Between hot mouthfuls of delicious food wrapped in flatbread and swallows of dry white wine, Fern warmed to her story.
She felt present. Clearheaded. Sharp-witted.
She felt like herself.
“And then Satchel lunges up out of the page”—Fern demonstrated with both paws, clutching at an imaginary necromancer’s throat—“grabs Varine by the arm, and starts dragging her down,intothe book, hand over hand.”
Caught up in her narration, she spared a glance for Astryx, startled to find the elf hunched forward, elbows on her knees, expression rapt.
She looked so muchyounger.Sopresent.
But after a life immersed in stories, Fern knew what a mistimed pause could do to the best of them, so she plunged onward.
“Viv seizes the opportunity and draws her sword, hauling back—”
“Blackblood,” Astryx corrected softly.
“Blackblood, yes, but even as she’s about to put an end to Varine while she’s still struggling, the White Lady is already casting something nasty with her free hand.”
“Luffing shunks,”whispered Zyll through a mouthful of flatbread, spewing crumbs all over the table.
“Then Potroast comes sailing in”—Fern arced a hand through the air—“and digs his beak into her other arm, and Varinescreams.While she’s off-balance, Satchel keeps pulling her in, down, down into the book, up to the shoulder, and then her head vanishes into the black . . . and the scream goessilent.”
Fern thrummed with the retelling to the tips of her tail and whiskers. She felt the silence of the room as a physical thing, a weird impression of power in abeyance.
“It doesn’t make any sense to look at as Satchel drags her inside. Even now, I can’t picture it properly because the dimensions don’t match, though she’s still disappearing inch by inch into the book. But Potroast won’t letgoand then he’s dragged in, too.”
Tears quivered at the corners of Fern’s eyes as she relived that agonizing moment when she thought she’d lost her little man forever—magnified now by the distance between them. She planted both paws on the table and stood, leaning forward, glancing between the faces of her spellbound audience, dimly aware that neighboring tables were listening in as well.
Into the hush, she resumed. “Viv doesn’t hesitate. She tosses Blackblood aside and lunges for the book, and she jams her arm in up to the shoulder. And the longest ten seconds of my life begin.”
She released a shuddering breath.
“But after what seems like forever, when Viv’s arm emerges, she’s got Potroast by the scruff of the neck, hooting and gasping, and they tumble back to the floor together. She wastesnotime, though, scrambling to her feet, grabbing the book, and slamming it shut, putting all her weight on it. The bookbangs,almost knocking her off. Varine is not going to go quietly. She’s doing her absolute best to smash her way out,desperateto live, or whatever it is she calls her existence.”
She surprised herself with the savageness of her own voice, hammering a paw onto the table to punctuate every escape attempt.
Even Astryx jumped a little at the first impact.
“Again. And again. Andagain. But weaker each time, until finally . . . finally there’s nothing. And still, Viv waits.”
“But what about—” began Astryx, but Fern talked over her interruption, heedless and consumed with the power of the recollection.
“And suddenly, all the bones in the room—the lectern, the ones caging Gallina and me—drop at once in a cloud of bone dust. Viv yells,‘I have to get him out!’and tears through the pages of the book until she finds the one Varine vanished into and sits there on her knees staring into the black of it. Will the necromancer emerge? Will Satchel? Willanything?”
Zyll’s mouth hung open, full of teeth and half-chewed food.
Astryx’s hands were clutched into bloodless fists.
“Then bony fingers crawl up from the page, and Satchel drags himself into the world again. Viv grabs the book, slams it onto a table, seizes Blackblood, andramsit through the cover and the table both until the steel hits the floor.” Fern gathered her hands together and plunged them downward in a final, decisive thrust.
“A terrible wail pours out of the dying book. I can feel it in my tail to thisday. And that,” she finished, “was the end of Varine.”
She stood there in the ensuing silence, candlelight feathering her fur, hands clasped on the hilt of an imaginary blade.
Then the energy rushed out of her all at once, and she slumped back onto her cushion.
“Fuck me. I don’t think I’ve ever told the story that way before.”
