Heart thudding, Fern snatched the note from atop the quilt.FERNwas inked on the front in an angular scrawl.
Perhaps you found an answer in dreams. I’ll be downstairs at eleven.
—Q
“Could’ve asked for better weather,” Quillin called back to her, as he trotted before Fern across a series of planks running from one boardwalk to the next. At least the rain had slackened to a drizzle for the moment, and occasional pale scraps of sky showed here and there.
He scampered under the next awning and turned to offer her a paw as she leapt to join him, her cloak mottled with dampness. Fern took it as she landed. “On the other hand, if it was any better, we’d probably be on our way by now.”
In the light of day, it was obvious that while Turnbuckle was little more than a village, it had enough two-story structures to entertain pretensions of ramshackle township. It smelled strongly of fresh-turned earth and wet sheep.
“Then the Eight have my thanks,” replied Quillin with a grin. He didn’t relinquish her paw, and she didn’t mind. “I was planning a hike to a pretty little lake west of here through some birch woods that’re nice enough, but the path’ll be a bog. You learn to make the best of a life on the road, though. We’ll tour the local sights instead.”
He squeezed her fingers for her to follow, leading her to the opposite end of the boardwalk, then nodded at a miserable lake of muddy water that occupied the entire intersection. A beleaguered man in mud-spattered Warden’s blues slogged through it on the diagonal. Nobody else was about.
Quillin gestured grandly. “This, dear Fern, is known by the locals as ‘Fuckery Wallow.’”
Fern laughed. “It isn’t!”
“You’re right,” he amended. “They couldn’t be bothered to name the roads around here at all, but you have to admit, it’s appropriate.” Quillin held a paw to his mouth and continued in a stage whisper, “Did I mention that Turnbuckle is an absolute shithole?”
What followed was a tour of a sad alleyway, a scummy well, a half-burned shed, and a muddy paddock filled with irritable geese—The Lane of Small Dejections, Hell’s Least Important Bumhole, Cinder Estates, and the Quadrangle of Spite, respectively.
Fern nodded and effused appreciatively at each stop, grinning like a loon.
Turnbuckle was, indeed, depressingly lousy. She was having a fabulous time.
“Tourism is the beating heart of the community, clearly,” she observed with great sincerity.
“Ha!”
“It obviously broughtyouhere,” continued Fern. “Do you always travel to such storied places?” She wondered what it might be like to journey alongside someone talkative and interested and with whom a tour of mudholes transmuted into something deserving of memory.
“When the work takes me there,” he replied. “Come on, let’s get back out of the rain.” He waved a paw away from the grumbling geese and in the direction of what looked like a general mercantile.
Fern hitched up her cloak so it wouldn’t trail in the mud and stepped carefully alongside him. “Fine, I’ve left enough openings, and you’ve passed them all by. I’m getting impatient in my old age. What is it you do, exactly, that brings you to what you’ve described as, and I quote, ‘an absolute shithole’?”
“I’ve tried to make a habit of never talking about what Idountil I’m out of anything else to talk about. In my experience, it’s a terrible way to get to know somebody—at least if you want to know anything worthwhile. I want to learn what you laugh at, what makes you roll your eyes, what gets you upset, or passionate, or puts you at ease. Work is just . . .” He flapped a paw as they ducked under the eaves in front of the mercantile. “The stuff that holds the rest of it together. It’s like describing a house by talking about the nails.”
He studied her as they stood together under shelter, brushing dry their fur. “But all right, I’m game. I’ll talk about the nails inmyhouse if you talk about yours. I won’t lie, I have been a bit curious, wondering what you’re up to, swanning around with the Oathmaiden.”
“Prepare for disappointment. I sell books. Or if you want to dress it up a little, a friend of mine once wrote, ‘She traded silver for dreams in ink.’” Fern dried her tail with the lining of her cloak.
Quillin’s jaw sprang ajar. “That’s from Greatstrider, isn’t it? Let’s see . . .Lovelorn by Lamplight?”
“You’ve read it?” Fern replied, pleasantly surprised.
He chuckled. “Got to stay warmsomehowon cold nights by the roadside. And Greatstrider is afriendof yours? Are you collecting famous elves? Does Martus Derrion do your laundry? Damnations. I know I just said that work wasn’t important, but I’m so gods-damned intrigued that I may have to revise my rule. How in all eight hells does a bookseller—and acquaintance of Zelia Greatstrider, no less—end up trooping across the Territory with Astryx One-Ear? Actually . . .” He waved both paws and shook his head. “Roll that back. I’ve got the wrong end of the questions. Do youliketrading silver for dreams in ink?”
“Well,” replied Fern. “That’s a complicated answer.”
“Ah. We’ll need fortification then.” He peeked in the window of the mercantile. “Say I gather supplies for the Territory’s dampest picnic, and we untangle it together?”
Fern didn’t answer, shading her eyes to peer across the street through the drizzle. An orc strode down the opposing boardwalk, cast mostly in shadow. Heavily muscled, with braided black hair.Was that . . . ?
“Something wrong?” asked Quillin.
“I could swear she bumped into me in Bycross,” murmured Fern. The orc didn’t turn or appear to notice them but continued onward and out of sight around a corner.
