I moved silently, trying to slip inside the door without anyone being the wiser. My plan was to get to the back of the pub and hunker down before anyone saw me.

The chorus of “Taryn!” coming from all around told me I hadn’t been that lucky.

“Taryn! Come sit over here!”

“How was the dig today? Come sit by us and we’ll buy you a drink!”

I shut my eyes, leaned against the door jam, and rubbed my temples. It had been almost three months. Three months since me, Foxy, Covey, Dogmaela, and a handful of others saved the world from certain destruction. Well, at least we saved the rapidly growing town of Beccia from being sucked up in some sort of time vortex that probably would have destroyed most of us. The swarm of wild faeries had played a major role, as their drunken and passed-out bodies lying all over the bar and assorted tables gave witness to. And so did Alric. But everyone thought he was dead. Oh, I’d tried telling people he’d survived. And had come back to steal the second glass gargoyle.

The one that no one knew about.

Pretty much my stories had gotten me a lot of sympathetic looks and a quick changing of the subject. I gave up trying to tell anyone that I knew Alric was alive when they only started looking annoyed.

Meanwhile, I had become the face of the saving of Beccia. Covey had gone into shut-down mode after the fight, needing to cleanse her soul in a nunnery. Dogmaela had gone on a three-month vacation. Foxy and Harlan had been near the back of the fighting during the final explosion and hadn’t seen much action. Going from an obscure, mistreated, and unemployable digger to the city’s savior had been wonderful. For about four days. After that it got old and intrusive.

Maybe coming here was a mistake. My new digger patroness was generous, but also obsessed with timely arrivals at the start of the workday. The crack of dawn would be here way too soon and a hangover made it crack louder.

“Ach, lass, don’t listen to them.” Foxy seemed to magically appear at my side. Considering he was almost seven feet tall, that was pretty amazing. “I’ve got a corner saved just for you.” His lips cleared his sharp tusks in what would be an intimidating grimace on anyone else, but on him I knew it was a smile.

I started to shake him off. I was exhausted, filthy, and already annoyed by the folks who wanted to gain status by hanging out with me. But I also needed a drink.

“Lead on. Just….”

Foxy took my arm like I was a frail old lady which, considering how hard I’d been working lately, was about how I felt. “I know, keep folks away. Oh, your faeries came in an hour ago.”

I looked up sharply, but the fact that Foxy was studiously looking over my head told me the girls’ condition. “Damn it, Foxy, they’re enough of a nuisance without the booze.”

But I didn’t even have enough energy to fight tonight. My newest patron, one Lady Qianru Del La Floerin, was as serious about her relic searching as she was about her name. She had me start at dawn each morning and finish once there wasn’t enough natural light to see. She refused to use artificial lights, and torches were definitely out.

Which left me far too worn out to deal with my three faeries: Garbage Blossom, Leaf Grub, and Crusty Bucket—also known as saviors of Beccia along with a few thousand of their formerly wild kin. The three were marginally my wards.

“How can I say no?” He waved a giant hand at all the tiny, drunken, faery bodies that covered almost every table and a few chairs.

“Never mind. Just get me a drink.” I slid into the small chair pushed up against the corner and the equally small table. The crowd had watched us as we crossed the room but, when it was clear no tales of glory were going to come spouting out of me, they went back to drinking.

“And food, I think.” Foxy’s scrub-brush eyebrows burrowed down as he pinched my upper arm. “You’re naught but skin and bones. Ye looked better when you was bounty hunting.” Which said a lot since he never approved of my bounty hunting. Even less so when it indirectly almost led to the end of the world as we knew it.

A tiny barmaid silently appeared, placed a frothy pint in my hand, and then scurried back to the bar. Foxy’s help were usually bigger than him; trolls, half-breeds, even a cyclops for a brief while. They were all big and tough and could handle the crowd at the inappropriately named Shimmering Dewdrop pub. But this barmaid looked like a strong breeze would rend her limb from limb.

