Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(43)

Gallina disappeared around the opposite row of buildings, leaping nimbly between the growing puddles where hard-packed sand didn’t swallow them up.

Drumming her thumbs on the railing, Viv leaned out, letting the rain catch her more fully. She considered her leg and contemplated following Gallina, but she controlled her impatience as best she could.

Still, it was taking entirely too long.

“Hells, don’t you remember where I stowed it?” said Viv under her breath.

Then Gallina rounded the buildings again, and even at a distance, Viv could tell she was grinning, with the satchel held across her belly, both arms clutching it to protect it from the rain.

At last, as she stood dripping on the boardwalk, Gallina unslung it and brushed away wet sand. Combing locks of wet hair out of her eyes, she groused, “If this thing is filled with a change of clothes, I’m gonna be real pissed.”



* * *



“Oh, thank the Eight!” cried Fern when they entered the shop together, Viv dripping and Gallina sodden. Potroast hooted anxiously and ran in little circles before them both, fluttering his vestigial wings. “What the hells happened?”

“Well,” said Viv, “you don’t have to worry about any trouble from our friend in gray anymore. And neither does anybody else.”

“Dead?”

“Couldn’t be deader,” supplied Gallina, doing the best she could to stamp clots of wet sand from her boots.

“What took so long?” Fern hurried over to them. “And what is … Is that his?” She pointed at the damp satchel.

“It’s a long story,” replied Viv. “We had to dance around Iridia a little first.”

“And yep, it’s his,” said Gallina, smiling triumphantly. “I gotta know what’s in this, and as the wettest gal in the room, I should get to do the honors.” She trotted over to the pair of chairs and set the bag on the side table. The gryphet followed, his stubby tail practically vibrating with interest. The hurricane lamp on the wall seemed to hiss louder, as though stoked by an errant breeze.

“Just be careful!” warned Viv.

Gallina shot her a reproachful look.

With a flourish, the gnome unclasped the front of the satchel and tossed the flap back with a creak of leather. She pried the top open further and peered inside, and then her brow wrinkled in consternation. “What the hells?”

“What is it?” Fern moved to get a better look.

Gallina shoved her arm in and drew out something long, knobbly, and cream in color. “It’s just a bunch of damn bones.”





21





“That’s it?” Viv loomed over the proceedings. “You’re sure?”

“Hang on,” replied Gallina, and Viv could swear she was up to her shoulder in the bag, which shouldn’t have been possible. “Definitely other stuff in here …” She grunted as though stretching out her fingers to barely reach something, bit her lip, and then withdrew her arm with a glass bottle clutched in her fist.

Fern examined the bone the gnome had first retrieved, squinting as she tilted it in the light of the lamp. “Is this what I think it is?” she said.

Gallina held up the corked bottle and shook it. “Somethin’ in it. Looks like sand? Who carries around bones and a bottle of sand?”

“Well, a necromancer’s involved … Maybe the guy used them for … necromancer things?” suggested Viv lamely.

The rattkin noticed the bottle. “I don’t think that’s sand.”

“I thought Varine was the necromancer.” Gallina handed Fern the bottle, then groped around in the satchel some more. “Did the dead guy just wander around carryin’ her bones for her? Pretty crap job. Maybe he did run off. Probably bored. Hey, here’s another one,” she said, pulling out the bottle’s twin.

Uncorking hers, Fern sniffed delicately, whiskers twitching. She carefully tilted a few grains into her paw and prodded them with the claw on her thumb. “I was right, it’s not sand. It’s bonedust.”

Viv sighed. “Well, this was a waste of time, wasn’t it? All that trouble for a sack of garbage.”

Fern carefully poured the grains back into the bottle, recorked it, and then peered around her shop with a thoughtful look on her face.

“What?” prompted Gallina, pushing her wet hair out of her eyes again. “Obviously, you got some kind of idea, huh?”

The rattkin ignored the question, lost in thought as she disappeared around the end of one of the shelves with the bottle still in hand.

Viv and Gallina peeked after her and found Fern on tiptoe, running her claw along the spines of a set of big leather-bound volumes shelved in a back corner.

“I’m sure it’s here somewhere …” muttered Fern. “Aha!” She pinched one and slid it from between its neighbors, catching it awkwardly with the arm still occupied with the bottle. “Shit! Heavy!”

As she carried it to the back counter, Viv caught Potroast gnawing on one of the bones, his beak clacking loudly against it. She rolled her eyes and left him to it. At least they were of use to someone.

“Now … where the fuck are you …” whispered Fern as she leafed through pages thin as onion skins. Viv had noticed she got even more foul-mouthed when speaking softly. Gallina and Viv looked at one another, shrugged, and waited quietly until at last Fern stabbed a passage with a claw and said, “Ha! I knew it.”