Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(66)

She knotted her paws in the cloak. “At least it sometimes seems that way. I’m sorry. What a stupid thing to say, after everything you’ve done. And all this.” She gestured at the remains of their feast. “I sound ungrateful. But I’m not. You’ve probably never felt that way about anything, have you?” She said it jokingly, but Viv thought there was a tiny thread of hope in there, too.

“No, I suppose not,” said Viv. “I know what I’m made for. Pretty sure I always did.” She might even have believed it.

“I have,” said Maylee, and her arm tightened reflexively for a second. “D’you really think you’d feel better if you stopped?”

Fern thought about that seriously. “No, I guess I wouldn’t.”

“Any idea why?” pressed the dwarf.

“I guess … I guess because I’d miss the moment.” She made a frustrated noise, casting around for the right words. “That instant when you know that someone sees the same thing you see.”

Viv was surprised when Maylee nodded, shifting to meet Fern’s gaze squarely. “When they see you. When you know that at least right then, you’re really not alone. Somebody else feels exactly what you do. Or you hope so, anyway.”

“Yes,” said Fern, sounding surprised. “Every book is a little mirror, and sometimes you look into it and see someone else looking back.” She reached over and dealt Viv’s considerable forearm a slap. “I even saw this one a few times.”

“Hidden depths,” said Maylee with a laugh.

“I feel like you’re both acting more surprised about this than you should,” said Viv dryly.

“So. That’s why you do it, hon,” said the baker firmly. “And to be honest, it’s the same reason I do what I do.”

Fern stared back at her thoughtfully.

Viv was still turning the idea over in her mind when a hollow voice rose from beyond the fence, grave and sonorous. “I think that you had best see this, m’lady.”

It was the “m’lady” that prickled the hairs on the back of Viv’s neck.

“Everybody stay put,” she said, her voice flat and low.

She tapped Gallina awake, and the gryphet hooted irritably at her. Then she snatched her saber and located Satchel amidst the grave markers. Gallina trailed barefoot behind her, rubbing her eyes and grumbling under her breath.

The grass of the graveyard switched against the homunculus’s ribs as he stared at something Viv couldn’t see.

When she drew near, looming over his shoulder, he looked back up at her with his flickering blue gaze.

The earth was blasted black in front of him, as though from a lightning strike or a carefully controlled flame. Shreds of grass curled and twisted into charcoal ribbons around a barren circle the size of a shield.

Etched into the fine black powder was a diamond with branches like horns.





33





They descended the hill in silence as dusk ripened in the west. Viv carried Potroast tucked under one arm, and incredibly, he didn’t protest. Viv stolidly refused to glance over her shoulder. There was no way Varine was creeping up behind them, she was sure. The empty horizon was visible for miles.

It was hard to ignore that symbol, though. The mark of some scout? A kind of arcane wayfinding? Gods knew. Satchel said he didn’t, and she believed him. He rode along silently, tucked into his bag, bouncing against her hip.

She hadn’t caught that evil scent again on the way down. That was something, at least.

“I’ll tell Iridia about it tomorrow,” Viv promised the others. “She’s already got the Wardens on watch. It’ll be fine.”

When they reached the foot of the hill, Gallina split off from the group at The Perch with a salute and a defiantly chipper “G’night!”

Viv walked Fern and Maylee down the path between the dunes to the boardwalk, where shadows gathered underneath the awnings. When they reached the door of Thistleburr, the somber mood broke suddenly as Fern spied a note tucked into the doorjamb, fluttering like a trapped leaf.

“The shipment!” She seized the message and scanned it. “It’s here! They’ll drop it off tomorrow. Gods, finally!” When she glanced up at them, eyes glittering, it was immediately easier to shrug off the dark cloud that had clung to them.

“I’ll be here,” said Viv. Reluctant to spoil Fern’s excitement, she patted the satchel. “I’ll keep him with me another night, though. You know, considering.” She tried to make her voice light.

Fern sobered just a little. “I guess … that’s probably for the best.”

Viv and Maylee waited until Fern was inside and they’d heard the click of the latch before they continued onward. Their heights were too different to hold a hand or interlink an arm, but they walked close together, brushing against one another in delicious accidents.

After the commotion around the symbol and that blasted circle of earth, Viv felt grounded in the present now that they were alone. The sound of the surf tumbled in the distance. Maylee’s warmth radiated beside her, gentle in the cooling evening air, still smelling faintly of bread and ginger.

She couldn’t stop thinking of their conversation on the bluff, before things went sour. Viv felt a growing need, like something expanding in her chest, to ask a question she thought she might regret.