Bookshops & Bonedust (Legends & Lattes, #0)(74)
Books
Reopening
Sale
A gorgeous monochromatic arrow blossomed beneath it.
“What in all eight hells?” breathed Viv.
“Too much?” Satchel looked worried.
“Don’t change a thing,” said Fern. “It’s perfect.”
Satchel sighed longingly at the handbills. “I do wish I’d been able to make the Lady Greatstrider’s acquaintance. Sinner’s Isle is a marvelous work.”
Fern and Viv exchanged a glance over his head.
Viv laid a hand on his shoulder. It still felt odd to touch the bone of a living thing. “Maybe you can? You know, if you’re comfortable with that.”
“No,” he replied firmly. “I couldn’t abide the risk.”
“I have a feeling she’s open-minded enough to adapt to you, Satchel,” said Fern. “She seemed pretty unflappable.”
He tapped his skull. “I mean the risk to her, if ever the Lady were to find out we had spoken.”
Viv grimaced and tightened her grip on the hammer. “Varine has a lot to answer for,” she said.
* * *
They tacked the handbills throughout the town—on corners, on the side of the livery, and on any surface that would support a nail. Highlark even allowed one outside his tidy office, after examining it with raised brows and a thoughtful expression.
Viv passed Iridia on the street and gave her a careful nod. The tapenti stopped to watch her pass, and as Viv hung one next to the door of a hostelry across from the Gatewardens’ garrison, she could feel the woman’s eyes on her back.
Iridia made no move to stop her, though.
Maylee affixed one to her door and set another on her countertop.
Viv saved her last handbill for The Perch.
“All right if I hang this outside?” she asked Brand, sliding it across the bar-top.
He looked it over. “I reckon that’s just fine. Huh. You got Greatstrider to grace us with her presence, eh?”
“Surprised?”
“Hells, yes. Spied her once only, in all my years in Murk. Keeps to herself, mostly.”
Viv shrugged. “I liked her. She’s sharp.”
“You know, that was my thinking too. Shame she stays away. Now, Berk, seen him a time or twenty.”
“Have you read her books?” asked Viv.
Brand returned his attention to his ever-present copper mug, his tattoos lively as he scrubbed it. He cleared his throat. “Maybe a piece of one.”
Viv leaned both arms on the bar-top, lowering her voice. “So … Berk and Greatstrider. They’re basically alone up in that big house. And her books … I mean, she has to get those ideas from somewhere, right?”
“I reckon writers got to have a good imagination,” observed Brand, “because they can’t all be that lucky.”
* * *
On Freyday, Viv set the sandwich board out on the beach, in sight of where the passengers would debark. The air was chill and slow, and the mist curled high up the bluff, like a frozen wave breaking. It blanketed the surf in a silvery hush.
On her return trip, she rapped on the door of Sea-Song, and when Maylee unlatched it, Viv slipped into the warmth and fragrance of baking bread. The quiet of the morning extended to their murmured conversation as she gave Maylee a squeeze and a quick peck on the cheek, slid Fern’s payment onto the counter, and then retrieved several baskets of fresh scones and a crock of cream.
The boardwalk creaked under her stride, and the surf thundered its morning song. She heard the neighing of horses and the jingle of harness carrying up and over the dunes from the south.
Thistleburr’s bright red door still bore the sign reading CLOSED when she knocked, but Fern opened it to admit her.
The scent of toasted pecans, butter, and burnt sugar mingled with the still-fresh tang of ink and the spice of paper. For the first time Viv could recall, flames crackled in the woodstove, radiating a delicious heat. The gryphet was curled into a feathery crescent before it.
“Let me take one of those,” whispered Fern. Then she laughed at herself. “I’m talking like I’m going to scare away the day.”
Potroast’s head rose, and his stubby tail thumped the floor.
“Didn’t forget you, little man,” said Viv, and crouched before him to deliver a chunk of scone and another piece of bacon she’d held back from her breakfast. He gobbled them down and bumped his skull against her shin before curling back up.
She blew out a satisfied sigh as she stood. “I don’t know why it feels like victory that he lets me feed him.”
“Mmm, I can relate. I had the same feeling when you finished reading Ten Links in the Chain.” Fern grinned at her. “Here, bring that over.” She motioned for the basket.
They piled the scones on a pair of platters next to a pot of hot tea and a cluster of mugs. When Fern was satisfied that they were as ready as they were going to be, she fished the satchel out from behind the counter and dusted the homunculus into animation.
He glanced around the shop, then between the two of them.
“It will be a fine day,” he said, his voice thrumming with excitement. “Zelia Greatstrider. Very fine indeed.” He opened the slotted box on the counter and poured himself inside, his bones tumbling and slipping over one another until he disappeared within. A hand rose and drew the lid shut, and Viv threw the latch to dissuade any curious customers. The blue flames of his eyes winked in the darkness of the slot, and his voice issued through it in even more of an echo than usual. “Fortune be with you, Fern.”