The tavern was closed, thank you very much, but that didn’t stop the murderer from gliding through the door—Yuu was sure she’d locked it—and propping himself on the counter like all the regulars did—like he’d been watching the regulars do through the window for the last several hours.

  “Bonjour!” he greeted Yuu with a cheery wave and a smile so sunny she almost overlooked the fact that it was 2AM—almost.

  She supposed he wasn’t actually a murderer. Bounty Hunters tended not to wind up in shackles after turning in their, um, trophies. Still. She recognized the black feather plume tucked into his wide-brimmed, purple hat that marked his profession, and the twisting stygian bow across his back. Although, if those didn’t do it alone, the sickly brown color dripping from his face, gloves, and now her floors, would have given him away.

  She sighed, mop already in hand. There were worse stains. Right? Right?

  His pale, sharply cut hair was nearly luminescent in the dark. He was certainly the least covert assassin you’d ever seen, and she had seen him. Traipsing through town to deposit ominous, red-dripping burlap sacks at the castle—or doorsteps, or windowsills, or even, once, a particularly dramatic wedding.

  ‘Rook Hunt,’ she thought his name was. At least, that’s what the tavern gossips, delivery boys, and old woman in the market would call him before spitting in the dirt and throwing salt at whoever happened to be standing nearby.

  However, it was literally in most of Yuu’s performance contracts that she couldn’t do anything to warrant winding up in one of those dripping burlap sacks of his, and hey. Who was she to limit freedom-of-advertisement?

  Repeating that fact to herself, and reminding herself that she’d dealt with far scarier eccentrics at court, she stepped up to the counter wearing her best apologetic-customer-service smile. That little gesture warmed her unwanted guest’s expression that it had no business doing, lighting the whole of him with a wide-eyed, innocent, joy that belonged nowhere on the face of someone she’d watched cart literal corpses into town.

  “Mon plaisintin!” he cried jovially. “A most beautiful morning it promises to be, does it not?”

  The sun wouldn’t rise for several more hours, and even the merry chirp of cicadas and frogs had died down for the night, but, the need to perform never slept, so Yuu nodded along with him as brightly as she could manage.

  “It truly does. There’s nothing like the peace of the morning,” Even if she rarely saw the other side of one. “Ah, I’m sorry, but you’ve missed the dinner rush, unless you were looking for somewhere to stay?”

  “Oh— non, non, non ,” Rook waved her off. “I just wanted to watch!”

  “…Watch—the minstrels? They came through quite some time ago.”

  Hours, actually.

  Yuu often used the tavern’s captive, drunken audience to practice jokes and songs before she ever took new material to court. Tonight she’d done the same—but that had been in the early evening, and she’d been cleaning the floor ever since close.

  “And how brilliant they were!” Rook absolutely beamed. “And yourself, Plaisintin! Such wit! Such voice! Truly an honor to witness them in person!I’ve heard nothing but excellent things about your marvelous performances.”

  ‘From whom?’ she wanted to ask, because Yuu had never heard of anyone being able to hold a conversation with this man for more than a stuttered sentence at a time, let alone for long enough to go about giving entertainment recommendations.

  “Thank you,” she said instead, tired smile fixed firmly across her lips. “You know, we actually close around this time—but it’s my fault tonight.” She shook her head. “I’m losing my mind. I forgot to lock up, apparently.”

  He laughed, as though she was just the funniest little thing, placing his gloves under his chin to smile at her as though she was the best entertainment he’d ever seen.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Oh no.

  And he was dripping on the counter.

  Yuu lunged for one of the crates where they kept the clean rags, and set a neat stack of them in front of Mr. Hunt. He stared at them with that same sort of rapt fascination that had her wondering if this man had ever interacted with civilization in his entire life.

  “For your hands. And face. I can’t imagine that’s comfortable.”

  Rule one of persuading a customer to do something: convince him that it will make him happy.

  “ Pour moi? ” he muttered, looking a bit starstruck.

  “Well, yes,” she said, with all of the cheery ‘please, oh, please don’t get blood on my counters, I JUST got the last of it off from yesterday,’ in her tone. “Oh, and just a moment—”

  She leaned the mop on the side of the counter and hustled back to the kitchen. Yuu didn’t know all the proper protocol for shooing a murderer out of your establishment. Chased with a broom? Wet towel? Exorcism? But no. Since she wanted to do this with a side of ‘please don’t kill anyone,’ she scooped up one of the meat pies from her dinner-creations, and wrapped it in a spare cloth before reappearing at the counter.

