Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(39)

Gazing off to the north, she could see an estate on a high hill. It was surrounded by real, old-growth trees—not the scrubby, tenacious things that flourished everywhere else—and what looked like hedges. Manicured hedges. Fern had mentioned that Zelia Greatstrider lived near Murk. Viv wondered if the place was hers.

Gallina surveyed the cemetery skeptically. “Seems like a bad idea, you ask me.”

“You’ve got a problem with burying people?”

“I’ve got a problem with buryin’ em way up high. Look at this place. It’s all sand! One bad washout and somebody’s grandpa comes slidin’ down on top of the city.”

Viv glanced at the markers. “These have been here a long time. I figure if that was going to happen, it already would have.”

“Still. Anyway, that’s not what I wanted to talk about.”

“Oh, you have an agenda? Here I thought I was coming up here to train, and you were tagging along to take the air.”

“Aw, you know you need a trainin’ partner. You just gonna wave your sword around in the air by yourself? And who else are you gonna ask—Iridia?” The gnome tested the firmness of the open ground outside the fence, which was ringed by thistles that curved down the soft edge of the bluff.

Viv thought about explaining exactly how much time she spent training on her lonesome, but the circular conversation that would follow unspooled in her mind, and she decided to avoid it entirely. “Fine, I’m curious. You’ve got something you needed to ask me out of everybody’s earshot, so let’s hear it.”

“Maylee.”

Viv blinked. If she were listing subjects of interest to Gallina, that would’ve been at the bottom. “Okay. That’s not a question.”

“You’re sweet on her, huh?”

“I … Where are you going with this?” Viv pushed away from the stone, her wind recovered. Her thigh no longer twitched beneath her like an animal set to flee.

“Well, are you?”

“What if I am? Are you jealous or something? I don’t get what you’re after here.”

“Jealous? Nah.” Gallina turned to look at her, her hands on her hips. She took a deep breath and then launched into it. “I’m just tryin’ to figure you out. You hang around in a bookshop, diggin’ in real good as far as I can tell. Paintin’ doors. Sellin’ books. And you’re out on evenin’ walks with the baker, real cozy-like. Are you plannin’ to stay here or somethin’? Settle down?”

Viv frowned. “I just hiked to the top of this bluff to sling a sword around. What do you think?”

“That’s why I can’t figure it. Does she know you’re leavin’?” She tried to ask it offhandedly, but there was a keenness to her gaze that Viv didn’t miss.

“Of course she does. Why are you so interested in this? Worried you’re going to lose your shot at joining up with Rackam if I decide to stick around?”

The gnome stared at her. “Just thinkin’ about what it feels like to be left behind. That’s all. She seems nice.”

Viv returned her look soberly. “Maylee wasn’t something I planned on. She knows what I am. Where I’m going.” She thought about what the dwarf had said about tiny windows and the people you could see through them, but didn’t think she could do it justice by repeating it. “It’s two people with both eyes open having a little fun for a few weeks. Hells, I’m hardly ever around anybody for very long.” She shook her head. “You know, this is not a conversation I figured I’d be having.”

“Yeah. Yeah, well.” Gallina cleared her throat and kicked at the sand. “Just thought I’d ask.”

Viv was nonplussed. She understood what she was doing, and so did Maylee. No lies, no secrets. So why did Gallina’s words unsettle her?

Well, the fastest way to get to the other side of unsettled was to muscle it out.

Leaning her stick against the fence, Viv slid out of her sandal, and removed her boot. She drew her saber from its scabbard and, keeping it low, stepped gingerly onto the open area of sand. “This place looks like it should work. Did I answer your question?”

Gallina pursed her lips. “Sure. None of my business anyway, huh?”

“Hey,” said Viv. “Look at me.”

The little gnome did.

“I’m a lot of things—gods know—but I don’t think I’m an asshole. And I think that’s the answer you really want, yeah?”

Viv made sure that Gallina met her gaze, and after a few moments, the gnome nodded. Viv had the strangest sensation that they’d both snapped into focus for one another, like blinking away sleep from a slow waking.

Dropping carefully into a defensive stance, Viv began the deliberate dance of the blade, feeling her muscles bunch and relax, the weight of steel balanced by a hundred contractions of flesh.

After a few seconds, Gallina drew two of her knives and began a parallel dance, different in a thousand ways but, underneath it all, with steps much the same.





19





“No staff today?” Fern’s brows rose in surprise.

“I wasn’t going far,” said Viv. “I brought lunch.”

“Isn’t it sort of early?” the rattkin asked skeptically.