They round the corner onto the inn's street and Lucien's stomach drops straight into his boots.
A crowd has gathered outside, spilling off the porch and into the road, more villagers than he's seen assembled anywhere since the market square.
His mind leaps immediately, horribly, to a dozen worst-case scenarios, most of them involving a half-eaten beast-kin, fire, or some unfortunate combination of the two. He breaks into a dead run, shoving through the crowd, bracing himself for the absolute worst.
Inside, the scene that greets him is somehow both better and considerably stranger than anything he'd imagined.
