Ewen nodded halfheartedly. Bradshaw left, and in the days since, Ewen had become a spy. This was not easy work, for each day he would have to come up with a new and creative way to watch the inn, not only so that Brenna did not notice but so that the townspeople didn’t begin to talk. He often went to the pub, which was only a bit down the street from the inn and had a good view of its entrance. But this was not easy either, for Ewen didn’t drink. Long ago, Da had cautioned him against ale, warning that it would only get him into trouble, and he had absolutely forbidden Ewen to drink any spirits. The latter was no hardship; Ewen had tasted whiskey at Christmas once, and thought it tasted like bad vinegar. But Da’s strictures did present problems now, when Ewen was trying to spend all day in a pub. Even he knew that no one spent all day in a pub unless he was a drunk. He thought about getting an ale and sipping it slowly, but in the end he could not. Da was dead, yes, but that had made his rules more powerful, not less. Ewen could not break them.
He told the publican that he was waiting for a friend to arrive in town, and after some discussion, they agreed that Ewen would drink water and pay ale prices. Ewen worried that the man would talk about their strange arrangement, but his worries were needless; unless the discussion involved money or alcohol, the publican didn’t seem to want to talk at all. He was content to have Ewen sit at the end of the bar, drinking glass after glass of water, only getting up occasionally to use the filthy toilet at the back of the pub. It was very boring, this spy work, and on the second day, Ewen brought his lead and paper and began to sketch the people around the bar, the street outside. He knew his sketches were not very good, but the publican, at least, seemed to appreciate them; after several hours of apparent disinterest, he sidled over to watch Ewen draw. After several more hours, he asked Ewen if he might draw something as well. Ewen gave him a piece of paper and a short stub of lead. He wondered if anyone ever drew in Gin Reach. There wasn’t much inspiration here; the surrounding landscape was as bleak as anything Ewen could have imagined. He drew the people, the buildings, the sky, but his eyes were never far from the door of the inn.
Twice more, Brenna left the inn and wandered up the main track, then continued out of town into the desert. Her steps were almost aimless, but not quite, and by the third day Ewen had begun to wonder just what she was doing here, why she didn’t move along like most of the other travelers, who stopped in Gin Reach merely to outfit themselves before they attempted to cross the Dry Lands. Brenna did not visit the few shops that existed for this purpose, nor did she try to buy anything else, not even food. Indeed, except for her strange forays into the desert, she didn’t leave the inn at all. This Ewen thought he understood; robbed of the white sickness that she had suffered before, Brenna was a fairly pretty woman, and when she walked down the street, men turned their heads. She still retained her forbidding aspect; no one tried to speak to her, and no one dared follow her out into the desert. But she certainly attracted attention, and Ewen sensed that this was not what she wanted. She was waiting for something, being careful. Ewen could only monitor her in the daytime, and he had no idea what she did while he slept.
On the fourth day after Bradshaw’s departure, two more travelers arrived at the inn. They were heavily cloaked, but Ewen sensed no threat from that, for many travelers in Gin Reach seemed to want to keep their business to themselves. Brenna did not emerge to meet the newcomers, so he dismissed them from mind and returned to his drawing.
That night, there was no sleep for anyone. A storm had welled up above the desert, a storm unlike anything Ewen had ever seen before. Brilliant lightning cracked the sky from horizon to horizon, and the thunder was so strong that it shook every building on the street. Ewen, who was afraid of thunder, knew that he would never sleep through such a storm, certainly not alone in their basement room. He stayed late at the pub, and apparently the rest of the town had the same idea, for every table in the place was packed. The publican was so busy that, when Ewen ran out of water, he plopped a full pitcher on the bar and hurried away without even asking for coin.
The room was too noisy for Ewen to enjoy drawing, so he merely rested his head on the bar, keeping his eyes trained out the window. Every few seconds came a flash of lightning, long and brilliant moments that illuminated the entire street in blue-white. Despite the thunder, Ewen’s eyelids began to get heavy. It was nearing midnight, and he had only stayed up past midnight three times in his whole life, the three Christmases before he went to work in the Keep dungeon. He wondered if the publican would allow him to fall asleep with his head on the bar. The thunder sounded likely to crack the world in two, but even though he was afraid of thunderstorms, Ewen was not as frightened as he thought he would be. Who would ever have imagined that he would leave New London, travel halfway across the New World, and then be able to take care of himself in a strange town? He wished he could have told Da about it, but Da was—
Ewen sat up quickly. Lightning had flashed again, and though the flare of lamplight on the window glass made it difficult, he thought he had seen a cloaked figure carrying something out the door of the inn.