“Tell me in one line.”
“I led an urchin’s life of crime, became the best thief in Baldur’s Gate, escaped the hangman, and reformed myself with the help of Lorzok here.”
“And the beautiful warlock snoozing in the yarrow?”
“Can hear you,” Saeldian called. “I was the life of crime and best thief in Baldur’s Gate part.”
“They’ve reformed too,” Jubilee said.
“I haven’t, really,” Saeldian objected. “But we can argue that later.”
“And you, my joy…” Verandil winked at Jubilee. “Do you play music?”
“I play lanceboard,” Jubilee said. “Do you play?”
Timtim nudged at Lorzok’s hand and got scratches in reward. Verandil looked a bit rueful. “I know how all the pieces are supposed to move. Sprites must always move forward, treants only forward or to the side, moth knights—”
“Moth knights! You have knights who fight on mothback?”
“Oh, sure. Owls too, the bigger ones. But moth knights always swerve in flight, don’t they?” He winked. “But I really only remember that much.”
“Oh, sure,” Jubilee said with a laugh. “I believe you. No one in Waterdeep would, but I do.”
“Though I hope you like gathering honors.”
“Oh?” Jubilee asked. “What’s that?”
“It’s a card game. Cards are all the fashion here. You need at least four people and two decks, but you can go to eight people with four decks. You have a partner, and you bid…”
Jubilee knew perfectly well how to play gathering honors, because Kell had taught Saeldian back when they were partners. He and Saeldian had won walking money in card houses—they left while they were ahead, but not far enough to reveal how well they played. But Jubilee listened to Verandil’s explanation, asked questions he could correct, and frowned in all the right places. Should Kell tell his brother that Jubilee could probably make a deck of cards do tricks?
He glanced at Lorzok and shared a grin. As long as the stakes were low, why spoil the joke?
“Well, I think I understand how you determine lead suit and ruling card, but the seasonal determination is still eluding me. Maybe you’d better be my partner when we play.”
“Jubilee,” Lorzok said. “You wouldn’t be planning to fleece a table full of fey at cards, would you?”
Verandil chortled. “You got me! I was sure you didn’t know.”
Jubilee laughed. “Sorry! I can’t help it. If you were from a Waterdhavian house I didn’t like, you’d be walking out of the High Flagon in your smallclothes.”
“In that case, I insist that I partner with you. To provide guidance, of course. Is it a date?”
Jubilee considered for a moment. “Oh, why not? It’s a date.”
It was so strange how this felt like a normal day, to be crowded on the front bench of a song-shaped wagon full of fragrant herbs, laughing at his brother’s jokes and helping him woo a woman who’d decided that she wanted to be wooed. Like they’d done thislast tenday, and every tenday before, and would run this errand again for something else. But he hadn’t.
The badgers pulled the wagon onto the bridge, and the land across the river settled. Kell shivered as the breeze changed direction, charged with the wild magic at its seam. Essanderon’s Rest had been alone in the truewild, and this felt more like Faerûn, if centaur farmers herded sheep and pixies played tag with honeybees bumbling in the clover.
“Not like home, is it?” Verandil said.
“I’m that easy to read?”
“The Rest wasn’t safe,” Verandil said. “We had to go somewhere, and somewhere was Eightbridge. It’s mostly seelie, but some places have harmony with Essanderon’s notions. The Brewmistress, for example.”
“Who’s that?” Jubilee asked.
“She’s the archfey who holds the Village That Chooses Its Own in place,” Verandil said. “She survived the sundering fall of Menoriath, the most high.”
