The horse-drawn cart with its sole living passenger lurched to a stop in the alley between the pub and the shop next to it. Ciprian had left Rowan's village around the time normal people would be eating breakfast, and now it was past dinner. He'd eaten neither.
Ciprian climbed from where he sat at the front of the cart and stretched his aching back in a way he never would have done if people were watching him.
He tried his hardest not to acknowledge what the Creature had insisted he bring with him this whole way.
The Creature itself had temporarily vanished except for the sliver that remained lodged in the back of his skull. It had been doing that more often since that horrible day at the inn, sometimes leaving for minutes, sometimes for hours.
