“Hmm. I’m skeptical of coincidences, but are you sure?”
“Not positive. But I just got a tiny shiver of recognition.”
“We’ll keep a weather eye out then.” He patted the hilt of his dagger. “No sense spooking ourselves on an empty stomach, though.”
Fern opened the door before he could reach for it. “I’m half starved, and two steps ahead of you.”
“So, your fire’s gone out, and the coals are cold,” observed Quillin through a mouthful. They sat beside one another on a bench in the stable adjoining the Slippery Trout, snacking on smoked cheese, walnuts, oatcakes, and currant jam. An opened bottle of raspberry shrub sat between them. Bucket watched them over his stall door, nostrils flaring with interest.
It was warm and cozy within, the air thick with the scent of horseflesh and saddle soap and straw. The rain had picked up once more, drumming insistently on the slate above.
“I wish it was that easy,” replied Fern. “It’s like I can see what I loved—still love?—about it, but it’s behind a thick windowpane. I can’t feel it or smell it or taste it, and I don’t know that I’ll ever be on the other side of that glass again.” She popped the last of an oatcake slathered with jam into her mouth and followed it with a hunk of cheese. Chasing it all with a glug of the sharply vinegary shrub, she winced and continued, “But what am I going to do? I’ve tried everything I can think of to break back through. Do I wait around forever for the window to shatter on its own? In the meantime, I just feel so . . . so fuckinguseless.”
“Are you worried that now that you’ve left it, you can never go back? And even if you couldn’t, would that be so terrible?” he asked, licking his claws and taking a swig of the shrub himself. “You’re in the company of a living legend. That’s got to count for something.”
“But what am Idoing?Who the hells am I? Not a bookseller, that’s for fucking sure. Somebody who follows a famous person from place to place writing a bunch of letters I never send?”
“It’s not everyone that’s beheld Fuckery Wallow, I can tell you that much.”
Fern snorted.
“A more important question. Do you think we’re here talking because you used to sell books? Yes, that’s the current topic of conversation, but do you figure that’s why I intruded on you so rudely last night? Or invited you to anenchantingtrudge through the mud with me today?” His gaze was serious. Lantern light glowed pink through his velvety ears, and she wondered briefly—guiltily—what they might feel like between her fingers.
“All right, you’re making your point,” allowed Fern.
“I’m not sure I am. Have you asked yourself why the Oathmaiden lets you tag along?”
She blinked at him. At the beginning, it had been on the pretense of translating and minding Zyll, hadn’t it? But, neither of those reasons held true anymore. WhydidAstryx suffer her presence?
Fern had no idea.
“That one’s knocked you back, hasn’t it?” observed Quillin. “Maybe ask her sometime, because the answers won’t have a gods-damned thing to do with how you earn your way through the world.Iliked you without knowing.”
She flushed and fiddled with the clasp of her cloak. “Okay, that’s more than enough about me for now. I’ll sit with it,” she promised, “but now it’s time for you to hold up your end.”
Fern worried she’d made a mistake by sidestepping his last few words, but Quillin didn’t seem to mind.
“I always hold up my end,” he said, letting the seriousness lapse and leaning back against the wall with his paws behind his head. “Which turns out to be useful in my line of business. I suppose you could call me an adventurer. Much less successful than One-Ear, but”—he shrugged—“I acquit myself well, I think, even though nobody has bothered to add anything particularly fancy to my name yet. I’m stealthy, capable with a blade when I have to be, and principled enough to get hired twice. I can stitch a wound and set a bone, and I’m very,verygood at finding people who don’t want to be found.”
A cold knot suddenly formed in Fern’s belly. “Really?” she asked casually. “Is that what brought you to Turnbuckle, then?”
He rolled his head to smile at her. “Just passing through in pursuit of the biggest bounty I’ve ever seen, and all for an unarmed goblin in a patchwork coat.”
Fern slammed the door open so hard it banged against the wall.
She didn’t see Zyll anywhere in the room—only an unmade bed, and her satchel hanging from a footboard post.
“Fuck!” she cried.
An orange mop of hair popped from under one of the unmade beds, followed by the goblin, who clutched something wriggling in one fist.
Before Fern could identify what it was, Zyll had crammed it into her mouth and started chewing.
She was positive she’d seen more than four legs.
Feeling simultaneously green about the gills and profoundly relieved, Fern closed the door behind her and slumped against it.
For the last twenty minutes with Quillin, she’d endured wild swings of mood as she had done her level best not to bolt from the stable to check their room, to provide no outward indication that she knew anything about the goblin, and to continue asking thoughtful questions, while simultaneously wishing she’d never asked him what he did in the first place. She also couldn’t help imagining that it would be very nice to scoot closer to him and find out whether he smelled as nice as she imagined he did. This was followed by an agonizingly protracted parting of ways.
