Heir to Light | Fablehaven AU

XV - secrets

"Of course, darling." The bartender winked and disappeared to a back area. Was that wink for Garreth? No, she didn't care. Anyway...

Kendra sighed and untied her fur cloak before setting it onto the only other open seat beside her. "I feel fine. I don't need any tea."

She didn't like the group treating her like she was one misstep away from disaster. Sure, maybe she wasn't telling them everything about her sickness complications. Sure, if they knew what she did, their treatment might be justified. But, they didn't. So their glass-handling needed to stop.

Garreth furrowed his eyebrows in confusion. "The tea isn't for you—I'm going to join a choir. These pipes need to be well-lubricated."

Wincing, a small smile broke through Kendra but the grief and sadness that had accompanied all her interactions with Garreth since Terrabelle smothered it.

Garreth had sprung back to normal capacity faster than she could. He was normal. His mood had taken a 180. He was no longer the broody man of their long trip, but closer to the original, charming Garreth she met. Of course, she could see the cracks in his demeanor—imperceptible, small, but sharp enough to inflict a paper cut.

However, he was doing better which meant that Kendra was right when she had severed whatever impropriety had festered between them.

...Kendra wasn't doing better, but she chalked that up to her crushing secret instead of some secret crush.

So it was safe to say, despite the guise of normalcy, Kendra wasn't happy that she was with Garreth during their time in the town today.

Eve helped with her incessant questions and allergy to silence, but so many emotions grappled inside Kendra's gut that she hadn't had time to understand lately and wouldn't have time to understand later, and the confusion and overall agitation at being near a trigger of all those emotions was overwhelming.

She has thought that setting the record straight with Garreth, apologizing and distancing herself from whatever they had been would have made it easier to compartmentalize and journey on, free of sticky, slimy emotions.

But, it really hadn't. Sometimes it didn't just work to push everything down. Though, Kendra tried very valiantly. And she would keep trying. She only had so many tools in her repertoire for dealing with this kind of stuff.

Shouts came from a back table as someone won the jackpot. The guitarist ended their set. Kendra sighed.

Vanessa had told her that time healed all. It was still unclear if Vanessa would be proven right.

Right now, it just felt that every day meant a day closer to the Sphinx's ziggurat. A day closer to their doom.

The barmaid returned with the tea and twirled one of her braids around her finger. "Is that all?"

"Yes, thank you." Garreth slid the coins across the counter and slid the cup to Kendra. She waited until he revoked his hand before she took it.

The tea itself was much different from Terrabelle's—which Kendra had come to tolerate, but a lot closer to the tea Kendra had grown up on. It was room temperature, even a little cool, and she knew then that the bartender had retrieved the liquid from the root cellar. Just like home.

It tasted delicious.

"Thank you," Kendra said. It was one of few words she had spoken directly to Garreth lately. One of very few kind ones. She sometimes just wished he'd go away. Or that he had never come.

If he had stayed behind in Terrabelle, she could've even left all this turmoil behind there, too. To an extent. And for a while. It would have come up later but it wouldn't have been crowding her mind during the build-up to the most daunting rescue mission she had ever been a part of.