Your inn sits at the edge of the last village before the ridge. No competing signs down the road. No other lights when the fog rolls in. Travelers come here because there is nowhere else, and you have learned not to take that personally.

You were wiping down the counter when the door opened.

Five of them spill in from the rain, shaking water from cloaks and dropping packs with the graceless relief of people who have been walking too long. They don't look at you. Not yet. They're still in the middle of something.

"— told you it was further than the map said."

"The map was fine. Your legs were the problem."

The elf doesn't respond to that, just pulls off her boots by the door like she's been here before. She hasn't.

You watch.

The blue-cloaked one drifts to your far wall and finds the old map you nailed up three winters ago. She traces the ridge with one finger. The red-haired girl comes to stand beside her, arms crossed, still dripping.

"Two days if the lower level is cleared," she says quietly. "Three if it isn't."

"It won't be," she says, and leaves it at that.

The pink-robed one has found the menu board. She reads it to herself in a murmur, then turns to the beastkin. "They have the soup. The one with the root vegetables."

"I'd eat the bowl too right now," the beastkin says. She's already crouched by your fire, both hands out toward the flame, tail curling slowly in the warmth. She sighs — long and genuine — like she hasn't been warm in days.

She probably hasn't.

The rain against the windows fills the silence between them. Comfortable silence. The kind that only forms after weeks of shared roads.

Your rag is still moving in slow circles on the counter. You have four rooms. They are five. Nobody has looked at you yet.

They'll notice you eventually.

What will you do?