“It’s a compliment. She’s the head Gatewarden around here. If you’d been fool enough to press her, you would’ve spent a lot harder night. In a cell, I figure. Means you’ve got some sense, that’s all.” He patted her considerable forearm. “Besides, in a dogfight? I’d put my copper on the one who hasn’t been stabbed in the leg yet.” He chuckled and strode off, wiping his hands on his apron.
Viv tried to let that roll off her, with limited success, but the hot food helped. The reallyexcellenthot food. If there was a bright side to forced convalescence, it was eating something besides cold, dry trail rations.
Even thinking that put her in mind of Rackam and all the rest, forging northward without her. The fried sausages were more than fine, but she would’ve traded them for a blanket on the cold ground where she really belonged.
Brand was right. Sheshould’vegotten two books. Viv moved to the table she’d claimed the night before and settled in to finishTen Links in the Chain. Madger’s long-delayed revenge, the heartbreaking betrayal of Four Fingers Legann, Dammerlight’s poignant end, evenafterthe hells he put her through. Viv kept wishing she had a bowl of nuts to chew through.
When she closed the book at last, running her fingers over the red cover, the drizzle still hadn’t abated.
“Well, Fern, don’t suppose I’m going to show today. I’ll just have to make it up to you,” she said. She imagined the rattkin charging through the door, fur soaked flat and cursing her out in that high, sweet voice of hers. That dredged up a grin.
Viv was turning back to read the first chapter over, just to keep the taste alive, when someonedidcharge through the door.
Rain slicked off his oiled cloak as he flapped it with one arm and withdrew a big, black leather bag. The elf tossed back his hood and flicked errant drops from his valise in exasperation. A pair of spectacles dangled on a cord around his neck, which was odd, since elves rarely needed them. Even Viv knew that.
Something about his face tickled a memory.
He glanced around the room, and when he saw her, his expression didn’t exactly light up, but it did…resettleinto one she couldn’t immediately identify.
Then she noticed the purple bruising on his neck.
“Oh, shit,” she groaned.
He marched over and dropped his bag on her table with a bang and a rattle. He could’ve been one century old, or five. It was hard to tell with elves. He kept his silver hair cropped short, and his face was smooth and severe.
“… Highlark?” asked Viv. Her apologetic smile felt awkward and huge on her face, her tusks too large in her mouth.
“You didn’t remember our appointment, did you?” he said. There was something surpassingly strange about hearing such a beautiful voice express annoyance. “I don’t suppose I’m surprised. You were barely lucid.”
“I’mrealsorry about… aboutthat,” mumbled Viv, pointing a limp finger at his throat.
His mouth thinned. “Well, I’m not going to do this down here in front of half of Murk. Up.” He hiked a thumb toward the stairs. “Let’s get this over with.”
“Get what—?”
“Child, if you want to roll the bones on gangrene, then I’ll be on my way. Out into the weather. Again. Otherwise, I’ll kindly ask you to limp your way up those stairs. Yes?”
Viv grabbed her crutch.
And her book.
She kept up a running stream of apologies all the way up the stairs, into the room, and until the moment after he’d unwrapped her leg. When he began prodding the tender areas around her wounds, she wanted to knock him through the wall.
Viv sat on the bedframe, leg extended, with her heel propped on her pack again. The long tears in her thighs oozed afresh as he wiped old salve from the angry flesh. Viv dug her teeth into her lower lip hard enough to draw blood but forced herself to stare at what he was doing.
“You’ve been hobbling around too much, I see,” he observed. He adjusted his spectacles on his nose.
“Mmm,” she grunted. “Keeping limber.”
“Yes, I see that’s working out well for you.”
“Spectacles?” She hissed through her teeth. “Never met an elf that needed ’em.”
“Magnifiers,” he said. “Helps detect creeping foulness. Which, luckily, doesn’t appear to be present. The more you rest, the more likely it is that this happy situation will persist.”
“In here? I’d go crazy. I can barely turn around without hitting something. Besides, if I lie around for a couple of weeks, I won’t be fighting fit when it’s time to go. And then…”
He gazed at her over the top of his glasses, and while his annoyed expression didn’t quite make it to sympathy, it inched in that direction. “Look, child, I know you’re young and you’ve got the constitution of a prairie ox. But you can afford to lose a little ofthis”—he patted one enormous bicep—“to keepthis.” He tapped her thigh.
