Chapter Sixty-One: The Drunken Chicken
Caelum
I arrived at the Drunken Chicken two hours before dawn.
The yard was quiet, the stable boy asleep in the hay, and only one lamp burning above the door. My shadow guard fanned out around the perimeter with the silent efficiency I had spent three centuries cultivating into them. I dismounted and handed my grey to Seryn and walked inside.
The common room was empty except for the innkeeper, who was wiping down the bar with a cloth. He looked up when I came through the door and did not reach for anything, which told me he was either very calm or very experienced. Probably both.
He looked at me with careful neutrality. He was old and wizened and judging by the way his sharp eyes assessed me, I wasn’t the first vampire to darken his doors.
I sat
