“Hm. Yeah, the coffee thingwasa real disaster.”
It turned out shedidknow when he was fucking with her.
“This is profoundly weird,” said Viv, hefting a volume in one hand and flipping it open with the other. She brought it halfway to her nose for a sniff. “Gods, I got a little shiver up my back. I expect to look outside and see a boardwalk and dunes.”
Fern looked up from the open crate before her, paws trailing over the cloth covers of the books stacked precisely inside. The ranks of shelves and freshly polished floors glowed mellowly under lantern light. The windowpanes fogged against an evening chill.
“My vision was a little sharper back then, but I can still picture you prying those crates open with your bare hands.”
Viv snorted. She’d wisely used a pry bar for the task this time around. “And I can still see Pitts towing them up on that cart of his. Whatever happened to him?”
“Still trooping around Murk, hauling and fixing what needs hauling and fixing.” Fern lifted three books from the crate, passing them over for Viv to shelve. A small smile. “And ambushing folks with a line or two of poetry when they least expect it.”
They stocked shelves in companionable silence while the little woodstove in the corner pushed the temperature toward the sleepy side of cozy.
Once they reached the bottom of the first crate, Viv snugged the pry bar under the lid of the next. “I remember Gallina making some sort of terrible excuse to get out of helping with this.”
“Said she was too short, as ifthatwas a convincing argument.” Fern swept a paw to indicate her own height. “Whatever happened with you two?”
“We ran together for years, off and on. Then back in a group for a good stretch until . . . well, until I was done.”
Fern eyed her. “I’m sure she took it well,” she said, in a deliberately neutral way.
“Better than you’d think. She evened out in her old age, just like the rest of us.”
“Speak for yourself. I’m still salty as hells,” said Fern tartly. She blinked, and a slow smile crept across her lips. “And on the subject of relics, that reminds me . . .”
She scurried to her room and returned carrying a misshapen bundle wrapped in brown paper. Hoisting it triumphantly, she said, “Open it.”
Nonplussed, Viv took it and peeled back several layers of paper. “Are these what I think they are?”
She withdrew a wooden bookend, much battered.
“They are.”
“The seagull bookends,” murmured Viv.
“Or maybe rabbits.” They shared a glance and chuckled.
There was a pause during which Viv handed over the bookends, and Fern wedged a few novels between them on the countertop.
“I’ll be damned,” Viv breathed behind her.
“What?” Fern looked back sharply.
The orc reached into the freshly opened crate and withdrew a red volume.“Ten Links in the Chain,”she said, flashing a big, tusky grin. “This is the same book you tricked me into reading.”
“Tricked? That was honest saleswomanship, I’ll have you know.”
“I’m pretty sure youguiltedme into it.”
“Youdidbreak my boardwalk,” Fern pointed out. “And then I gave it to you on credit, so I’m not sure what you’re complaining about.”
“And now here you are,” said Viv.
The stove ticked and the shadows of moths flittered their way across the walls. “And now here I am,” she whispered. A surge of some desperate emotion halfway between despair and hope squeezed the breath out of her.
“You gotmehere,” said Viv solemnly.
