Alice’s Inn wasn’t quite as bad as the rest of the Warrens. It was still bad, but it wasn’t the infested hell hole Enzi had imagined it would be. Barricades from the war were still littered about the place, but that was excusable. What was not excusable were the low, human sized ceilings and doors. Getting through the front entrance took longer than Enzi would have cared to admit and when he finally did succeed, he couldn’t stand without his head banging into the ceiling. On his knees, he waited for Theo to come back from a room behind the stairwell.

Along with Theo, a human man and woman came out from the room.

The man tensed up when he saw Enzi, “Why are you here?” His voice was soaked in disdain but that was only to be expected. The woman next to him glared at the man and he backed off a little.

“Welcome to my Inn! I’m Alice, the owner.” She reached out for handshake, which Enzi gave her. His thumb was the size of her palm, “Are you here to stay?”

“If Demons are allowed to, then yes.”

“In that came, it’s 10 silver a night.”

“I see. I don’t have the money today, but I’ll be back tomorrow, assuming you have a room that can fit someone of my size.” Enzi turned to the door, and Alice said nothing as he left. As tolerant as she tried to be, she couldn’t find it in her to give a Demon the same treatment that she’d given Ronny two weeks before.

Enzi found a quiet-looking corner and spent the night in the cold, dirty streets. He slept well knowing that he’d have somewhere better on the next day, when he had money.

♦

Ronny sat across from Alice and Theo, ignoring the conversation the two were having. There was a lot on his mind, and those things had eaten away at his appetite. For one, martial law was going to continue for a few more weeks—at least. That fact shouldn’t have bothered him, a resident of The Warrens who mostly existed outside of the law, and in normal circumstances, it wouldn’t have.

The issue was that some soldiers informed him that he was going to replace The Boss as ‘site leader’, which was news he didn’t entirely know the implications of, and that he’d been ordered to start work on the next day. With the incident from two days before still fresh in his mind, he dreaded his return.

That wasn’t all though. There was also a Demon trying to move into Alice’s Inn. In his mind, that was worse than the thing with the wall. He felt as though Demons were the reason his problems existed in the first place. Demons were the reason for martial law had started. Demons were the reason his coworkers were dead. Demons were the reason the king was dead.

Why would Alice be okay with letting a monster like that live in the same building as them, much less in the same area? Ronny resented her forgiveness. He believed that she didn’t have the right to have an opinion on the matter since she hadn’t experienced the atrocities, they brought about firsthand, not like he had.

No matter how much he warned her, Alice remained adamant that she was ‘doing the right thing’ and at the end of the day, she was the one that dictated who got to stay at the Inn. All he could do was hope that the Demon would find the cramped living arrangements too small for his its massive body and leave.

Interrupting the conversation, Ronny excused himself and went to bed. The sun hadn’t set yet, but Theo wanted to escape his thoughts with sleep.