Chapter Eight Just One More Thing
Chapter Eight
Just One More Thing
In Which Our Adventurers Are Not Given a Map
Saeldian had to make it just three hundred more steps down the Street of Bells before they could sit down, and only twelve of them were actually stairs.
There wasn’t a carriage or cab with their hire lanterns unlit from Sulmor Street to Waterdeep Way, and certainly none to take them back to Righthoof Manor.
Jubilee walked a wavering line so she would seem a bit drunk.
Kell was so tense Saeldian’s jaw ached whenever they glanced his way.
Lorzok, still a tabby cat, had taken to running along the knee-high stone walls that lined the sidewalks on the route from east of the High Road in the North Ward to Waterdeep Way.
Two hundred seventy-two. Seventy-one. Righthoof Manor had its own clowder of cats, and Saeldian knew the swivel of an annoyed cat’s ears. Lorzok could have shifted back without anyone noticing more than once. He hadn’t, and Kell had given up trying to apologize a mile ago.
Saeldian forgot their count and kept walking.
Lorzok’s mood wasn’t their business. They’d gotten away clean, and that was all that mattered.
Kell had the gem. They would hand it over, get paid, and find out when they had to go to part two and put it back.
Saeldian didn’t want to set the gears in their mind to planning.
They anticipated nothing but falling into whatever bed the Golden Rose had and not moving until someone brought them breakfast on a tray, around when everyone else would be stirring to see noonday.
There were so many people on the street.
All the shops were open, after all—Goldenight was celebrated with dances, feasts, performances, and bargains.
Even the banks were open, in case someone needed to deposit their riches or withdraw just a few more dragons for something irresistible.
Goldenight bargain-hunting was more fun than their birthday, but Saeldian couldn’t even think about shopping.
Next year—no. Not next year. Only Waterdeep celebrated Goldenight.
Saeldian hated walking into another ending, but they couldn’t stay with the Righthoofs any longer.
The voice that called them down the road had spoken.
Jubilee would understand, eventually, how close she’d come to becoming someone she wouldn’t like.
Do the job. Get paid. Pick a direction, and start walking into a new chapter…and Saeldian couldn’t explain why to Jubilee either.
They reached for the heavy, cool amulet and sighed when the Rose came into sight. Not long now. Fifty steps into the music-filled main floor, and then climbing another twelve, and—
Briona and Mariel were in the sitting room Saeldian had barely seen when passing through it to have dinner.
Mariel’s helmet lay on the floor next to the plush reclining couch she rested on; the ends of her unbraided rose-gold hair shivered and danced as Briona gently brushed one lock free of tangles.
Jubilee gasped. “Oh, sorry!”
Saeldian reflexively stepped backward to close the door, but Briona said, “Come in.”
She didn’t stop tending to her hireling’s hair. She massaged a few drops of perfumed oil between her palms, and the scent of costly wood saps and green moss filled the room.
“We…can come back?”
Kell stepped in where Saeldian’s voice faltered. “If it’s not a good time, we could meet at breakfast.”
Briona sighed and flourished dramatically at her own carefully braided crown. “Ever tried braiding it up like this by yourself?” She cocked her head, and the silver charms dangling from her hoop earrings caught the light.
“I have, actually,” Saeldian said. “You’re right, it’s easier to find a partner and do each other’s.”
“So, have a seat. I can listen and braid at the same time. I gather you were successful?”
“We have it. But it was nearly a disaster—nasty spell-trap on that thing. Kell, show her.”
Lorzok rubbed against their ankles as he wound past the clump of thieves next to the door. He hopped onto a chair—the nicest—and shifted back to himself. “The final trap was quite dangerous. I neutralized it, however.”
Kell dug into his pocket. “It’s here.”
Mariel turned her head just enough to see the gray bag swinging from Kell’s fingers. She hmphed agreeably and relaxed.
“I trust you have the Kiss of Enduring Love in there, and not some rock you found on the beach. Very good. Your keys are over there. Congratulations.”
“We’ll get the other two after the job is done?” Jubilee asked.
“Correct,” Briona said. “You’re all going to be extremely comfortable for a while. But now, part two. It’s the Feywild for you now.”
Saeldian lifted their hand. “I’m sorry, but can it wait until after we’ve slept?”
“No,” Briona said. “It won’t take long, and there’s no time to lose. I wondered if you’d make it.”
“We can’t,” Saeldian said. “We barely pulled off the theft. I’ve got nothing left.”
“We weren’t told we’d be leaving right away,” Kell objected. “We don’t have our kit.”
Briona lifted the whole mass of Mariel’s hair and brushed it smooth. “That wardrobe has what you need.”
Kell was closest, so he opened the doors. “What? This is my pack.”
“How can that be?” Jubilee asked, and moved over. “Shit. You went to my parents?”
“They’re delighted to know you’re going on an expedition.”