  Hunt had done a surprisingly good job of mopping up the, ah, eau-de-criminal . His hands were no longer dripping, his face remarkably clean and pale. Even the countertop had been scrubbed.

  Good murderer! she would have crooned, if she didn’t think it would ruin the mood. Instead, she placed the pie in front of him.

  “For your trip home.”

  But instead of heading off back to whatever hole he’d crawled out of, he just kept staring at the food like he had no idea what to do with it.

  “Ah,” she said, hoping he would get the hint. “Jules is great with seasoning, but he’s less choosy with meat than I am.” She winked. Professionally, of course. “I promise it's trustworthy.”

  “This is…meat?” Rook repeated under his breath, like it was a wonder he’d never encountered before, and not the food scrawled most prominently across every line of the tavern menu next to ‘ale,’ and ‘mead,’ and ‘worst grog in the city.’

  “Fascinante. I don’t believe I’ve ever seen it prepared thus…And the cost?”

  She blinked, taken aback. “That’s not how gifts work, especially when they’re past dinnertime, and not hot anymore.”

  Rook tossed his head back with a bout of boisterous laughter that should have been loud enough to wake everyone on the block. She glanced around nervously, sure that Jules was about to come romping down the stairs and accuse her of bad management. Then, Rook lifted the little treat like he meant to give it back to her.

  “Ah, but you’ve been working so long, mon plaisantin. We ought to share it.”

  She shook her head. “Afraid I’m sated for the day.”

  Please just leave! she silently prayed.

  Rook did not get the hint, instead, leaning closer to her across the counter.

  “But, how else will I know how best to savor such a gift?”

  “Well, you eat it. With your teeth. ” She gaped. Who on earth had lived in the Carroway Kingdom for longer than a day, and not come across a basic meat pie? Or any pie? Then, slowly , because she wasn’t even sure she was dealing with a functional human being anymore. “Since you’re not staying.”

  The Bounty Hunter, with his intimidating weaponry, and blood-stained cloak, put several of those pointy teeth of his on display in a merry grin. But then, to her relief, he swept himself off the barstool, and into a grand bow, the feather on his hat bobbing happily.

  “Of course!” he chirped. “Since I am not staying this evening.”

  Yes , she groaned internally. Go. Let me mop up the blood so I can sleep.

  In response, Rook reached up to tap two fingers against the wide brim of his black and purple hat and tipped it forward.

  “ Merci, merci! ” he trilled. “Then I will endeavor to consume this marvelous spécialité humaine in the proper fashion, with my teeth.” He smiled at her again, that same sunny, innocent thing he’d bounded in with. “A very good morning to you, ma chere!”

  Striving to play the hostess a little better, she escorted him to the door, where, with a merry little hum he left— at last —and made his way back down the cobblestone road. In the soft light of the rising stars, his footsteps left odd prints in the shadows of his cloak—inky, black, dripping things that wisped away from him like he was stepping in powdered coal and not over stone.

  She frowned.

  “Weird. Very weird,” she muttered to herself when she was sure he was completely gone. But then, as she’d told herself before, the court was stranger, and full of all sorts of ridiculous absurdities. If she was being smart, and she really should start doing that more often, she would focus on her trip to court tomorrow, where those selfsame ridiculous, eccentric nutcases expected her to act more interesting than them.

  She sighed, locking the door properly this time, and turned back to the tavern floor where…there were no bloodstains. In fact, the stool, the floor, and the counter where Rook Hunt had been were all the cleanest they had ever been. The mop had been tucked back where she always kept it. Even the rags, which really should have remained bloodied were…simply gone.

  “Very, very weird,” Yuu groaned tiredly, but at least this version of weird came with sleep.

  Trudging up the tavern steps and into her own loft room, it wasn’t long before she’d done the minimum to prepare for bed, and collapsed onto one of Jules’ cheap cots. She found herself hoping, oddly, that the royalty she’d be shoved in front of tomorrow would be as easily pleased as a bounty hunter in bloody silks.