“Well,” breathed Fern, surveying the interior with both brows raised. “Fuck me.”
Satchel drew back from her in alarm, and his eyes seemed to widen as the flames within them burned brighter.
Viv leaned down near his skull and whispered, “It’s just a figure of speech, not a request.”
* * *
“It’s a damned good job,” said Maylee, scanning the room approvingly. “Looks practically new.” She looked over her shoulder at Viv. “And that fresh lamp chimney really ties the place together.”
Viv executed a mock bow, and Fern snorted.
Gallina snagged one of the lemon cakes the baker had brought, stuffed it into her face, then settled back into her padded chair. She made vaguely affirmative noises through a mouthful of crumbs.
Fern had gathered beach grass and filled the new vases, and the lantern shushed inside its fine—and undamaged—new chimney as twilight crept down outside. The fresh white paint fairly glowed, and in tandem with the sweetly scented grass, it was amazing how much the removal of the disreputable old rug had improved the smell.
Even the books on the shelves seemed richer. Cleaner. Tidier.
“Viv says you’ve got a new shipment of books comin’ in?” continued the dwarf.
Fern sat at the counter, absently nibbling at her own square of cake while Satchel leafed through a chapbook. “Mmm? Yeah, sometime soon. I think I’ll just … stay closed until they arrive.”
“More books? Still seems like plenty in here,” said Gallina, eyeing the baked goods where they glistened on brown paper.
“Don’t think we didn’t notice that you showed up for the cake but not the painting,” said Viv. Her neck and back still ached, and she sprawled in one of the chairs next to Maylee.
“I’m less than four feet tall. How’m I gonna help?” Gallina started to reach for another cake, then frowned at Viv’s amused expression and slumped back into her chair.
“So,” said Viv, “did you use your idle hours to read any of those books yet? You know, while we were painting?”
“No,” replied Gallina, drawing one of her knives and making a big show of trimming her fingernails.
But her face colored slightly, and Viv wondered.
Maylee sank deeper into her chair, propping her feet on the footstool. “It’s nice enough in here to nap,” she said dreamily. “Feels like a refuge. And my feet hurt like hells.”
For a while, there was nothing but the hiss of the lantern and the weary, contented silence that follows in the wake of a day spent laboring with others.
Suddenly, Satchel snapped his book closed and moved swiftly to the side window, pressing his bony palms flat against it. He stared out into the gathering night.
Potroast rasped in his throat, rising onto his front paws.
Viv gripped the arms of her chair. “What is it?” Her mind crowded with thoughts of Balthus and of wights with horned helms and blue eyes, and Varine’s symbol burning on their foreheads.
“I thought I saw something, m’lady,” replied Satchel, his hollow voice sounding strangely compressed.
She was up from her chair in an instant, throwing the latch on the door. Dashing out onto the boardwalk, she pounded along it to the alley upon which the window gazed.
Nothing there but whispering beach grass, and shadows slowly pooling on the sand.
Potroast skidded to a stop beside her, hooting deep in his chest, his triangular ears flat against his skull, feathers puffed. For once, his ire wasn’t directed her way.
Something tickled her senses, the specter of a scent.
Snow. And frozen blood.
Then it was gone, and Viv tried to convince herself she’d imagined it.
When she strode back into the shop, Gallina met her at the door, knife in hand. Viv shook her head. “Nobody there. But …” She stared at Satchel, who glanced back at her. “I think you should maybe stay with me tonight. Just in case.”
31
I stood upon that windswept promontory, my hair a black flag whipping behind me, as the dark clouds above trailed like tattered banners across the sky. The grasses tumbled in purring waves, moonlight limning their crests.
Far off, the sea seemed still, though it was not. Its heaves and swells were too broad and slow at this remove to truly mark. In my mind’s eye, though, I knew their fury, trapped beneath the livid line of the horizon.
And solitary before it, like a pale tree, its autumn leaves storm-tossed, she awaited me.
Her eyes glittered black, finding mine across the seething distance.
The first—
Viv dropped the book onto her chest and sighed. She watched the tiny window high on the side of her room where the lamp quaked its light along the wall. Outside, the wind kicked up—maybe it even seethed—and every breath she inhaled seemed to bring with it the phantom scent of frozen copper.
“This book is not gods-damned helping,” she muttered, setting Stark House on the floor beside the strawtick mattress.
She glanced at the satchel resting against the sea chest. “You awake in there?” whispered Viv.
The bag didn’t rustle or otherwise respond.
Sighing again, she sat up and doused the lantern, lying back in the darkness. A slash of moonlight raked across the ceiling like a gap of sky visible from the depths of a canyon.
Eventually, the light faded, and so did she.
* * *
When she dreamed, she dreamed of Varine the Pale.
They faced one another on a familiar dark promontory whose grasses hissed in an insistent wind.
Of course it was familiar. She’d only just read about it.
The necromancer’s eyes were as black as words could make them, pits of nothing in white flesh, her hair unfurling in dark ribbons rich as earth watered with blood. Her lips were blue. Lifeless, but full and smiling.
Above her, the moon itself was inscribed with her sigil, a diamond with branches like horns.
Viv’s breath dwindled, her chest constricted by what felt like huge, crushing hands. The grass began to shrink away even as other forms rose from the earth. Their eyes glittered with icy blue pinpricks of starlight as they staggered upright, earth falling away in clods and streamers.
“I see you, Viv.” Varine’s form swelled, as though the grass were her mantle and she was gathering it around herself, magnifying her tenfold.
No, she was approaching, gliding fast between the wights that shambled toward their dumbstruck prey.
Viv shook herself and snatched for the saber at her hip, but it was missing. Only then did she notice the heavy weight slung across her back. Her searching fingers found the hilt of the greatsword over one shoulder and gratefully tightened on it. The leather creaked, and a current passed from the steel and into her flesh. She couldn’t have let go if she’d wanted to.
She didn’t want to.
“You have something that belongs to me,” purred Varine, looming impossibly large, empty and enormous, while the world hissed away from her like soot blown from white marble. Until there was nothing, nothing but Varine.
Viv unsheathed the blade and brought it before her, solid and right and hers.
“Blackblood.” Varine’s whisper boomed like thunder, and the necromancer was before and behind and above and, inevitably, below.
And then she was inside her like a blade between the ribs, cold and laughing.