“It’s going to be okay,” I said to the empty room, as the dragon-pig pushed up onto my lap, making room for itself along with Spud, whose head rested on my thighs. “I’m going to get him back.”
Bertie stopped by. Her event was done, the winners announced, the prizes given.
She handed me a beer.
“No, thanks,” I said.
She waved it at me. “Chris insisted. It’s a new berry and juniper blend he’s testing.”
I took the bottle and held it between my palms. “Did the murder get solved?”
“Yes, the butler did it. Of course.” She lowered herself into the armchair, looking as tired as I should feel.
She twisted off the cap of her own beer and took a long drink. “I brought the leprechaun here,” she said.
“Robyn shoved him in your face.” My anger had gone cool and strong. A thrum in my bones, waiting for the trigger.
“You should blame me,” she said. “It is my fault.”
I rolled the beer. Chris had outdone himself with the label. It showed the ocean and the curve of Road’s End, with Wizard’s Rock spiking out into the waves.
There was something lonely about it, and something inviting. As if this one place was magic, untouched, unreachable. But you were going to get sand in your shoes trying to get there anyway.
“I blame Vychoro,” I said. “I blame Patrick. I blame myself. But that’s it. If you came here looking for forgiveness, it’s yours. But I don’t blame you.”
“I should have known,” Bertie said. “She was so…excitedto tell me how Baum’s followers had brought so much attention to her town. If she’d really thought he had done her any good, she would have never told me.”
She was staring at the beer label, running her thumb over the edge of it.
“Think I’ll ever meet Robyn?” I asked.
“I doubt it,” she said thoughtfully. “I plan to kill her anyway.”
“Grim.”
“Deserved,” she replied. She took another drink, then placed the bottle on the table, pulling one of our rarely used coasters over first.
This whole thing: Bertie talking with me like we were at a bar sharing our sorrows, her attitude one of weary acceptance instead of sparking like steel on flint threw me a little.
“Why are you here, Bertie?” I put my beer on the table too.
She frowned at it, retrieved another coaster, and placed it under the bottle.
“Who have you chosen to retrieve Ryder?” she asked.
“I’m going.” I waited for her to argue like everyone else, but she just nodded. “Myra and Jean think they’re going.”
“You won’t let them?”
“I want them safe. I want them to stay behind. If I can make that happen, I will.”
She hummed. “Who else then? The gods?”
“Crow wants to go. We talked him out of it. Bathin will guide me. Also, he’s the first spawned, so he can kill the king.”
“Which will automatically make him king.”
I frowned. I’d forgotten that part. He didn’t want to be king. He had even told his younger brother, Goap, he would step aside so Goap could become king.
