"This is only for staying. The expensive room has a bath," stated the owner when his eyes fell on the girl, "You both aren't eloping from your houses, are you?" he asked, leaning forward from the place he stood near the desk with a suspicious look on his face.
Damien chuckled, "Why would you think we are eloping?" he humored the man.
"Big luggage, pretty couple. Two humans," he said and Penny turned to look at Damien who had changed the color of his eyes to black.
Penny wondered if that is how they looked right now.
"Do you have the money to pay?" the owner asked, his narrowing down to look at them.
Damien pulled out a couple of nickels from his pocket and placed it on top of the counter. Penny was surprised by the number of coins he had, not because he couldn't acquire it but for a pureblooded vampire to have nickels was something very hard to think as that set of creatures was rich with money.
"Will this be enough?" asked Damien to the man who nodded his head before taking all the coins in his hand.
Once the man had taken all the coins in his hand and placed it in his pocket with a jingle, the man turned around to take a key and said, "It is the one in the first right of the corridor."
Damien and Penny made their way towards the narrow pa.s.sage of the inn, unlocking the room, then set their luggage to the side. It was the time of night now. They had left Quinn's mansion at the time of evening and had spent some time in the church before coming here.
With no food being provided in the inn, they headed out of the room carrying some of the weapons in their clothes and around their belt that was covered by their coats.
Locking the room, they headed out of the inn to find a place to eat, and the streets of the village in comparison to the time they had arrived here looked less dense as the villagers had started to return back to their houses. Finding a place finally, Penny followed Damien when she caught sight of the people in here who were laughing and chatting with each other while some who sat quietly eating their food. It wasn't that the people were here but more on who was here.
Damien who heard the hitch in Penelope's heart gave her a glance where her eyes appeared to be dilated.
"You picked a wonderful place to eat," Penny commented.
"Seems like the right one," Damien replied back, making their way to a table where there were empty spots. Taking the seat opposite to each other, Penny continued to look at the people around them.
When a woman came to ask them for their food, "What would you like to eat?"
"Anything of not much value and digestibility. Vegetables if possible without any meat," Damien replied, giving her the politest smile Penny had ever seen until the time she had known the man. He then pulled out his handkerchief from his pocket and wrote something down before pa.s.sing it to her. There were four other customers who were on either side of them in close proximity, "Do you think eloping was a good idea?" he asked Penny as if wanting to make conversation to avoid any suspicion on them.
Penny took hold of the kerchief in her hand, opening to read what he had written down in it with the help of muddy stone, "I hope you can earn enough to be able to get food and roof," she answered to his question.
'How many?' read the question in the handkerchief in which Damien had written.
Taking hold of the stone that he had placed on the table, she wrote down her answer before giving it back to him, "What will you work as?"
"I was thinking you would be able to sew the cloth," Damien responded back and took the cloth to have the lady arrive with their food with vegetables in it. Damien had ordered vegetables because the food on other plates looked rather strange and he didn't want to risk him and Penny eating something they were not supposed to eat.
As if listening in to their short conversation, the woman who was serving asked, "Are you looking for work?" she asked them.
The couple turned around to face the woman with questionable looks on their face, "You do?" Penny asked, placing a hopeful expression on her face. Her eyes sparkled as she looked at the lady.
The woman gave them a nod, "There's a church that comes after this village. You need to look for a woman named Judith. She said she has been waiting for some people as there has been an order of having to finish st.i.tching up dresses."
Penny gave the woman a nod, "We will be sure to go check it out. Thank you for your help," she thanked the woman and when the woman left with Penny who held the muddy stone still in her hand, Damien read what Penny had replied back to his question.
'All of them.'
His gaze s.h.i.+fted from the kerchief to look up and meet Penny's eyes. In a place where humans resided, it appeared that they had stepped into a lair where the black witches were enjoying themselves whilst they had their meat that was mostly raw.
Penny didn't know how to perceive this right now as she kept a calm facade on her face while staring back at Damien. They could leave but that would have only raised suspicion and didn't look like these were modified witches. Penny didn't know or understand why she could at times pick the black witches' ident.i.ty while most of the time she was unable to track or understand who was who.
She looked down at her food. Her appet.i.te was lost the moment they had arrived and stepped inside this place. If it was a black witch's shop to eat, there was no telling what was added into their food but that didn't stop Damien from picking the vegetable and eating it and before he could eat, his eyes met Penny's that appeared to look worried.
Though there were a lot of things that didn't affect a pureblood, there were still elements that the black witches could use on a vampire. Right now in people's eyes, Damien was a human as he had turned the color of his eyes black.
If they knew earlier that they would be walking into the black witches right away, Penny would have asked for a plan beforehand but this was out of no place.
Instead of eating the vegetable, Damien's fingers slipped to have the vegetable drop down the table, "My bad," he murmured and bent down the table to notice the witches and witchers carrying their own weapons that peaked out from their clothes.