“Oh, I don’t know about that,” replied Viv quietly. “Give it a few minutes.”
He shot her a quizzical glance, but she only smiled and looked back to the center of the room.
“So, I’m not much of a public speaker,” apologized Fern. “You’ll have to forgive me. I sell words. I don’t say them.” A good-natured chuckle from the group gave the rattkin some courage. “Anyway, I hope to make this a regular event. You’ve all read Thirst for Vengeance, and I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did. We’re here to talk about it together, and I, uh—” She looked at the stack of books in her paws as though unsure how they’d gotten there.
Highlark rose and gently took them from her, and Fern patted at the pockets of her cloak while shooting him a grateful expression. She found a folded piece of paper in one, which she opened and held in trembling paws. “I’ve made a list of topics to discuss—if we want to—although we can talk about whatever you like. But, before we get to that, there’s something I’d like to say. Someone I’d like to introduce.”
“Here we go,” whispered Viv, catching Berk’s gaze. “Just leave the sword where it is, yeah?”
Fern set the bag carefully on the floor. She opened the flap and took a step away.
Several indrawn breaths overlapped as the horned homunculus boiled up from within the satchel, his bones clacking into place with rhythmic musicality, until his eyes ignited in twirls of cobalt flame.
With Varine’s departure, no further bonedust was required, as though her presence had been a sickness it kept at bay.
Viv could feel Berk tense beside her and then relax as he noted her inaction.
“This,” said Fern, “is Satchel. And he’ll be staying with me for a while.”
There was absolute silence, during which the homunculus rubbed his phalanges together anxiously before him.
His gaze came to rest on Zelia, and he executed a hesitant bow. “Lady Greatstrider. It’s my profound pleasure to meet you. I must say, I’ve found your works most enjoyable. My days are entirely my own for the foreseeable future, and I do look forward to devoting some to whatever you write next.”
Viv hadn’t known the elf could look astonished. It was kind of impressive.
There was a long beat of silence during which nobody seemed to know what to do.
Then—
“Hey, Satchel. So, Fern, when do we eat?” asked Gallina.
And after that, things were fine.
But for Viv, it was also like the end of a story.
Except the story was somebody else’s.
41
Pembroke kicked dust over the ashes of their morning fire and watched the last curl of smoke rise above the dawn mist. He felt his years from his shoulders to his heels, creaking like an unrosined bowstring.
Marret busied herself with the horses, and when he saw her in profile he smiled at the hale ruddiness of her cheeks. He wished he were younger.
His knees popped like dry branches as he crouched to gather his bedroll. In all of a few moments they’d packed away their camp.
They’d chosen a lovely little hill, surrounded on three sides with birch and looking out over a silver thread of river that neither of them could name.
“I suppose this is our last morning before we get back,” said Marret.
“The blood and mud is done,” agreed Pembroke. “But it’s altogether more final for me, I think. I’m headed for the peaceful pasture of retirement. You? Why, you’ve only just jumped the fence, with a world to grab by the throat.”
She tried to glance at him in surprise, but he knew she understood that this was his last ride. Marret gave up the pretense and frowned, almost bitterly. “It feels gods-damned wrong. We were … we were good together. Weren’t we?”
Pembroke laughed. “I’ve never felt safer with another blade at my back, nor any other eye while I slept. We mend the holes in each other’s britches, as my old da used to say.”
“Then why does this have to be the end of it?” The plaintive note in her voice almost made him reconsider. Almost.
It took him a while to reply. Patching the last cracks in his resolve.
“Because I’m headed down the hill, and you’re headed up it. I’m just glad we chanced to meet on the way.”
Viv snapped the book closed and rubbed her eyes with two fingers.
An errant grain of sand had blown into her face, surely. There was wind enough.
Seated atop one of the beach-facing dunes, she looked out over the tumbling waves, every curl ripening to red before churning into its fellows. Gulls hacked and cried above, scolding her intrusion.
She slid a finger over the foiled lettering on the book’s cover. Crossed Purposes by Kest Brindleby. Fern’s last suggested book. More than any of the others, it felt personal in a way she hadn’t anticipated.
Viv supposed that was what Fern had meant up on the bluff. About books and mirrors and that perfect moment of feeling seen.
Which was fine. Wonderful even, Viv could admit. But also terrible, because didn’t it make things harder than they should be?
Wasn’t it so much more comfortable to duck out the door without somebody pointing out your departure? She couldn’t help but see Maylee’s face, feel her thick braid between her fingertips.
She wished Rackam would come, and it could all be done.
Then from behind her came the clink of harness, the groan of axles, the tromp of boots, and the armored creak of folk who traded in blood.
Viv turned and saw Rackam’s Ravens trooping down the road to Murk, and until that moment, she hadn’t known you could feel dread and relief at the same time.
* * *
“There she is,” said Viv, sliding Varine’s book across the table. The slit in the cover was surgically clean, a testament to Blackblood’s preternatural sharpness. It was strange to think, but to Viv, the book felt dead. The unnerving vitality it once possessed had fled. All that remained was leather, paper, and the faint whiff of blood on a frozen lake.
Rackam sat across from her in The Perch, and near a dozen of his Ravens stood crowded around the table. He drew it toward him, furrowing his brows at the symbols on the cover. Then he opened the book.
The pages were still black, but they were no longer depthless, and each was split crosswise.
“Not much of a trophy, is it?” said Rackam, sighing. “Weeks of false trails and backtracking, snow and mud, scores of blueeyed corpses—and this is how we catch up to her.”
Sinna tossed her red hair back and skeptically examined it. “Nobody is going to pay us for this. How do we know she’s even dead?”
“Oh, she’s dead, all right,” replied the old dwarf. “Or whatever passes for dead for her kind. Malefico saw her thralls drop like sacks of flour all at once, and we haven’t seen one since.”
Malefico nodded but didn’t say anything.
“Still not clear on how you stuffed her in a book, though,” rumbled Rackam.
Viv had briefly considered mentioning Satchel, but introducing an animated horned skeleton to a group of folks who’d been bashing them to bits for a few months straight seemed like a surpassingly bad idea.
“It was complicated. And lucky.”
He held her gaze with his flinty blue eyes, but eventually he slapped the cover of the book and handed it off to Sinna to take care of.