looking for someone."
His gaze swept the empty dining room, paused a moment at the mouth of the kitchen, then moved on to the stairs behind me.
"You seen a red-haired fox beastkin? Woman. Travels alone."
I closed the ledger I'd left open.
"What business do you have with her?"
"She's one of ours. We got separated on the road."
Only minutes ago, Ara had said, quite clearly, that she traveled alone. I slid the pen aside on the counter. Ink had gotten onto my fingertip, but this was no time to deal with it.
"Give me your name, and if I happen to see her, I'll pass it along."
"Are you telling me she's here, or that she isn't?"
"I'm afraid I'm not free to discuss my guests."
The man looked at my face. I didn't look away, but the hand I'd lowered below the counter tightened a little. That scabbard at his waist kept dragging my eyes back to it.
After a moment, he drew a single coin from his pocket and set it on the counter.
"No need to make this complicated. Just say whether you've seen her."
I looked down at the coin. Considering the state of my pockets, it was not money I could easily dismiss. But there was no telling what might happen upstairs if I took it and nodded.
As payment for handing a guest's room over to a stranger, the amount wasn't the problem — the transaction itself was.
"You'd do better to make contact through someone else."
I slid the coin back toward him.
The man didn't smile. He merely picked the coin up, pocketed it, and turned his gaze past me. The instant I registered that he was looking at the stairs, I stepped out from behind the counter.
"If you two know each other, all I need is one look at her face and I'll be on my way."
"Did you arrange to meet her?"
"Do I have to explain even that to you?"
He set off without waiting for an answer. I planted myself at the foot of the stairs and blocked the way with a hand. His eyebrow rose a fraction.
"What exactly do you think you're doing?"
"Upstairs is guest rooms."
"Which is why I'm only going to look."
Beyond his shoulder, I pointed at the sheet of paper I'd pinned to the wall beside the entrance. It had been up for less than a few hours, and already I had my first person who needed it read to him.
It was five lines long. The second one, at that.
Do not enter another guest's room without permission.
The man's gaze touched the paper, then came back to me. This time he studied my face a while longer.
"Are you saying that to me? Right now?"
I did not step aside from the stairs.
"I am. Which means you start by getting permission."
