Sounds familiar. He said the same at the woodsman’s hut, but they left as soon as the sun rose, after burying the man and what was left of his poor child. They took nothing.

Padric came back to the middle of the sodden thoroughfare, looking back the way they had come. He shook his head for the tenth time since they came within sight of the village. “No walls. Not of wood, earth or stone. Not even a ditch.”

“Didn’t need one,” Rosheen said, nodding toward a low bump of earth with a door in the center. A gnome hole. “This place was Fae-friendly. They must have had a guardian of some sort, if they kept to the old ways. A fomori most likely, or maybe a Waywarder passed by regular. Someone kept them safe.”

“Or made them believe they were,” Padric muttered.

Or made them believe they were. Rosheen looked at the door to the gnome hole sadly…and then shook the feeling away. Damn Padric and his mood! Both were beginning to get to her.

“Let’s find that alehouse,” she said, a little too loudly for their surroundings. “Even that wretched stuff will taste sweet after all this bitter company.” She flew off without waiting to see if he followed.

The River Trough bordered the village to her right. Rosheen followed it up past the mill. It was a large, three tier construction of solid wood, its heavy wheel groaning steadily around. The alehouse was just beyond, a long, squat building of thick wooden beams. Attached to one side was a stable made of stacked stone with a turf roof.

The door to the alehouse was unbarred and slung inward with a slight push, revealing a spacious common room filled with long benches and tables, all of them upright, disturbingly well-ordered for a place with no people. Rosheen landed lightly on the dirt floor and stepped a few paces inside. It was colder in the shadowy alehouse than it was without, where the afternoon sun was hidden by a thick smudge of grubby clouds. The fireplaces were stacked with fresh turf, ready to be lit and clay flagons hung neatly on pegs over the serving table.

“Just like all the others,” Padric said from the doorway. “Undisturbed. Just empty.” He dumped his pack and went over to one of the fireplaces, pulling his flint from his belt. Rosheen regarded him as he worked, kneeling before the fireplace, grimy and soiled from traveling.