Fern clutched the strap of the bag on her shoulder. “Fuck no!” she cried. “. . . I mean, no, I couldn’t do that. It’s . . . it belonged to someone I used to know.”
Astryx paused in the act of untying the horse. “Someone who’d want you stranded far from home?”
“Ever heard of Varine the Pale?” Fern enjoyed a rush of satisfaction when she saw the elf’s face pass through surprise to arrive at honest curiosity. It was nice to feel a little smug. “Ha! I guess so. Well, you might be interested to know that this bag was the home of her homunculus. Have you heard of osseoscription?”
Astryx considered her for a moment, rubbing at her ruined ear. “Just a bookseller, hm?”
“Someinteresting things have happened to me,” replied Fern as casually as she could manage. “I was there for the necromancer’s last moments.”
The Oathmaiden scratched her ear a little more aggressively.
“It’s been a long journey,” said the elf. “There’s a place I always stop for a meal when I pass through. Why don’t you come along and tell me about it before I go? I’m buying.”
“No bread and cheese?”
“No bread and cheese.”
“Deal,” agreed Fern.
Although, given the warm glow that Astryx’s invitation had sparked, bread and cheese wouldn’t have been a dealbreaker.
12
Two more corners up Bycross’s road—and a dizzying series of turns back into the cliff’s interior—brought Fern, Astryx, and Zyll to the Oathmaiden’s preferred restaurant.
When they arrived, Fern drew up short. She’d expected something more . . . plain. Honestly, she wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that Astryx’s favorite haunt was a wagon that sold dried jerky out the back.
Nothing could have been further from the truth.
The restaurant was a stone-fey establishment with its own private balcony, featuring a narrow wedge of the unobstructed sky outside. Inside, a sharp contrast of intricate shadow and firelight. Long, tasseled cushions served as seats, and tiny candles twinkled everywhere in tin cups perforated with delicate patterns. The carpeting of Tareben’s bookshop was decisively outdone here by extravagant floor coverings and soft ceiling draperies that hid the bare stone Bycross was hewn from.
The cuisine was one Fern had never had occasion to try in the sleepy coastal town of Murk. Vast, shallow pans heaped with fragrantly spiced rice, peppers, cured meats, and mushrooms passed steaming before them to low tables of diners scattered around the place. Charred flatbreads arrived alongside them folded into padded mitts.
To their right, in the open kitchen, a cookfire blazed within a huge, white brick stove capped with iron cooking grates sizzling with kebabs and roasting capsicum.
The whole place had the feel of a desert prince’s opulent pavilion in an ancient tale of the Westlands across the sea.
Fern’s face flushed with the delicious sense of slipping into a story that you know welcomes you.
The staff recognized Astryx at once and ushered them to a table set back from the window and in heavy shadow stippled with candleglow.
With surprisingly gentle attention, the elf flipped Zyll’s hood back and made sure she was seated comfortably. For her part, the goblin bounced on the cushion and grinned. After a thoughtful moment and a significant look, Astryx slipped her hands inside the cloak and unbound the goblin’s wrists.
Fern barely marked Astryx ordering for them all, instead gazing around at the murmuring figures, listening to the frizzle of platters, the clink of dishware, the rustle of silk. She felt dreamily, profoundly outside of herself.
“So, Varine the Pale’s sad end.” The Oathmaiden recaptured Fern’s attention, gesturing toward the satchel in the bookseller’s lap. The elf didn’t smile much, but one definitely threatened now.
“Oh!” The rattkin blinked. “Well, this was twenty years ago now, in Murk. You know it?”
“Few places in the Territory I don’t these days,” replied Astryx genially.
“Yeah . . . I guess thatwouldmake sense,” said Fern. “Anyway, it all started when my friend Viv stepped into my shop for the first time.Stumbledis more like it, really.”
“The same Viv you’ve been writing apologies to?”
“That’s the one. You’d like her. Big girl, fond of swords. She saved my life in more ways than one.”
Their food arrived, hissing in the pan and interrupting the telling.
