“I will be just a minute, dearie,” the old woman said. “Why don’t you have a seat while you wait?” Then, with that odd gait of hers, she moved out of the sitting room.

“There is something not right here,” Ixo said. “Something about the way she moved was unnatural.”

“I, too, am suspicious,” Wiss said. “Her charity, for one. This domicile, for another. How could such a lush place, so well-appointed, have avoided depredation for so long when we know the land to be full of murderous bandits?”

“Powerful magic?” Ixo said. “Perhaps she is a hedge wizard, or a retired sorceress of the Order of the Parted Lips. It would explain the oddities.”

“Why not use it, then? There were a dozen ways a cantrip could have made things easier just now.” Wiss’s brow was lined with concern. “And the Order of the Parted Lips always wear a broach.”

Their parley was interrupted by a sudden movement, which both noticed out of the corner of their eye.

“Did that chair just move?” said Ixo.

“It might have,” Wiss said, grimly. “What would a living chair say about this place?”

“The lure of a giant mimic, perhaps. Drawing us in with kindness so it can kill and eat us.”

The chair shimmied again, this time in full view of both, momentarily revealing the moist, pulsating nature of the object, with what looked like plush cushions being instead the papillae of an alien tongue.

“The chair is definitely alive,” Ixo said. “This place is definitely planning to eat us.”

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