Fern didn’t reply, instead crossing the room to stand on tiptoe at one of the tall windows. She erased a circle of fogged glass with one paw, peering out across a snowy inner courtyard where a crowd of penitents hustled for the shelter of the cloisters along the edges.
The knife surprised her by timidly mumbling, “So . . . do you think the Oathmaiden is gonna be, you know . . . fine?”
Then she did remove him from her pocket, holding him up to the light. “She actually wanted to listen to Nigel, so that suggests hidden reserves,” she said with a wry grin.
“Bleah.”
“Don’t worry, there’s hope for you yet,” said Fern. “I’m sure somebody out there can’t wait to wield Bridgewrecker.”
She sensed him perk up—something about the glint of light along his edge.
“Bridgewrecker?” he asked with cautious interest.
“Why not? Sounds pretty Elder to me.”
“I dunno. I mean, do you think of abigbridge when you hear that? An important bridge? Or just one of those little wooden ones? There’s a lot of room for interpretation. You want these things to conjure, like, an indelible image.”
Fern snorted, then turned with a decisive twirl of her cloak hem and started for the door the abbess had disappeared through. “Hells if I’m waiting around here all day. She didn’t say anything about staying put. Let’s figure out where Zyll disappeared to, shall we?”
But Breadlee didn’t answer as she slipped him back into her pocket, instead muttering to himself.
Fern wasn’t positive, but it sounded a lot like “Bridgewrecker.”
The abbey was larger than Fern had imagined, a veritable warren of corridors, stairs, crooked passageways, vestibules, and cubbies. Some stonework writhed with a profusion of Tarim’s many limbs in elaborate etchings or mosaics, while around the corner might be nothing but sturdy and featureless blocks of granite.
She passed clusters of Tarimites, and while she merited a few curious glances and the occasional flummoxed stare, nobody cut her explorations short.
At one point, she stumbled into the cathedral proper to find dozens of monks kneeling in a ranked half-moon, paws and foreheads touching the cold flagstones before a massive statue of Tarim. Nested amidst an explosion of intricately carved tentacles, an alcove filled with burning pitch represented his blazing single eye.
After her conversation with the abbess, the cosmic god’s terrible majesty was dimmed somewhat. Fern had a fleeting vision of Tarim as a cranky toddler and had to stifle a laugh as she backed out of the room.
Eventually, it began to feel like an impossibility to locate the goblin. There were too many places to hide, too many dark recesses and half-hidden nooks. Instead, Fern went to find the one individual that she knew she would find exactly where she expected.
The stable lay on the opposite side of a cobbled square at the terminus of the road to the abbey. The only reason Fern could tell it was cobbled was because a pair of penitents were industriously sweeping a fresh dusting of snow into piles with straw-bristled brooms.
She gazed off between the two pillars that bracketed the roadway. A salmon blush rouged the harsh crags where snow striped the rock and curved down into a valley basin softened by drifts.
Fern wondered where Tullah was at that moment. Still seething on the other side of the bridge? Or forging another path to find them? She tried to imagine what Zyll could possibly have done to warrant that kind of enmity.
Shivering, she hurried to the stable and through a small access door beside the equine-sized pair that was closed and barred against the cold.
Her eyes slowly adjusted to the comparative gloom of the interior, thick with the scents of sweaty horse and straw. Donkeys lifted their noses curiously in her direction, but her gaze went immediately to the larger stall in the far corner.
Bucket and Zyll stared back at her. The goblin stood beside his stall door with a brilliantly pointy smile, both hands cupped full of oats beneath his muzzle. The horse snorted and tossed his mane in Fern’s direction, then snuffled another mouthful from Zyll’s palms.
Fern sighed. “Of course you’re here, in the last place I’d look for you.”
She approached and stood beside the goblin as Bucket’s velvety lips excavated the last oat from between her fingers. “I think Astryx will live,” she said, because she wasn’t sure what else to say. Conversations with Zyll tended to be like bottling smoke. You mostly weren’t sure if you were going to end up with anything for the effort.
Zyll wiped off her hands and turned to regard her, the lines of her smile sobering a hair, but still gleaming in the half-light. “Monk-lings are, how do you say, hospi-tala-bly.” She nodded decisively, then held out her hand. “Where is shankling?”
“Shank—? Oh!” Fern slowly drew Breadlee and handed him over, hilt first, with a reluctance that surprised her.
“Ah, nuts,” said Breadlee. “Not back in the pockets!”
But Zyll held him aloft, the bracelet on her wrist flashing, and solemnly proclaimed, “Bridgemasher, flames-maker. Good job, shankling.”
Then she handed him back.
