Roderick choked on his tongue.

“Chea— Kiss?! Wait—!”  Sionann snickered.

“Which has you more scandalized, the cheating or the kissing?”

“What does a kiss have to do with this?” he wheezed.

“Oh, surely ye jest.  Isn’t it true love’s kiss a curse-cure of the highest order?”  What a terrible smirk she wore as she knit her fingers together and leaned on the table.  “You, Sir Roderick the Dragonslayer, aren’t trying to deny the effectiveness of magic’s best medicine, are you?”

“But— A kiss?!”

“You should have been prepared for this from the moment you consumed a love potion.”

He was mightily inclined to protest that he didn’t know it was a love potion—rather, they were terming that strange seed a “love potion,” but was that really what it was?  It wasn’t a potion, neither did it induce love.  In fact, shouldn’t they be terming it a type of transformation or curse?

Roderick dropped his head into his hands with a groan.  There are definitely more important points to protest, and yet—

“It wasn’t a love potion.  Even if I knew it was a spell, it wasn’t actually a love potion.”

“The fair folk like their bits of trickery.  Whatever name you call it by doesn’t matter,” she said, shrugging.  “Methods are there to get results.  If anything, I’m sure they were just going along with that twit’s ramblings.  Humoring her for humorous results.”

“A— You’re saying this happened because one of the fae wanted a laugh at our expense?”

She grinned with a mighty lot of cheek and went to check the soup pot rather than answer.

“How much longer is your companion going to polish my churn?” she asked.

“…I apologize.  If you pass me a cloth, I’ll clean it up myself.”  Roderick eyed the sludge forming against his friend’s cheek.  “Aah…may be best to employ soap and water, as well.”

“Never you mind.  There’s a bathhouse out yon.  You’ll have to bring up your own water, but if you ask Sam, he’ll light the fire.”

“Sam?”

“The grim.  His name is Samhain.  Ask Lennie about the soap.”

“That—  I suppose Lennie is that strange, winged hound?”

“Mm.  Interesting sort, isn’t he?  I think he’s from the east.”

“If you have a washboard—”

“It’s outside the bathhouse.  Take your time, Sir Knight, and get you both clean.”

“Much as I would love that…”  Roderick glanced out the window.  The sun already lingered behind the peaks of neighboring mountains.  He couldn’t afford for evening to catch him unawares.  “Night isn’t long off.  If you can’t cure me immediately, I should probably leave the island.”

“Nonsense.  Go get your bath.”

“Miss, it isn’t nonsense—”

She shushed him and flapped a soot-stained towel in his direction.

“You worry about getting clean, and I’ll worry about the big, bad wolf.  Now, take yon snoring squire and see yourselves out.  SAM!”  The church grim phased out of a crooked shadow with a grumbly noise.  “None of that.  Take them to the bath and show our guest the well.  You have night duty until further notice.  Sir Knight, if you don’t pick up your aide, Sam will carry him for you.  I make no guarantees about the state he’ll arrive in.”

And so, however reluctantly, Roderick hauled Henry over his shoulder once more, grabbed their packs, and followed the ghostly-eyed grim out of the cottage.