“Truly.”
Well. I knew that, of course, but noble steeds must be modest.
Ambrose smiled to himself, and then he sat back, letting the river pull them onward.
***
Some time later, they came upon a small millhouse seated beside a squat little pub, with a tiny dock jutting out from the grassy yard. Ambrose tied the boat to one of the stands, then carefully hauled Imelda onto the wooden platform.
Ambrose threw the cloak around Imelda’s shoulders, feeling his face slightly warm when he tied it about her throat.
“In case you get cold or something,” he muttered.
Oh, look at him. Talking to a statue and a cloak? Ambrose pinched the bridge of his nose before taking stock of where they’d ended up. A quaint village sprawled out ahead of them, lantern lights and small fires casting golden warmth against the windows. It was full night—cold stars knitted above them, and a silver moon cast pale threads across the water.
Imelda would have found it beautiful, but she couldn’t see it.
“Wake up.”
Ambrose reached out almost shyly, tracing the stone embroidery across her shoulder.
“Please?”
Nothing.
Imelda had been like this the whole time, and it was starting to make him nervous. She had been so sure that the potion wouldn’t keep because of her bloodline. It was supposed to wear off in an hour, but more time had passed, and what if she was wrong?
He leaned forward, inspecting her a little closer. In the moonlight, her stone eyelashes cast spiked shadows onto her cheeks. She looked mysterious and terribly beautiful, like a precious treasure scurried out from a temple, the hum of ancient stories knocking against her teeth and ready to be unlocked by a single—
Are you going to kiss her?
Ambrose startled backward. “Of course not.”
She would hit you.
Very true.
“I was just trying to see if there were any signs of life, that’s all,” Ambrose told the cloak.
The cloak tightened around Imelda’s shoulders protectively, then batted at Ambrose’s hand.
“Ow!”
She would want me to do that.
The cloak snuggled around Imelda more tightly.
“Let’s just get somewhere safe for the night and deal with this in the morning.”
Ambrose hauled Imelda and the horse cloak through the back end of the pub’s alley. Discarded shellfish and peeled, rotting fruits littered both sides. At the far end lay a narrow, trampled grass pathway that curved up the side of a hill and came to rest beneath a copse of moonlit trees where they could easily make camp until the morning.
Imelda, it turned out, was extraordinarily heavy.
Just then, the door to the pub swung open and a kitchen boy called out:“William! You’re needed in the bar!”
Unfortunately, Ambrose was right in the middle of dragging a very rough and heavy Imelda past the door, and growling, “Gods, you’re hard.”
“Um, never mind, then—”
