Fern slumped against his shoulder.
“I will, uncle,” she mumbled.
She couldn’t see his face, but even drunk and morose and suddenly half asleep, she thought she could feel him smile.
After Cal made his way home—tottering only alittleunsteadily—and Fern made her way back inside—tottering alot—she tossed and turned in her bed for a solid hour. Potroast sawed logs for the duration, and Fern was too cold, and then too hot, and then too queasy, and the room was spinning anyway, so she fiercely whispered“Fuck it!”and hurled her blanket back.
She seized her cloak from the peg to shrug into it, then took a moment to acknowledge exactly how drunk she was from a peculiar, muzzy distance. Mostly on account of the fact that she missed the peg three times with her paw.
“Ooh, too old to be this soused,” she mumbled. And with the unjustified optimism of the middle-aged, declared, “S’nottoobad, though. I’m not even slurring. Just . . . a li’l softened. Thass all.”
She gazed around the darkened shop, the shelves and books bordered in wavering canary light from the streetlamps outside. On impulse, she snagged her battered leather satchel from the chairback behind the counter. A satchel once inhabited by an old friend, now home to parchment and quills and knickknacks and whatever book she was currently nibbling her way through.
Questing between the shelves, she slid out a few volumes until she found the one she was looking for. A red cover.Ten Links in the Chain.
“Sure, Fern,” she murmured. “Some kind of peace offering. Appeal to rosy memories. That’lldefinitelyhelp.”
She hiccupped.
“Balls.”
But she stuffed it into the satchel anyway, and then, before any more whiskeyed resolve could drain out of her, she unlatched the front door and went out into the night.
Fern didn’t think to lock up after herself as she nearly stumbled off the step, only counterbalancing herself at the last moment with a reflexive whip of the tail and a small cloud of profanity. Clutching the satchel to her chest against the cold and blinking in the sudden blare of light from the nearest streetlamp, she peered next door at Legends & Lattes.
Candlelight still glowed through the mullioned glass of the front windows. Which meant she had no ready excuse to scuttle back inside and hide her head under the blanket she’d so recently cast off.
“You promised,” she murmured to herself. And then, “Fuck.”
The handful of yards between her and the coffee shop seemed very long.
“Just . . . a li’l walk to clear my head first,” she mumbled, heading in the opposite direction. “Cool air. Sobrin’ up.”
She wandered, wobbling, to the next street corner, and then turned left. The cross street held mostly shadow, with lamps set much farther apart, but the chill was delicious on her overheated face as she walked.
Then another turn, and another, and by now, she should’ve been nearly back where she started.
She wasn’t.
A rustle and creak to her right caught her notice.
Parked several doors down the unfamiliar lane, only just revealed by the borderlight of another streetlamp, waited a tiny, open-backed, two-wheeled horse cart. A canvas tarpaulin hid a lumpy assortment of something-or-other in the bed, and a shaggy draft horse in the traces nuzzled patiently at the cobblestones.
That wasn’t what really drew her attention though.
A tall figure cinched ties at the edge of the tarpaulin, reaching easily over the boxboards.
A figure Fernrecognized.
If the star-shaped pommel of the sword above one shoulder wasn’t enough, the hacked-short silver hair and maimed ear would have settled it.
“Astryx?” mumbled Fern.
Well, it was definitely a coincidence to see her now, only weeks later. And after being the object of her rescue, no less.
“Coincidence . . . or maybe a sign,” said Fern. “S’not every month you bump into a legend twice.” She blinked, startled by the volume of her own voice.
If Astryx heard, she gave no indication. The elf scrubbed the horse’s cheek affectionately before slipping into another alley, leaving beast and cart unattended.
