“Fuck!”
“Wow, how do you lose somebody in a coat that ugly on a totally unobstructed clifftop?”
“I was distracted and talking toyou.”
“Oh, isthisan accident, too?”
“I am going to accidentally throw you into the fucking canyon.”
“See, now we’re getting to the bottom of what you would consider an accident.”
Fern ignored him.
“Think,” she muttered to herself. “Where would she go? She can’t be far. Besides, she knows Astryx has that bracelet thing. She’s not stupid.” She was sure ofthatanyway, although she wished that she were the one wearing the other bracelet.
She glanced at Bucket, who was still regarding her with what she was positive was severe disappointment.
“You know who else isn’t stupid?” breathed Fern.
“Is this a rhetorical question, or are you actually asking me? The list is shockingly short,” replied Breadlee.
“Shush.”
The knife harrumphed as Fern approached Bucket, standing on tiptoe to scratch his cheek under the bridle.
“Hey,” she murmured. “You saw where she went, didn’t you?”
“You’re asking thehorse?”
Paying him no heed, Fern unstaked Bucket and stared as meaningfully into his eyes as she could manage. “You’re a smart boy. I see how she trusts you. And I think you know exactly where our little friend went. Can you show me?”
Bucket regarded Fern for a long moment, during which she felt increasingly moronic.
Then he shook out his mane, snorted, and began slowly clopping his way through the grass, in exactly the direction Astryx had gone.
She hoped like hells Bucket wasn’t just following his mistress.
Keeping a tight hold on both his lead and that hope fluttering in her chest, Fern trotted beside him, leaving the cart behind.
She glanced back once and, squinting over the distance, Fern thought she saw a tall figure rummaging through the back of the wagon. It was obviously the tarpaulin flapping free, though. She must not have tied it back down.
Bucket was a smart horse.
It took a remarkably short time to find Zyll. As Fern had suspected, the biggest obstacle to locating her was the direction, not the distance.
The goblin was sitting with her hands in her lap atop the biggest in a whole jumble of stones. They crowded into the clifftop’s edge like bad teeth into a jawbone. She was staring out over the river valley, where the fog pinked with late afternoon sun. The cloud cover had mostly disintegrated.
“There you are!” shouted Fern, still keeping up with Bucket as he picked his way stolidly up the rise.
Zyll glanced back at them, and then returned her attention to the valley below.
“Godsdammit,” muttered the rattkin to herself. Then, louder, “You can’t just run off like that! I don’t need any help from you convincing Astryx to think less of me.”
“Is that a thing that’s happening?” asked Breadlee, with concern. “That’s not going to rub off on me, is it? I gotta say, it doesn’t really align with my long-term goals to be associated with mediocrity.”
Fern bit back a sharp retort and panted the last few steps to the base of the cluster of stones. She shaded her eyes with the paw holding Bucket’s lead and glared up at the goblin. “What are you looking at, anyway?” she asked, exasperated. “It’s the same valley we’ve been traveling beside all day.”
The goblin didn’t remove her hands from her lap, or turn around. Her shoulders rose and fell in a shrug, but she remained silent.