Saeldian couldn’t breathe. Jubilee glanced at them. They shook their head. The Zhentarim had to know where Saeldian lived, and therefore they knew about the Righthoofs. But that had been only a fact. It hadn’t been real.
Saeldian couldn’t go back to the rehabilitated fish run and the milk goats and Wisdom’s explanations. They’d never go along with Verity’s affectionate badgering. When Saeldian and Jubilee returned from this job, Saeldian shouldn’t even stay long enough to say goodbye.
They accepted their pack. Heavy, but not unbearably so, filled with supplies to eat and make shelter and cast spells. A corner of a folded letter poked out of the front pocket. Was it from Bastion or Serenity? And how many times did they say that they were proud?
Saeldian was going to be sick. They smiled and swung the pack onto their shoulders. “You’ve thought of everything.”
“No time for compliments.” Briona parted a section of Mariel’s hair and divided it into four strands. “The Kiss is in your hands. Take it and go into the gardens. Look for the oak tree, and the bluebells beneath. Look to the wall, and the gate that will open when the moonlight shines on it.”
They couldn’t do this. They needed time before just dashing off. “You don’t understand. I need to sleep.”
“Sleep when you get there,” Briona said. “The time you need is on the other side of the wall.”
“It’ll be all right,” Jubilee said. “We’ll change clothes and go.”
“No time for that,” Briona said. “So you’d better pack them carefully. Or buy a new set. Or twenty.”
“Why are you rushing us like this?” Saeldian couldn’t hold on to their composure or their careful manners, and they were too worn out to try. “We don’t even know where we’re going!”
“Because the way thins for only a few minutes,” Lorzok said. “On certain days and under certain stars, there is a precise moment. And it’s opening soon, isn’t it?”
“It’s already open,” Briona said. “And you’re all arguing instead of getting down there.”
“You are going to the domain of Hearthaven’s Repose,” Mariel said in her gravel-crunching voice. She relaxed as Briona wove her hair into a braid. “They welcome guests who need shelter, rest, and protection. Be in harmony with them—it’s your best disguise.”
“We need to know more than that,” Saeldian objected.
“There’s no time.” Kell gripped Saeldian’s elbow. “We have to go. I’ll make sure you get your sleep. Move.”
The Golden Rose’s garden was a wild, informal thing, with flowers mingling at a celebration and only narrow paths for a traveler instead of the orderly arranged beds of blooms organized by height and color.
But the only light that shone were the flashes of fireflies, hovering in a cloud over the blossoms and under the boughs.
The moon’s round face was high in the southern sky, with Sel?ne’s tears shining in her wake.
The oak and its carpet of bluebells rested next to a wall draped in clematis and ivy along the south end of the Golden Rose’s garden, and the gate Briona had mentioned was nothing but a drawing on the stone.
It was a good drawing, of course. It was of a wooden gate, one that had been charmed into growing that way.
Every bar a bough, sprouting hard green apples barely past setting.
But between its gaps was stone wall. The whole drawing rested in the shade of the wall, where Sel?ne’s light could never fall on it.
Saeldian looked up at the fireflies and oak leaves. “Good spot for moonlight, wouldn’t you say? Should shine down on this ‘gate’ any moment now.”
“Shh,” Jubilee said. “No complaining when there’s a puzzle.”
Saeldian smacked their forehead. “Everything about the fey is a trick. Sorry. I’ll stop. But that’s not a gate, and the moon can’t shine on it—”
“I think I know,” Lorzok said. “Jubilee is right. One moment.”
Lorzok raised his hands, crushing three pearly seeds against a rough brown stone. “There.”
Silvery light fell from an orb the same glowing silver as the moon beyond the oak tree.
Saeldian sidestepped out of the way. A Moonbeam spell’s light hurt when it touched a foe, and they didn’t want to take chances.
Lorzok hummed as it moved over the bluebells, and fireflies darted away to show off somewhere else.
The gate changed. Saeldian watched the drawing swell and become real wood.
The stone behind it fell away. The apples grew from the size of a thumbnail to a walnut, from leaf green to bright green, then blushing on their cheeks.
The air was sweet with ripening fruits, the blush spreading and filling to pink, to red, to deep claret…
“Don’t touch them,” Saeldian said. “Don’t pick them. Let me.”
The cool, silvery light burned as they pulled the apple-tree gate open, guarding their party from the honey-sweet, delicious, certainly perfect apples.
“Step through three paces and stop,” Saeldian said. “Hold hands. Don’t get separated.”
Lorzok hung back when Jubilee waited for him to follow Kell.
Instead, Lorzok took Jubilee’s hand and let her catch Kell’s hand in hers.
Lorzok held his other one out for Saeldian as he passed.
Saeldian held the gate and closed it gently as they passed, one, two, three steps, and only then looked back.
No gate. No apples. No wall. Only a single firefly, flashing and confused, looking for the way back to Waterdeep.