The grass of the graveyard switched against the homunculus’s ribs as he stared at something Viv couldn’t see.
When she drew near, looming over his shoulder, he looked back up at her with his flickering blue gaze.
The earth was blasted black in front of him, as though from a lightning strike or a carefully controlled flame. Shreds of grass curled and twisted into charcoal ribbons around a barren circle the size of a shield.
Etched into the fine black powder was a diamond with branches like horns.
33
They descended the hill in silence as dusk ripened in the west. Viv carried Potroast tucked under one arm, and incredibly, he didn’t protest. Viv stolidly refused to glance over her shoulder. There was no way Varine was creeping up behind them, she was sure. The empty horizon was visible for miles.
It was hard to ignore that symbol, though. The mark of some scout? A kind of arcane wayfinding? Gods knew. Satchel saidhedidn’t, and she believed him. He rode along silently, tucked into his bag, bouncing against her hip.
She hadn’t caught that evil scent again on the way down. That was something, at least.
“I’ll tell Iridia about it tomorrow,” Viv promised the others. “She’s already got the Wardens on watch. It’ll be fine.”
When they reached the foot of the hill, Gallina split off from the group at The Perch with a salute and a defiantly chipper “G’night!”
Viv walked Fern and Maylee down the path between the dunes to the boardwalk, where shadows gathered underneath the awnings. When they reached the door of Thistleburr, thesomber mood broke suddenly as Fern spied a note tucked into the doorjamb, fluttering like a trapped leaf.
“The shipment!” She seized the message and scanned it. “It’s here! They’ll drop it off tomorrow. Gods, finally!” When she glanced up at them, eyes glittering, it was immediately easier to shrug off the dark cloud that had clung to them.
“I’ll be here,” said Viv. Reluctant to spoil Fern’s excitement, she patted the satchel. “I’ll keep him with me another night, though. You know, considering.” She tried to make her voice light.
Fern sobered just a little. “I guess… that’s probably for the best.”
Viv and Maylee waited until Fern was inside and they’d heard the click of the latch before they continued onward. Their heights were too different to hold a hand or interlink an arm, but they walked close together, brushing against one another in delicious accidents.
After the commotion around the symbol and that blasted circle of earth, Viv felt grounded in the present now that they were alone. The sound of the surf tumbled in the distance. Maylee’s warmth radiated beside her, gentle in the cooling evening air, still smelling faintly of bread and ginger.
She couldn’t stop thinking of their conversation on the bluff, before things went sour. Viv felt a growing need, like something expanding in her chest, to ask a question she thought she might regret.
Not to voice it, though? That was cowardice. And she was no coward.
Or maybe that was just when it came to blades and blood, because this was harder than it had any right to be.
Clearing her throat, she finally managed, “What you said before. About… about somebodyseeingyou.”
Maylee glanced up but said nothing. Neither stopped walking.
“Fern was talking about her work. Her shop. That wasn’t all you were talking about, was it?”
The dwarf considered her answer. “No. Not all.”
Viv took a big breath. “Do you think we’re both seeing the same thing?”
“I’m pretty sure we aren’t,” replied Maylee. Viv opened her mouth to speak, but the dwarf continued before she could. “It’s like bein’ up on that hill. One of us is at the top, and the other is down here. We both look out to sea, but we see somethin’ different. One of us could climb up, or the other down, and if we did, then maybe things would be different… but we haven’t. Or can’t.”
“Maylee—”
Maylee shrugged, moving the basket to her other arm, the one between them. “If we’d met in another few years, who knows? Maybe we’d both be lookin’ out from the same hill. Doesn’t change that you’re still somebody I want to know. Doesn’t change what I can do with the days I have. Doesn’t make those matter less.”
“No, it doesn’t change that. But…” Viv struggled to find the right words as her face flushed hot. Her throat felt almost painfully thick, every word dragged out forcibly. “If I’m…carelesswhen I hold on to somebody, I can… I can break bones. And I feel real careless right now. Because I don’t think you—”
“You don’t have to say any more,” replied the dwarf quietly. “I know what this is.”
“Knowing isn’t the same as accepting,” said Viv, and then wished she hadn’t.
