Then, from the emptiness beyond her lantern’s reach, Astryx threaded her way through the birches, her oilskin cloak bulging awkwardly on one side. In her hand, Nigel’s bare blade glimmered in the yellow glow.
She slipped and skidded down a slope, and then dashed up the near side of the gully through long grass slicked down by the rain. She produced Zyll from within the cloak. The goblin blinked in the sudden light.
“No followers?” asked Astryx.
“Not that I could tell, but—” Fern shrugged helplessly at the rain.
“I don’t like it, my lady,” groused Nigel. “Absconding in the night? You should be marching proudly in the day’s light, and let the hells welcome any who dare to hinder you!”
Fern held the lantern higher. “Oh, that’s afabulousidea,” she hissed. “Then she can either kill or injure anybody in the way, and every bounty hunter within a hundred leagues will know exactly where Zyll is, which direction she’s heading, and who has her. It’ll make it so much easier for them toambushus.”
“Hush,” said Astryx, sheathing Nigel even as he squawked about how damp he was. She leapt easily up onto the buckboard next to Fern and deposited Zyll between them both.
Before the elf could reach for them, Zyll snatched up the reins, snapped the leather briskly, and hollered, “Hup hup, Buckley boy!”
Bucket got moving again, as bewildered as anybody.
Astryx and Fern shared a look over the top of Zyll’s sodden mop of hair. The Oathmaiden nodded, a strange expression on her face.
Fern couldn’t help but think that a lot of things were packed into that expression and that nod. Acknowledgment? Gratefulness, maybe.
Respect?
Soggy as hells, cold to the marrow, her tailbone aching, Fern felt something straighten inside her that had been more than a little bit bent.
They disappeared into the night, leaving Turnbuckle behind.
And Quillin, too.
“Merciful Eight, what a relief. Profoundest thanks, my lady. Whatmiserableweather.” Nigel sighed with contentment as Astryx polished him dry with a wad of cotton rag.
They camped beneath an overhang of black basalt beside the road, outside of which the rain poured in a perfect silvery curtain. Smoke fled in tendrils from a small campfire, feeling its way across the rock above them until it escaped into the sodden darkness.
The way had steepened throughout their nighttime flight, the air growing colder until pebbles of sleet sometimes joined the rain.
Fern rubbed her paws together before the welcome light and heat, which reflected off the black stone at her back. The three of them sat in a half circle, dripping and steaming, while Bucket dozed on his feet under the overhang alongside them. The cart remained parked out in the downpour, rain sheeting off the waxed tarpaulin.
She couldn’t stop thinking about Quillin. About whether at this very moment she should be traveling in the opposite direction.
About not feeling alone, notwithstanding the company she kept.
Because what did she really know about her companions? How had Quillin put it? Something about what people did being nothing but the nails that held the house together?
She glanced at Astryx, absorbed in oiling Nigel’s gleaming length while Zyll wriggled her toes dangerously close to the flames.
After days on the road, they were still practically strangers. Whatdidshe know about them—either of them? Anything at all?
That might not have been fair, since she’d done her part to avoid the loomingtalkafter leaving Bycross. At this point, Fern could only sense a misty silhouette of the person that she thought Astryx was, obscured by her legend and her reticence. She knew afewdetails, but . . .
“Mostly nails,” murmured Fern.
“What’s that?” the Oathmaiden asked, idly.
Then Fern decided that if she was going to turn fleeing into something more productive, she was going to have to take some fucking action.
While she was fretting over what actionmeant,however, Astryx surprised her.
“That was well done, by the way.”
