The Librarian and the Assassin, a Sapphic Romance at the End of the World - 34. Chapter 34 - Rough Night

Bix was anxiously awaiting Tawni’s return home. She was on the rooftop where Tawni had prepared the fish the pair had caught together. The stars were beginning to flicker to life above Bix’s head, but she was staring down at the dark city streets.

Tawni had been gone for over six hours.

“Why’s it taking so long?” Bix grumbled to no one. “Where are you, Tawni?”

Bix had been alone through the afternoon’s storm, and despite the pangs of hunger that were twinging in her stomach, she had eaten nothing. She had perused Tawni’s shelves of preserved foods earlier in the evening, but Bix was too stressed to eat without her beloved.

“Please come home, Tawni.”

Tawni was nowhere near her home.

She was in the shadows on a street that ran along the side of the Grondsen family estate. Just like Pan Cakes had predicted, there were more guards stationed out front, but Doylithia was among them.

This’ll be easier than I thought, Tawni said in her mind.

The ghost approached the Grondsen manor in silence. There were no signs of other guards anywhere else on the property, and Tawni crept up to the decorative fence that encircled the house. She loaded her blowgun, brought it to her lips, and took aim. She had a clear shot at Doylithia among the guards, and Tawni blew. Her poisoned projectile launched from her weapon… right as the group burst out with energetic laughter. Tawni’s aim was true, but her dart sank into the wrist of a man who flailed his arms when he laughed.

He cried out in alarm, and the others sprang into action. Two of them rushed in the direction from which the dart had been fired, straight at where Tawni was hiding, while the other guards surrounded Doylithia. Tawni did not have a clear sight for a second shot, but as the men around Doylithia jostled her toward the safety of the estate, the guard she hit collapsed to the earth, and Tawni saw her opening. Despite the pair of approaching guardsmen, she loaded and fired a second dart in a split second. It whizzed through the air between the two men, and it hit Doylithia, penetrating deep into her shoulder.

Tawni leaped to her feet and bolted; she was immediately spotted. The two guards were hot on her trail, and both were faster than her. She shoved her blowgun into her bag and quickly armed herself with a pair of her darts clutched between the fingers of her clenched fists. The pounding footsteps of the men were right behind her, and Tawni was running with all her might, but she knew she would not be able to outrun them. The instant she felt one of their clutching hands grasping for her, she spun around and attacked.

Knuckles cracked against the side of Tawni’s face as one of the men backhanded her, but she managed to stab him in the arm with her poison dart, and he collapsed into his companion as she crashed to the pavement. Tawni’s head was ringing from the blow, but she kicked off the ground and dove straight at the pair of men with her arms extended forward and her poison darts leading the way. She screamed like a banshee as she crashed into them, punching with both fists over and over, and stabbing each of them with multiple injections of her toxic concoction that ruined the pair. She shoved herself away from them as their lives disappeared.

Tawni ran.

A sign pointed toward the waterfront, and she raced in its direction down a street that she knew would at least lead her away from the island’s lone mountain and the estate where her target now lay dead.

“Don’t get cocky,” Tawni groaned to herself, repeating Pan Cakes’ words of warning and gingerly caressing the bruise that was spreading across her cheek.

She spotted a tavern’s OPEN sign ahead of her, and she slipped inside. She slunk up to the bar at one end, and she did not look up when the bartender approached.

“Getcha something?” he asked in a gruff voice.

The sound of the man’s breathing felt ominous to Tawni, as if he was full of rage that was directed at her. Tawni wished she could become invisible. She wished she could just disappear.

The man’s threatening voice spoke again. “Do you need some help?”

Tawni looked up.

The bartender was a barrel-chested hulk of a man with a thick beard. He was wearing a knit hat that drooped off to one side, a heavy leather apron, and denim overalls. He was holding a knife in one hand.

“Do you need help?” he asked again, and he sounded like he was trying to make his voice softer.

Tawni’s eyes moved over the big man, focusing on the knife, and then his other hand, which held a lemon he had been slicing.

“What happened to you?” he asked.

Tawni glanced at the door to the pub.

“Do you need to hide?” The man pointed at his storeroom and kitchen. “You can go in back and hide in there if you need to.”

Tawni looked into his eyes. She could tell he was trying not to stare directly at the bruise on her cheek, and his face looked worried.

“Go ahead,” he encouraged. “And you don’t need to tell me anything.”

“Thank you,” Tawni whispered. She headed into the tavern’s back of the house.

“There’s an exit into the alleyway behind the bar,” he informed her. “You can stick around as long as you’d like, or leave whenever you want. Help yourself to a beer or some water.” He closed the door to the kitchen and left her alone.

Tawni let out a relieved breath. She felt safe. There was no way any pursuer could know where she had gone.

For the next almost thirty minutes, Tawni was by herself. She heard the man serve a few customers, but it sounded like no one who was looking for her had entered the pub. The bartender eventually came into the kitchen again, and he closed the door behind him.

“Gotta prep some food,” he told her. “Want me to make you something?”

“I’d love that,” Tawni said quietly, “if you can spare it. And thank you for being kind to me.”

“Not to worry,” the big man replied, “we’ll get you fed. Know how to use a knife? Wanna help me dice an onion?”

A sob threatened to choke Tawni. “Yeah,” she replied, swallowing hard, “I’d love to help. What’s your name?”

The barman smiled. “I’m Dawa, and what should I call you?”

“My name’s Tawni,” she replied.

“You don’t mind chopping an onion, do you Tawni?”

She let out a little laugh that hid the lump in her throat. “I chopped a bunch of onions at an outreach center with some friends yesterday.”

Dawa’s eyebrows went up. “An outreach center? Sounds like you’re a really good person, Tawni. And I’m sorry for whatever you’ve gone through.”

Tawni brought her fingertips to the swollen bruise on her face, and she nodded. “Which knife should I use?”

Over the next fifteen minutes, Tawni helped Dawa prepare a charcuterie plate, and he sautéed the onions with chopped bacon and brown sugar until the ingredients turned into a chunky jam. He gave Tawni a ramekin of the warm, smokey treat with some crusty bread, and he headed out into his bar to serve his customers.

The bacon jam tasted like magic, and Tawni closed her eyes as she savored her first bite. The bread was fresh-baked, and it served as the perfect vehicle for the meaty snack. In only a few bites, it was gone, but it was a hearty little meal, and Tawni felt revitalized.

She pulled out one of the twenty-dollar old world bills, laid it onto the countertop, and placed her empty ramekin onto the corner of the faded greenish piece of paper worth over an entire month’s wages.

Tawni went out the back exit and disappeared into the dark Stonespire streets.