“Viv sounds like a worthy friend.” Astryx nodded, then asked with gentle interest, “What was the thing you forgot?”
In recent weeks, Fern had thought about this more than was healthy, so the answer was easy. “That books are a weapon against loneliness. Putting them in the right hands lets people see one another. It makes us . . .betterto one another. I think that’s a worthy thing to do.”
“But.” It wasn’t a question.
“But. That’s not enough for me anymore, and I don’t know why. I stillbelieveit. Stillknowit. But I’m not content with it. Which is apparently why I’m in the middle of nowhere, atop a pony I can’t ride, with a goblin on my back, explaining this to the most famous person I’ve ever met. Still . . .”
The Oathmaiden offered her a wordless glance that prompted for more.
“I wonder if I misjudged what was happening all those years ago,” said Fern, sighing. “Maybe it wasn’t a fix. Maybe it was just a small piece of something bigger, and I fooled myself into believing it was the whole thing. Or maybe that sort of realization is like food. It fills you for a while, but eventually, you have to eat again.”
“Do you feel hungry now?” asked Astryx. She fingered her ruined ear again.
Fern reached for what would surely be an obvious answer, except she couldn’t find it. “I . . . don’t know.”
Her stomach growled, loudly and inconveniently.
“Or I can’t tell over the sound of myself.”
“Give me your socks,” said Fern.
Astryx stared at her, arrested in the act of stripping the soggy woolen things from her pale and wrinkled toes. “There aren’t any stones to dry them on,” she said.
“Come on, toss them over.”
They had finally stopped between the two largest swells of earth they’d come across on the prairie, which formed a shallow bowl. It wasn’t much, but it kept the meager fire Fern had built of ox pats from whipping around too badly.
Astryx wadded the socks together and lobbed them, her expression bemused. Fern snagged them out of the air, unrolling them again. She’d cut a pair of sturdy bulrush stems at a marshy spot over the hill, and now she planted each at an angle in the soft earth near the fire. She topped them with socks and dug them deep to stabilize them.
The wet wool began to steam almost at once.
“Dry socks,” declared Fern, with a small smile. “You said they were the only thing that stayed exciting after ten centuries.”
“I may have exaggerated slightly,” allowed Astryx, with an echo of Fern’s amusement. “But not by much.” A regal nod. “Thank you, Li—. . . Squire.”
Fern could still sense the rotten egg on the plate, but they were both doing their best not to tip it off the edge.
Zyll made a sound of disgust and stuck out her pointed tongue. Seated with her coat rucked up to her knobby green knees, she wiggled her toes close to the heat of the flames. “Socks-es is like hat-lings on horseys.” The bracelet on her wrist winked in the flickering light.
The Oathmaiden extended her own pruned toes toward the fire and flexed them. “We should be in Amberlin in another three days.”
“That soon,” said Fern. It wasn’t really a question.
Astryx cleared her throat. “I wanted to say. You were very impressive, with Staysha and the wagon.”
“Yeah, we really were, weren’t we?” chirped Breadlee, extra loudly.
Everyone pretended he hadn’t said anything.
“Oh,” replied Fern. “Um. Thanks.” She fidgeted with one of the stems holding the socks, for no reason whatsoever.
“I have . . . liked having you along. Surprisingly.”
Fern gave her a look.
“I mean thatI’msurprised. Not that it’s surprising that someone would like to have your company.”
“Okay,” said Fern, carefully.
