“Well,” he said, stepping back. “Then I hope you have a lovely night.”
He held just long enough to see the boy’s smile begin to crumble before he shut the door in his face.
Nodding at a job well done, Monpress slipped his dagger into his belt and returned to the table. As he sat down in his chair, he braced himself for a racket as the boy began to demand to be let in, but none came. Except for the howl of the wind outside, the cabin was silent. If Monpress hadn’t just shut a door in his face, he’d have never known the boy was outside.
He glanced sideways at the shutters, rattling in their grooves as the storm blew back up, and then back down at his rapidly cooling dinner. He’d just raised his knife and fork to carve the duck when the wind gave a low, mournful howl. Giuseppe rolled his eyes and set his silverware down with a sigh. He stood up and marched over to the door. Sure enough, the boy was sitting on the doorstep just as Monpress had left him, only his black hair was now full of snow.
“Change your mind?” the boy said, looking up.
“Not as such,” Monpress said. “Happy as I would be to let you sit out there until you starved, it seems that my conscience is heavy enough without a boy’s life weighing on it. I’m not agreeing to anything, mind you, but since it’s clear you’re the suicidally stubborn type, you might as well come in and eat.”
The boy grinned from ear to ear and rushed inside so fast Monpress was nearly knocked off his feet. The boy sat down in Monpress’s chair and began devouring the duck like he’d never tasted food in his life. The thief sighed and walked over to rescue his wine before it too disappeared into the boy’s maw.
“What’s your name?” he said as he spirited his drink to safety.
“Eli,” the boy gasped between bites.
Giuseppe frowned. “Eli what?”
The boy shrugged and kept eating. Monpress sat down with a sigh, sipping his wine as he watched the boy reduce his fine roast duck to bones. The child was cracking them to suck the marrow when he caught Giuseppe looking.
“What?” he said, shoving a leg bone into his mouth.
“Nothing,” Monpress said. “Just trying to shake the feeling that I’ve let my doom in by the front door.”
“I wouldn’t fret about it too much,” Eli said. “I was planning to come down the chimney once you’d banked the fire anyway.” He flashed Monpress a smile before spitting out the bone in his mouth and reaching for another. “When do we start training?”
Monpress drained his glass and poured himself another. He briefly thought about continuing his denials, but he was rapidly running out of energy to fight the boy’s seemingly endless optimism. “Tomorrow morning,” he said, taking a long drink.
Eli’s eyes widened, and his face broke into an enormous grin. “What am I doing?”
“Fetching a cask of whiskey from my stash up the mountain.”
Eli’s face fell dramatically. “Whiskey? Why?”
“Because, if you’re going to be staying here, I’m going to need it,” Monpress said. “Finish your supper. I think a speck of duck still exists.”
Eli gave him a skeptical look before turning back to the far more important task of making sure no bit of duck flesh escaped his attack.
Outside the little cabin, far from the cheery light of the little fire, the white shape of a woman vanished into the deep drifting snow.