When Viv got back to Thistleburr, Fern had already cleared the makeshift tables of books and was indoors.
Stacking the planks, Viv stowed them close to the boardwalk. She arranged the trestles over them until Pitts could retrieve them later, while twilight indigo gnawed away the sunset.
When she entered the shop, Fern let out a whoop and Viv started in surprise.
“Eightfuckinghells!” the rattkin cried. “I can’t believe we did it! I don’t even know how many we sold!”
Satchel looked up from one of the chairs. Surprisingly, he had his feet propped on the stool, a book across his bony lap. “Eighty-seven books, m’lady.”
The rattkin blew out a breath. “Just Fern, Satchel. No ‘m’lady’ needed.”
The homunculus didn’t reply to that. Somehow, Viv doubted he’d honor the request.
The remaining wrapped books stood in neat stacks in the back hall, and the shelves throughout the shop were more thinly populated, awaiting the new shipment.
“Maybe you should wrap upallthe books from now on,” said Viv, only half joking.
Fern laughed. “If only it was that easy! We really sold these cheap. It bought me some time and made some room, but if I did that with new stock, I might as well be giving them away. Still. That wasamazing. And those buns didn’t hurt. I hope you thanked Maylee again for me.”
Viv bobbed a nod before addressing Satchel. “What’ve you got there, then?”
The homunculus looked down at the book and back up at her. “M’lady…Ferninsisted I do something that could not be considered labor. This seemed the most obvious option.”
“And what do you think?”
He cocked his head to the side, blue eyes flickering. “It’s possible I can see the appeal. But perhaps I should sample one of the moist ones.”
Viv tried hard not to choke on her laughter.
29
One problem with successfully offloading a heap of books on the visitors and citizens of Murk—one that Fern loudly blamed herself for not seeing in advance—was that the demand for reading material was entirely satisfied. Thistleburr might as well have been a tomb in the wake of the sale.
The shelves had a desolate look about them, too, riddled with gaps, lonely stretches left unfilled.
“How long until that shipment?” asked Viv.
Fern raised her head from her cradling arms. “Who knows? Overland shipping is unpredictable. Maybe a few days?” she said bleakly. “Not that anyone will want tobuythem. I just occupied the whole gods-damned reading population of Murk with half-priced books. When thenewones arrive, they won’t need anything to read!” She appended a few choice expletives with precise savagery.
Viv tapped the third of the Beckett mysteries, her current distraction. “They’ll finish and need something else. Right?”
The rattkin sighed and grudgingly admitted, “Yes. Theoretically. I suppose.” She glanced at Satchel, who’d begun emergingduring the day, given the absolute dearth of custom. “Too bad they don’t read as fast as him.”
The homunculus sat ensconced in one of the chairs with a stack of books at his side. He’d been consuming them at a prodigious rate. Potroast lay at his feet, nipping at the bones of his toes while Satchel gently dipped them away from his questing beak.
“How do you read those so quickly?” Viv waggled her fingers. “Is it some kind of… I dunno, magic thing?”
Satchel turned a page with one slender digit. “I look at the page, and then the words are in my mind. That’s the accepted way, yes?”
“Allof the words on the page? All atonce?” said Fern.
He looked back and forth between them. “You read them one by one?” he asked curiously.
“Yes!” they both cried at the same time.
He appeared to think about that. “That seems quite inefficient, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Viv shifted aside the curtains to look out one of the windows. The inactivity in the wake of the sale hadn’t done much for her growing impatience. She felt prickly, extremely aware of the passage of hours and days, and increasingly anxious for Rackam’s return. Or foranythingto happen, really. She almost wished another gray-clad stranger would wander into town, just so she’d have something to do.