“Um, Foxy? What’s up with the….” I let my words die off as I got a good look at Foxy. He was watching the tiny woman as she flitted back to the bar with what could only be adoration. Or food poisoning. With a face like his it wasn’t easy to tell.

“Foxmorton? Hello?” I reached up and tugged on one long, floppy ear. His head tilted a full two inches before he shook it and turned back to me.

“Ach, yes, food, I’ll be getting to that.” He still had the look of a poleaxed badger but at least his eyes were mostly focused.

“Wait a bit on the food. Who was that and how long do you think she’ll survive here?” Foxy had tried to get me to work here for a brief spell a few months ago. I turned him down because it was too dangerous. And I probably weighed twice as much as the fluff behind the bar.

“What? Who? Oh….” He actually blushed, something I thought would be physically impossible with his coloring. “Have no fear, she’s a dryad, far stronger than she looks. She be called Amara, and isn’t she lovely?”

Unfortunately I’d taken my first long pull of ale right as he spoke, and he almost ended up wearing it. It was only years of practice of not spitting out good ale that kept it in my mouth and allowed me to swallow it.

“A dryad? What are you thinking?” I looked around for the hordes of tree huggers I was sure would be storming the pub at any moment to repatriate her to her grove. He was right, a dryad was far stronger than her size implied, and few would ever fight one. When she was with her tree. And while the Shimmering Dewdrop itself was built of many former tree parts, there weren’t any trees old enough to support a dryad within city limits.

When dryads were away from their trees too long they died horrible and violent deaths. Ones that often took out an entire city block along with them.

“Look, she needs to get back to her tree. You can’t keep her here.” Foxy was barely listening to me. His droopy eyes kept going back to the dryad and all semblance of thought behind them vanished. Worse than that, he was starting to drool.

“Hello? Foxy?” He was mentally nowhere near my table. I needed something to break whatever spell this little leaf-lover had on him. If he were normal, I’d slap his face. But that wouldn’t do anything but bruise my hand. I needed something tougher.

I still hadn’t seen, nor luckily heard, my own three little flying drunkards tonight. Thanks to Foxy, I knew they were here somewhere, but out of sight, easy to deny. However, many of the formerly wild faeries had taken up semi-permanent residence in the pub. I was pretty sure many of them were too fat to fly anymore even if they wanted to.

One thing about faeries, they were some of the toughest creatures in the known world. A bright yellow one in lime green overalls lay curled around an empty glass on the abandoned table next to mine. I grabbed her feet and started slapping Foxy’s face with her. It was self-defense at that point. Foxy had gone so far into whatever trance he was in that he was starting to lean over me. Unlike the faeries, I wouldn’t survive being squished.

A few more solid strikes with the faery, who was finally starting to shake off her own stupor, and Foxy blinked and shook himself. I gave the yellow faery a few sips of my ale until she nodded off back to sleep and then returned her to where I found her. Foxy nodded as if nothing had happened, and then went back to the kitchen to get my food.

Before the events of three months ago, I wouldn’t have thought twice about Foxy falling for a dryad. Nor wondered how and why a dryad was working a bar in the bad part of the bad side of Beccia. Okay, I would have thought twice, maybe even three times, but it just would have been on the level of more Beccian weirdness. But after being ambushed by so many people, and almost ending up dead for my troubles, I questioned weird things a lot more thoroughly now.

Foxy was impervious to most magics. Not on the level I was, but I’m a magic sink. Very few magics work on me. That is unless they were powered by some damn high-powered mage-in-disguise like Alric who had made people think
I
had powers.

I still hadn’t figured out how he’d done that. During the final battle I swore I felt like there was real battle magic coursing through my veins. We’d copied a spell bomb that used whisky—also known as dragon bane—and I had gone full-frenzied-fighter on a bunch of thugs. However, when I tried to duplicate the effect—with the same whisky—all I got was an overwhelming need for a shower. The only element that was different was that Alric wasn’t in town when I tried it the second time.

