Viv decided she’d better bull ahead as fast as possible if she was going to get anywhere. “We’ve done a lot of work on the bookshop and wanted to see if you would come and visit when Fern reopens.”
“Visit?” The elf frowned. “You want me to shop there?”
“Oh, no! No, we want people to meet you. People who love your books.”
Zelia studied Viv. “My dear, why do you imagine I live this far out of the city?”
Viv knew the answer the elf wanted but took a gamble, and said, “Because you inherited a lot of money and a huge estate in the country?”
Fern gasped and slowly turned her head to stare at Viv with huge, disbelieving eyes.
Greatstrider considered her, mouth drawn into a thin line, until it slowly curved back into that sly smile. “You’re an interesting person, Viv.”
“I think that’s the first time anybody has ever said that to me.”
“Sometimes, it’s even a compliment,” said Zelia, and took a satisfied bite of her bun.
“What is happening?” asked Fern helplessly.
Berk patted the rattkin gently on the shoulder, Potroast purring in his other arm. “It means she’ll come.”
The satchel at Viv’s side rustled in anticipation.
36
“What do you think?” asked Fern, holding one of the large sheets up and examining it critically.
She’d just returned from the small printworks in town with a stack of typeset handbills. They read:
THISTLEBURR BOOKSELLERS
est. 1343
New Stock—Grand Reopening
One-Day Sale
With Notable Local Author
ZELIA GREATSTRIDER
In Attendance!
Freyday—Open to Close
BEACH ROW
Viv looked up from the sandwich board she was laboring over, studied it, and nodded. “Seems like it should get the job done, yeah?”
They’d planned the opening to coincide with the arrival of the weekly passenger frigate, which gave them another day to post the flyers everywhere they could think of.
“Here are yours then,” said Fern, dividing the pile of handbills into two stacks.
“Just have to finish this.” Viv frowned at her handiwork. “I’ve redrawn the damn thing three times now, and it’s still crooked.”
After erasing the previous text with a rag, Viv had done her best to chalk the required words. They still sloped down and to the right, but at least the arrow she’d drawn under them was mostly straight. “Hells. I’m not much of an artist.”
Satchel bent over her shoulder to study the result. “Alas, I concur.”
Viv sighed and held out the chalk. “Here you go.”
The homunculus plucked it from her fingers with a bony hand. “Many thanks. Do you think copperplate or blackletter would be most appropriate?”
“Do both of those make words?”
He looked at her with his burning blue eyes. “I … well, yes, obviously?”
“We trust your judgment, Satchel,” said Fern.
Viv climbed to her feet, while the homunculus began drafting sure lines in what seemed random locations all across the surface of the slate.
Fern drew Viv’s attention by thrusting a mallet and a packet of tacks at her, then followed it up with the handbills. “Here you go. Happy hammering.”
Hefting the tool, Viv examined it with professional curiosity and gave it an experimental swing. “Feels good to hold a maul again. Did I tell you I lost mine?”
Fern rolled her eyes. “Don’t go braining anybody, please. Not until after they’ve bought a book, anyway.”
“Mmm, yes, I think this will be satisfactory,” said Satchel, stroking his jawbone with a skeletal finger.
Viv and Fern stared open-mouthed at the sandwich board.
Wreathed in crisply executed geometric borders, he’d printed the same words Viv had scrawled, but in ornately chalked text.
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.