Holo pulled just a little too hard on a rib, and the soft, fatty meat fell from the bone. Eve immediately pinned it with her knife and drew it toward her, chuckling like a triumphant child.
“I don’t recommend seeing them.”
Lawrence thought he misheard her at first because she said it so casually.
“I’m being serious.”
She wiped away a drop of fat clinging to the corner of her mouth before turning to look at Lawrence.
“Not for your sake. But theirs.”
It did not seem like this was simple deception, but Lawrence could not help but glance in Holo’s direction, regardless.
“Would it weaken them?” Holo asked, crunching into cartilage.
Eve shrugged. “There are many people who keep a close eye on every single move of theirs. Picture their family coming in from the sticks, their idiot faces gawking at everything they see. What do you think would happen?”
People looking to use them would swarm them.
“Is that what things are like for them now?”
“Things are easy for them when they are in the kingdom—they have a lot of trustworthy allies around them there.”
For a brief moment, Lawrence pictured Myuri being spoiled rotten at the royal palace, and Col burying himself in the valuable tomes of a luxurious library, but there was no way to know if their life really was like that.
“I don’t know how you managed to get here, but you must’ve seen how much trouble they’re causing all over the world now that you’ve left Nyohhira, right?”
“We did. We even saw their mural in a port city called Atiph.”
Eve smiled at that.
“That’s what I’ve heard things are like in the north. But the farther south you go, the more serious things get.”
Eve turned her attention to Holo as she finished speaking, so Lawrence followed suit. He watched as Holo drank dry a mug of ale bigger than her head, and the hair on her ears bristled.
She burped. “I’d like wine next.”
The umbrella girl, watching in delight as Holo drank, seemed to at least understand some words. With a nod, she took Holo’s mug and walked off to the kitchen.
“Holo’s ears don’t shock her.”
“We have a sheep girl working for us, so.”
Lawrence recalled how Kieman mentioned that Eve was a good judge of wool.
That made sense now. Of course her trade would be going well.
“I understand your worry.” Eve dropped her gaze to the meat in her hands and shrugged. “I’m worried about them, too.”
Her facetious tone did show she was genuinely worried, but also stemmed from the embarrassment of knowing it was out of character for her.
“They are brilliant and straightforward, running at full speed along a path I never dared walk,” she said—she was a great merchant who had accumulated so much money she would never be able to spend all of it in her mortal life, yet there was envy in her expression. “If anyone dares to try and get in their way, I will go back to my old ways in a heartbeat.”
“Even if that anyone is their family?”
Eve did not answer. She only concentrated on her meat.
“You should go and see the world for yourself.”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. Walk the ground with your own two feet and you’ll hear about them more than you like. And if you still feel like you need to see them, do it then.”
Lawrence felt like he was being deceived somehow, and that was apparently obvious.
As she took the mug of wine from the umbrella girl, Holo turned a tired gaze to Lawrence.
“It seems all your old habits are still intact.”
“My habits?”
“Your lack of trust without looking, feeling, and holding things for yourself.”
As Eve sat opposite them, the corners of her lips curled upward.
“That’s where I always lose when I find myself relying on intrigue.”
“No drink suits every dish.”
There was a time and place for everything.
Lawrence was not sure if food and drink was the right way to describe that, but he got the gist of what they were trying to tell him.
“You mean to say there are other things we should be watching over.”
“Especially since they have left the nest.”
“Oh.”
Lawrence faltered; he was the one, after all, who commissioned a set of clothes for Myuri, hoping she would come back to the bathhouse because of it.
“You don’t need to worry about their immediate safety,” Eve said quietly and easily. “That innocent girl of yours is great at making friends like her. She has plenty of nonhumans on her side.”
“That many?”
Lawrence could tell by the way Eve smiled that she was exaggerating, but it did not seem to be a total lie.
“No need to protect them anymore. They’re having a great time in a world that you are not privy to. Know this, and give this world a little wander to convince yourself to give up.”
Her mischievous smile showed this was her payback for Kieman.
But he knew, at the same time, that it was the truth.
“I don’t think I’ve felt this way since I sold off the cart I used to trade with,” Lawrence muttered, and Holo patted him on the back.
It would have been nicer if her mouth had not been stuffed full of meat.
“And it’s surprisingly fun to travel without having to worry about trade. I’m your senior in that, you know.”
Eve once hid away in the hollow of a tree, nursing wounds that would not heal, moaning in pain. But even when that life became too painful, too foolish for her to bear, she had long lost the strength to pull herself out.
And that was when Holo came along and helped her out.
“There are plenty of foods I have yet to try, I reckon.”
“Should I get you a list?”
“You utter fool. That would sap the joy of finding them.”
As Lawrence watched the two wolves bicker, he brought his cup to his lips.
Eve was probably right. And there was no one sharper than Holo when it came to seeing the end of long roads.
Perhaps it was time to think about what the goal of seeing Col and Myuri actually meant.
Now they had a clear home to which they could return, and Col and Myuri themselves would come home if need be. Perhaps it was their job to make their beds, just in case they did.
“But that means,” Lawrence began. “Then maybe I should’ve taken all the credit for that idea.”
No amount of coin would ever be enough to pay for a world tour with a voracious wolf.
Holo’s large, red eyes blinked as she bit into the rare cut beef shoulder. “There is plenty of work to be done,” she said. “I doubt you will grow bored.”
She spoke brazenly.
Lawrence shrugged and took another sip of his drink.
He would be much too drunk, drinking on an empty stomach like this.
He had to remain sober so that Holo could eat and drink as much as she liked.
“May the road of trade last forever,” Eve smiled.
She glanced at the umbrella girl, signaling her to take up her instrument.
Though it was not too noisy, it was not too quiet, either—the feast felt like a seaside, summertime celebration, and it lasted well into the next day.