Havir raised his brow himself, he had noticed, albeit with the delay of a monologue in honor of his beauty, that something was wrong. The elf looked sad, not that he cared. Nor was he even willing to think that her state of mind might be due to him. He simply assumed that she was having her period. All women were funny then, even to him, Havir the brilliant. So he shrugged his shoulders as much as possible and crowed for release. 

"Untie me!" Slowly his arms and legs went numb, moreover, he felt as if a marten had taken up residence in his mouth, so furry did his tongue feel. 

Wordlessly, Phoenice followed his request and begged the gods for mercy. 

"Go on!" Clamoring like an old washerwoman, he scrubbed off the traces of last night. Suddenly a strange scent rose to Phoenice's nose, it was so pungent that she wrinkled her little nose. Whatever it was, she knew she would stay away from anything that smelled like that.

To both their relief, the taproom was empty at the early hour, not even the innkeeper to be seen. Phoenice grabbed Havir's hand as she stepped out. People were too strange to her, too unpredictable, she didn't want to risk being separated. The mage was surprised, but let her have her way this once. If an attractive human woman crossed her path, he simply passed Phoenice off as his pitiful, somewhat ugly, mute sister. Human women were wild about such things.  

The visit to the library was a single disappointment for Phoenice, why hadn't he told her that the monks kept the books and one was only allowed to read them in a large hall there? Havir mocked her renewed ignorance until she had enough and defiantly waited for him in front of the building. The whole town seemed to have risen while they had been in the cold rooms of the monks to purchase a map of the area. In the large square, people had set up stalls offering all sorts of things. According to Phoenice's observations, the person who shouted the loudest sold the most. Fascinated, she strolled between the fruit stands, eggs, jewelry, shoes and all sorts of other things. Until, wedged in between a cobbler and a blacksmith, she spotted an old man selling books. They were old, yellowed, some even smelled strange, but she didn't care. She wanted to own a book, one that was all hers, that no one could take away from her. She eagerly tried to make clear to the man what she wanted with her hands. The latter smiled at her, like a child. 

"Just look, little one. You know books don't sell well..." her confused look forced the bookseller to explain.