Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(51)

Iridia ignored the question. “Varine. Have you seen her?”

Viv blinked. “No. Plenty of her spawn, but never her.”

“Would you even know her if you saw her?”

Viv took another slug of her beer. “I’ve got a description, but even if I didn’t, I think I’d know.”

“And why is that?” Iridia’s tone was hardly warm, but it wasn’t as antagonistic as it had been during their prior interactions.

Viv studied her. “What are you after? You don’t like me much, you made that plain. So what is this?”

The tapenti sighed. “I don’t dislike you. I dislike what you mean.” She tapped her mug with a finger. “To be clear, that doesn’t mean I like you either.”

Viv snorted at that and raised her mug. Iridia cocked a brow and clinked hers against it.

“To annoyed mutual tolerance,” said Viv.

It’s possible the tapenti’s lip might have curled in a smile, but Viv couldn’t be positive.

After another drink, something shifted in the Gatewarden’s posture. The scaled flesh of her hood relaxed, and she swept the long, dry threads of her hair to the side.

“We’ve found nothing on whoever murdered our gray-clad stranger.”

Viv almost blurted his name but caught herself in time. There was no easy way to explain how she knew it.

“Oh, yeah? I guess I’m not surprised.” Then, carefully, “Did you find that bag you were looking for?”

“No.” Iridia toyed with her cup. “I pride myself on my practicality. Adaptability. Too many Wardens are set in their ways. Authority gives them an excuse to be lazy.”

“And to hassle wounded mercenaries minding their own business?” Viv grinned wryly.

“Oh, no, that’s just good sense,” said Iridia, and Viv was pretty sure she was joking. Maybe. The tapenti continued, “I told you I’d take Varine seriously, and I have. But maybe not seriously enough, because I realized I haven’t spoken to the one person who has recent information.”

Iridia actually reminded Viv a little of Madger from Ten Links in the Chain, but without Legann’s balancing influence. Grudgingly, she admitted to herself that she might not actually dislike the tapenti.

But to be clear, that doesn’t mean I like you, either, she thought, echoing the Gatewarden’s own words.

“Brand,” called Iridia, catching the tavernkeep’s attention. “Her drinks are on me.”

She rested an arm on the counter. “So, I’m here to rectify that. I want to know everything you know. Are you willing to talk?”

Viv drained her mug and set it back on the bar. “I won’t even make you buy me dinner.”





25





The sign hanging from the handle of Thistleburr’s red door read CLOSED. Viv couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. She tried to peer through the glare on the windows, but the curtains were drawn. She knocked and called out, “Fern? Are you in there?”

Potroast’s answering bark came first. The curtains twitched aside, and then Viv heard the latch being thrown. The door opened inward, and Fern appeared in the gap, clad in a filthy smock, her fur haloed in dust.

“What in the—” began Viv, but Fern ushered her in with an impatient paw.

The shop looked like the victim of a very localized, very selective earthquake.

Most of the shelves were bare, although a few lonely volumes still leaned against one another on some of them, like drunks past midnight. The rest tottered in stacks and small mountains everywhere else.

Satchel stood amongst the wreckage, a tuft of fluff clinging to one horn, the flames of his eyes swirling blue. He clutched a large sheet of brown paper, torn along one edge. A spool of twine sat tilted in his pelvis, the location of which made Viv strangely uncomfortable.

Potroast trotted anxiously between the stacks, sniffing and whimpering, and spared Viv a distracted hoot of indignation.

From a small pile near the door, Fern seized a book-sized parcel wrapped in twine. Scrawled across the front in dark ink were the words TRAVEL, ROMANCE, and HEARTBREAK. “We’re going to make some gods-damned room,” she said fiercely.

“You can’t be doing that with all of them, though,” said Viv, staring around the shop in bewilderment.

“No, but this is the perfect time to reorganize. When the shipment arrives, we’ll be ready.”

Viv looked doubtful. “I think it’s a great idea and all, but how many of these do you actually think you can sell?” She picked up another parcel from the stack, this one marked ADVENTURE, BOUNTIES, and BLOODSHED. Actually, that sounded pretty good. She was seized by an impulse to open it. That was promising, anyway.

“Well, Satchel and I were talking,” said Fern, hustling back to sort through some of the piles. She checked the titles, sometimes opening them to flick through the first few pages, and then arranged them using an incomprehensible system known only to her.

“You were?”

“Indeed, m’lady,” replied Satchel.

Fern handed him three volumes, and the homunculus bent over the side table, which had been requisitioned as a workstation. With deft folds, he wrapped the stack, withdrew a length of twine, and snapped it with his bony fingertips. Then he swiftly tied the package with a tidy bow.