That went to show how powerful Alric really was, and how little he really cared. I could have been killed running all that magic of his through me. He was as much of a danger to me as the monsters trying to destroy the world had been. And did he care? Hell, no. Bastard used me. Used my friends. Made people think he’d been killed. Then he came back, so I could be haunted but no one else, and stole a second glass gargoyle. Since Covey, like everyone else, thought I’d been delusional about Alric still being alive, she wouldn’t help me figure out why there were two glass gargoyles. Or worse, how the first one had somehow magicked itself back into my possession.

I shook off the annoyance that made my blood pressure rise every time I thought about Alric. Right now I had a very magic-proof friend falling for a walking tree-girl. The fact that dryads were not known for seduction magic was another layer to add.

A few more sips of my ale let the paranoia about Foxy mellow a bit. He was a grown…whatever it was he was. He could take care of himself.

Foxy came back with a platter piled high with meat and bread held out before him as if being presented to a king.

“Thanks, Foxy. But why don’t you tell me about your dryad barmaid? Like how is it that she’s away from her tree?” When he simply nodded expectantly, I took a few bites of food. The Shimmering Dewdrop was never going to win awards for their food. It would stick to your belly—and usually not try to crawl back up—that was about the best that could be said.

“Ah, that’s a tale the bards would love. Amara’s tree was destroyed last week in the Tyridgian province. But as luck would have it, limbs from her tree had come here years ago and been built into the bar. That tree of hers was so magical that a spark of life remained in the limbs even though they were cut off from the tree.” Even if I hadn’t seen him go all googly earlier, I would have known he was a goner as he told his story. He practically glowed.

People who look like a cross between a troll, a dog, and a goat should not glow. Ever.

“So she’s surviving off the limbs?” I had some dryad in my family line—or so my mother used to claim. But I’d never heard of a pure dryad living with disembodied tree parts.

“Oh no, that was enough to bring her here. She pulled a seed out of the dormant limbs and planted it in the lot behind the pub this morning. She’ll never leave.”

I shoved in a few more bites of meat. To be honest, maybe there was something to his food campaign. I know I was working more now, but since the battle I seemed to be losing weight and was always hungry. But right now I was using the act of eating to closely watch our little barmaid.

Her hair had a greenish tinge, the type I only got in the summer. That usually indicated dryad, but could also be found in a whole slew of other species and mixed breeds. Unlike me though, her hair turned bright green when she got near any source of living light—like a candle flame. I’d bet if she were in pure sunlight she’d glow like a beacon.

That thought was pushed out as two hard whaps struck the back of my head, followed by a third that slammed into my ear just as I was shoving my chair back to get to my feet. Whoever hit me didn’t put much force behind it. It stung, but wasn’t enough to knock me out.

“Who’s the smart…?” I let my words die as I saw my attacker. Or rather, attackers. My three little drunken hooligans had found me after all.

Crusty Bucket had been the third blow that hit my ear. Typical, and not too surprising, her aim was awful and she drank more than the other two combined. She was now hanging on to one section of my hair and swinging wildly. She wasn’t singing, thank the gods, but she was jabbering so fast I couldn’t understand her.

Two quick unsuccessful attempts to get her to let go of my hair brought nothing but pain, so I gave up and looked for the other two.

Not a good sign that I had to pick them up off the ground.

“Leaf Grub? Garbage Blossom? What’s wrong?” Both looked more angry than drunk, but as I watched, their eyes started to slide shut and blissful little smiles appeared on their faces. It was as if they were getting drunk right in front of me but without any alcohol.

“We saw it.” Garbage was already having to fight to make her words clear, and Leaf was starting to chew the end of her wings. Something she only did when she was about to pass out.

“Saw what? Garbage? Stay with me, saw what?” The normal way to get a faery to sober up was to get them black-out drunk. But at the rate these two were fading I wasn’t even going to need to do that.

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