Viv undid the buckle across her chest and slung the saber behind the counter. Fern hadn’t said so, but she seemed more comfortable having the weapon around, which made Viv feel a complicated mix of pride and guilt. They didn’t speak of the man in gray often, but neither had they forgotten him.
When Viv straightened, she fidgeted some curls out of her face. “Look, I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”
Pausing before her next bite, Fern said, “That sounds serious.”
Viv sighed. “I don’t feel right about this, the longer it goes on. Sitting in your shop. Borrowing your books. Sweeping and painting the things you can’t reach. How much of that is there to do? I don’t like feeling useless.”
“But you’re not—”
She held up a hand. “I know what you’re going to say. I get it. But tell me seriously, how are things really going around here? When I met you, you were positive the ship was going down. I feel like I’m scrubbing the deck while you bail water. And I don’t like it.”
Fern stroked the clasp that pinned her cloak in place. It was a nervous gesture that Viv recognized.
“The shop … will last a little longer. It’s been better lately. A bit. More visitors. A few more books.” It seemed to pain Fern to say this. There was a long pause while she marshaled further thoughts. “But in another way, it’s the best it’s ever been. It’s been better for me. Having you here is connecting me to why I do this. To why I used to love it. I don’t know if I can explain it, but watching you read what I give you, putting a book in your hands and seeing what happens to you once you put it back down … I can’t make you understand how that gives me something I didn’t know I had to have.”
When she fell into silence, Viv was wise enough not to fill it.
“You help me remember why I bother,” concluded Fern, almost in a whisper.
Another long silence.
Viv nodded. “Okay. I’m glad. Feels like I’m taking advantage, but I guess I’m not stupid enough to disbelieve you. But another couple of weeks, at most, and I’m gone. So … maybe I help with something else, too, so the boat sails on even longer? I’m used to making a difference with my hands. Let me do that.”
“I know that’s what you’re used to,” said Fern, “but you don’t have to use your hands to matter.”
“Maybe not.” Viv smiled faintly. “But it’s nice when you need to paint the top of the door.”
Fern shrugged resignedly. “Fine, I’ll—”
The door slammed open and Gallina dashed inside.
“Oh thank the Eight, you’re here. C’mon, Viv, you gotta see this,” she said breathlessly.
“See what?”
“It’s him,” replied the gnome, her eyes wild.
Viv didn’t need further clarification. She grabbed her saber by its scabbard and didn’t bother to belt it on. She caught Fern’s gaze. “Stay put,” she said, as every angle of her sharpened.
* * *
He was dead. Very dead.
It was the man in gray all right, sprawled between a dune and a slowly disintegrating clapboard storage building behind one of the rows. If his tangle of colorless clothing hadn’t been enough to mark him, up close, that cold smell prevailed, dry and metallic in Viv’s nose.
“Did you kill him?” She strapped her saber onto her back and squatted beside the corpse, scanning the sand, but it was a muddle of inconclusive traces. The wind wasn’t helping the situation much either.
“Gods, no!” said Gallina. “Found him this way. Okay, I didn’t find him. It was that orc with the wagon.”
“Pitts?”
“Hells if I know his name! How many orcs with wagons have they got in Murk?”
The sand drank in the man’s blood, and his ashen cloak writhed along the churned earth like a living thing. Overhead, the sky darkened, and the smell of a landbound storm rode the breeze.
“Where did Pitts go?”
“Didn’t ask. Ran off that way.” The gnome flung a hand toward the fortress walls.
Viv sighed. “Off to find the Gatewardens then, and that means Iridia. Shit.”
“Well we didn’t kill him, so I don’t know why that’s a problem for us. Hells, we should be relieved, right?”
Viv glanced at her. “That depends a lot on who killed him—and why—doesn’t it? And whether he was alone? After all, who broke him out of that cell?”
On a hunch, she stood, hooked her good foot under one of his armpits, and flipped him over.
His face was expressionless, pale eyes staring sightlessly. He might as well have been out for an evening stroll from the set of his mouth.
She squatted again, grunting at the thrill of fire along her thigh, and twitched his cloak aside. His magestone was belted at his waist. There was a money pouch, too, both conspicuously left behind. Viv shucked his sleeves up to the elbow on each arm.
“Whatcha doin’？” Gallina moved to get a better view. She had a dagger in hand, as though he might scramble up and lunge for them. Given what Viv was looking for, she thought it was a worthwhile precaution.
She didn’t answer, instead pulling his bloody and torn shirt up to his neck. The hiss of indrawn breath had nothing to do with her leg this time.
A few inches above the stab wound that killed him, etched into the skin below his clavicle, was a diamond with branches like horns.
Varine the Pale’s symbol.
“Oh, shit,” said Viv.
“What?” Gallina’s voice thrummed with anxiety. “You’re freakin’ me out.”
Viv rose and looked down at the gnome. “Was there anything else here? A pack? His satchel?”
“No, nothin’！ What’s that symbol?”
Viv sighed. “It’s Varine. He’s one of hers.”
“The necromancer? But he’s not dead, though! Uh, I mean, he wasn’t dead. He—” Gallina huffed in exasperation. “You know what I mean!”
“Her followers aren’t all wights,” said Viv grimly. “Kick around in the sand. See if that satchel is buried around here.” Viv climbed awkwardly up the dune and peered over the crest toward the fortress walls. She didn’t see any Gatewardens headed their way, not yet anyway. “If it’s still around, I want to find it before Iridia gets here.”
“Because … ?”
“Because I don’t think this is over, and I don’t trust her to listen to a gods-damned thing I have to say.”
They searched the immediate area, combing the sand and clumps of beach grass, before Viv stopped to consider the outbuilding. It was leaning as though in a stiff wind, gaps yawning at the corners where the wood had pulled free.
She circled the structure, peering into the shadows and hidey holes until she drew up short. A soft gleam beckoned from the blackness.
“Find somethin’？” called Gallina, coming around the other side of the building and looking harried.
“I think so,” said Viv, getting down on one knee again and regretting the stiffness all this was going to cost her tomorrow. She reached into the darkness and withdrew the battered leather satchel, its copper fittings winking in the light. “He hid it in here from somebody.”