“How? How are you here?”

  I sounded tired. I felt tired all of a sudden, too.

  “Whatever do you mean, dear customer?” The kitsune grinned wider, showing off their fox-like teeth.

  I spotted Arandel in the background, her arms crossed over her chest as she glared a hole into the side of the kitsune’s head. She clearly did not like them invading her Hall and feeding the people for whom she wanted to cook.

  “Am I really a customer if I was served a meal unprompted?” I arched a brow at the kitsune. I had not agreed to eat their food, and I would not let them gain power over me that easily. “And shouldn’t you have left with the caravan you were a part of?”

  “Hmmm? Whenever did I say I was a part of the caravan?” The kitsune simply looked ever more amused. It annoyed me that I still didn’t have a clue whether they were male or female. “And I have temporarily joined your lovely town! As such, even if you eat for free, you are my dear customer. I could not possibly pass up the opportunity to feed you two again, not after your wife ate my food so happily last time!”

  “Wife?!” screamed another voice from a few tables away. “Thorn?! Alys?! You can’t be married! You didn’t invite me to the wedding!”

  To my utter horror, I saw Nasha jump up from her seat. She’d been eating with the hunting team, sans Kiri, all of whom were now staring at us with wide eyes.

  Deep breath in, deep breath out. Do not turn the kitsune chef into a new fur cloak for Alys.

  “What do you mean ‘temporarily’?” I demanded of the kitsune. “Did you join the town or not?”

  My effort to keep the conversation on track was made significantly more difficult when a blur streaked across the room and materialized by my side. Nasha instantly gripped my shoulders and began lightly shaking me.

  “Thorn?! Did you get married or not?! Talk to me!”

  Alys just snickered and kept eating.

  “Well, you see, I would have been happy to join your town!” the kitsune said merrily. “Alas, your cruel elders denied my request. They declared that I can only stay a while.”

  “You requested to stay here for a year and a day, fox. We denied nothing,” Grafton snapped, for once doing something useful.

  Nasha, meanwhile, let out a dramatic wail of despair and collapsed next to me, tugging on my clothes. I chanced a glance at the beagle before looking away in a hurry. Those puppy eyes of hers were dangerous, and she was turning their full force on me.

  “Oh yeah, brat! Aren’t you pregnant?” Grafton now addressed Alys, clearly enjoying himself. “Wanted to ask, but you decided to be rude little shits from the moment you arrived.”

  Alys choked. Nasha froze, her wide-eyed gaze now alternating between me and the dragoness. Arandel dropped a dish, which shattered on the floor.

  For a moment, I could not make any sense of Grafton’s words. Then my mind snapped back to our meeting with the royal surveyors, and what I had said to get them to back down. Surely, since then, we had seen the elders to explain…

  We didn’t, I realized, suddenly feeling even more tired. We didn’t take the time to visit and resolve that misunderstanding.

  I was eyeing the exit and wondering how quickly I could extricate myself from the situation when a hand landed on my shoulder. I turned to look at said hand’s owner, my eyes meeting Alys’ silver-flecked golden orbs.

  “Dearest husband of mine, I hope you’re not thinking about running?”

  She was smiling sweetly, but I wasn’t fooled. This was a trap!

  —

  “Are you sure you are not pregnant? Not even a little?” Nasha asked again, for about the hundredth time.

  I could see Alys’ smile twitching. At that point, I was starting to worry that we would have a charred beagle on our hands soon.

  While the thought of us getting married without her knowledge was apparently enough to send the beagle into a panic, the fact that Alys was not pregnant after all had sent her into a pout. In her own words, she wanted to be ‘the cool aunt to a bunch of adorable little dragon babies.’

  “Yes, Nasha, I am certain. We are not married, and we do not have children on the way… yet,” Alys finished smugly, her eyes briefly catching and holding mine.

  The smirk on her face made me flush, even if her words had put some color into her own cheeks.

  I valiantly ignored my flirting dragoness to focus on what little was left of the delightfully delicious meal the fox had served us. The fox who had said just enough to spark a commotion, and then conveniently vanished.

  This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

  Yet I couldn’t even be angry. If they truly had inspired all that trouble and then fled to giggle in a corner, avoiding any backlash, then their skills were truly impressive. Furthermore, it was a set of skills that appealed to me. While I could be a hypocritical menace when it suited me, I was struggling to dredge up any real resentment for the fox.

  And I wasn’t sure why. Simple charisma? Some odd sense of kinship? A racial trait of kitsunes that predisposed everyone to like them? Or had the foxy chef somehow enchanted the food?

  Scowling, I subtly ran several diagnostic spells on myself as as I finished my meal. I detected nothing. My mind was not being tampered with in any way.

  Somehow, that annoyed me even more.

  “I hope you don’t mind if we retire for the day,” I declared, having emptied my plate. Alys had finished eating a while ago.

  “Oh, not at all,” Ferlis assured us, speaking out before Hyel could. “Please, do visit us more often. You certainly liven up the place.”

  The wendigo elder was much friendlier now than she had been before, even if her voice still sent shivers down my spine occasionally. Actually, all of the elders were friendlier now, with the expected exception of Grafton.

  It had been very easy to correct any possible misconception caused by the meeting with the royal surveyors. In fact, I was reasonably certain that the elders knew us well enough to have assumed the whole pregnancy idea was a ruse from the start. Otherwise, they would have brought it up as soon as we arrived, or even summoned us for a chat immediately after the caravan departed.

  Of course, they’d been all too happy to join in the teasing once the subject was brought up by my least favorite elder.

  “Noooo, don’t leave! I wanted to talk more!” Nasha whined, hanging off of my dragoness. Said dragoness gently removed the beagle and plopped her down onto a chair, but Nasha was persistent. “At least visit more? Please?”

  The puppy eyes were powerful enough to slay even a dragon.

  “Fine,” Alys huffed, looking away. “We will try.”

  “Yes! Okay, see you next time!”

  Just like that, the hint of tears and the trembling lips all vanished in favor of a smile. Nasha skipped away, leaving us both to stare after her.

  “You realize she’s definitely not as empty-headed and hyper as she pretends to be all the time, right?” I asked as Alys rubbed her forehead.

  “Yes. I know.”

  “You still fell for it.”

  “I did. You would, too.”

  “Yes. Yes, I would,” I agreed.

  Waving a goodbye to everyone, we made our exit.

  I took a deep breath of the cool night air, letting it settle into my lungs and banish the heat and smell of the Hall. Though I’d enjoyed spending time with friendly faces, the Hall became uncomfortably warm with so many bodies inside it, not to mention the smell of all those bodies after a day of hard work.

  I supposed it was something I would get used to if I spent enough time in such environments, but I wasn’t there yet. My upbringing in the Autumn Court certainly hadn’t provided that opportunity. Not even my trip to Swiftband had prepared me adequately for the experience.

  In spite of that, as evidenced by the now fully dark night sky overhead, it was easy to waste a few hours on nothing but chatter and company. More than easy. It was… nice.

  We had barely taken ten steps away from the door when a figure melted out of the darkness to walk alongside us.

  “A word, if you please, dear customers,” the kitsune purred, looking at us with mirth in their eyes.

  Alys dignified them with a vaguely approving rumble.

  “Well… I suppose you did feed us,” I ventured with a sigh.

  “Excellent! I was afraid I would have to dodge flames before you decided to hear me out!” the kitsune exclaimed cheerfully.

  They continued to walk with us in utter contentment. Apparently, they were unconcerned that we were headed straight out of town, where we could potentially push things in a far less friendly direction.

  “What do you want?”

  Truly, Alys’ bluntness was a blessing at times.

  “I simply wished to clear the air between us. When last we chatted, I… implied… certain things, and now you see me in your lovely town. It would be easy to jump to the wrong conclusion. I wanted to assure you that I bear no ill will towards you. Neither will I say anything I shouldn’t. I value my customers’ privacy.”

  I wouldn’t lie to them and say the thought hadn’t crossed my mind. Honestly, it was lucky for the fox that they had vanished quickly and waited until my initial burst of wariness, along with some uglier emotions that urged me to introduce them to some of my own unique consumables, had faded.

  Then again, I didn’t really think it was luck. The fox was entirely too wise, forcing me to admit that their race’s reputation as cunning tricksters was well-earned.

  “I see,” I said slowly. “I will take your word for it, if you promise to answer two of my questions truthfully.”

  Mana seeped into my voice, filling it with the sound of crinkling Autumn leaves as it snagged onto my words and formed a bridge between me and the kitsune.

  I could tell they noticed, yet their answer came easily enough.

  “I accept.”

  My mana leapt. It surged into them, snaring their throat, heart, and soul.

  The Agreement was struck.

  “Excellent.” I was smiling fully now. Any plans of arranging a poisoning had vanished for the time being. “In that case, what are your goals here in Swiftband?”

  “I travel around to improve my cooking. I am always looking for unique recipes, ingredients, or even culinary styles. I was drawn to stay here for a time by your honey.”

  They couldn’t have lied to me if they had tried, and the consequences of lying would have been unpleasant for them, so I decided to take their words at face value. I would analyze the response more closely later.

  “The honey? How did you get any in the first place?” Alys wondered, though I noticed she was also quite relaxed around the kitsune.

  “A customer offered some of your honey ginger candies in a trade! I later… acquired some honey from the surveyors, when I happened to smell it on them. I was quite taken by the taste!”

  I blinked, then blinked again. Unless I was missing my mark completely, the kitsune had almost blatantly admitted to stealing some honey from the royal surveyors.

  Well… alright, then.

  “I see. In that case, my second question.” I paused. “What in the Seasons is your gender?”

  The kitsune almost tripped. They stared at me for a moment, then erupted into vulpine cackles. They were brushing tears out of their eyes by the time they managed to respond.

  “Really? That is the question you want to ask me? When I promised to bear my heart and soul completely, no matter what you demanded to know?”

  I shrugged. “It was bothering me. I can usually read people better. I’ve encountered some races recently that are new to me, such as wendigos and birdkin, and they have thrown me off a little. But I’ve gotten used to them. You are… frustrating.”

  “Why, thank you!” The kitsune beamed. “And to answer your question, I am very much male!”

  My smile widened. One more mystery solved!

  Only a few seconds later, though, I had to bite back a scowl.

  I should have asked him for one of his recipes instead…