Chapter 43
On a frigid afternoon in winter’s deepest heart, Fern stood once more outside Legends & Lattes. Snow caked the roofs of Thune and mantled the street, and a cloudless sky let the sun burnish it all in glitter and gleam. Her breath steamed in the sharp air.
It had taken weeks to make the return trip. She’d struggled astride Persimmon for two days before deciding that she was no horsewoman and that the mare would be better cared for by someone who knew what they were doing. The two of them weren’t fast friends anyway.
After trading the pony, she’d booked a carriage to Thune. Again.
No pescadines waylaid them, and no fabled adventurer came to their rescue.
On a brandy-soaked night many months gone, Cal had sent her to say the words that needed saying, but she’d instead traveled half the Territory to avoid it. Now, she was where she should have been at the beginning.
To her left, Thistleburr Booksellers was clearly open and doing business. The windows were fogged, but the shadows of customers moved indoors past the yellow glow of lantern light. She did her best not to think about any of that just yet.
Instead, she raised a paw, depressed the latch, and entered Viv’s shop.
The heat and steam enveloped her and made Fern’s fur frizz, the scent of cinnamon tickling her nose.
She saw Viv straight away behind the counter, the orc’s broad back turned, scrubbing at a mug with a cloth. A heap of Thimble’s baked goods glistened with sugar under a glass dome. A couple of folks waited in line, and beyond, the tables were lively with conversation. Tandri was nowhere to be seen.
Then Viv turned and saw Fern, and dropped the mug she’d been holding. It shattered on the floor with a sound like an explosion.
Fern’s heart squeezed tighter with every emotion she registered on Viv’s face—surprise, confusion, joy, hurt, anger. Definitely anger in there.
That wasn’t where it settled, but it had certainly been a stop on the trip.
“Gods,” breathed Viv.
She rushed to fiddle with the counter door, which stuck, so she gave up and vaulted it, reaching Fern in two strides.
The orc scooped her up and crushed her in a back-cracking hug that made Fern squeak.
“Gods, you’re all right,” Viv said.
Then she set her down and stared at her in consternation. She opened her mouth, but couldn’t seem to decide which question to ask first.
Instead, she turned to the rest of the shop and called, “All right, we’re closing early. Everybody out!”
There was a great deal of grumbling and a few hasty refunds, but in minutes, Legends & Lattes was empty but for the two of them.
Viv turned back to Fern and put her hands on her hips. Her cheeks were flushed, and she was breathing heavily, barely containing an inner turmoil. “I’m alive? I’m sorry? That’s all you could write?” she demanded.
Fern slowly opened the satchel at her side and withdrew a huge bundle of papers.
“Well, not all.”
Viv set aside another wrinkled page, glancing up at Fern where she waited across the table. A couple of Thimble’s cinnamon rolls languished on a plate nearby, but the bookseller couldn’t imagine taking a bite of one.
Fern hadn’t been silent for the two hours it took Viv to work her way through the letters, which she’d arranged mostly chronologically. Viv had plenty of questions, and there had been a lot of the journey Fern had never written down that she filled in on the fly.
“You got a lot wordier over time,” said Viv, with a quarter-smile.
Fern couldn’t find even that much of one. She shrugged helplessly. Viv hadn’t said a harsh word since taking a seat, but it still felt like a slow-motion flaying to watch her face as she absorbed every word Fern had poured onto paper.
Finally, Viv set the last page atop the pile and sighed.
They studied each other in silence, with the gnomish coffee machine hissing and ticking along in the kitchen as it cooled.
At last, Viv said, “You have no idea how pissed off I was. Just . . . leaving like that, without a word? I thought you were murdered in an alley. Drowned in the river. I pestered the Gatewardens for weeks until that first letter showed, and then, sure, I was relieved—but also a different sort of pissed off.”
“Yeah,” said Fern, miserably.
“It was a spectacularly bad four-word letter, as letters go,” said Viv, leaning on one arm and lowering her brows.
“Yeah.”
“But.” She rubbed her eyes. “Now, I think I know how Gallina probably felt when I quit our crew without even a backward glance. So, I guess that makes me a hypocrite. And seeing you again—alive and fine? It pushes almost all of that to one side. What’s left will die down.
I know that. It’ll just take a little bit of time. ”
Swallowing, Fern ventured, “Thank you,” in a very small voice.
“You didn’t write the end of it, though,” continued Viv, tapping the pile. “What happened with Astryx?”
“She wanted me to be her squire. Got down on a knee and formally offered and everything.”
Viv blinked at her. “Eight hells. And?”
“In . . . fewer words, I said that it wasn’t what I needed or wanted right now. And it was okay. Hard, but okay.
“Which is what I should have said to you before I got drunk and wandered off the map.” Fern gestured in the direction of Thistleburr.
“I can’t do this—the bookshop—anymore. I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to again.
I tried, and it should work, anyone with eyes can see that, but I shrivel like a dead leaf inside to think that that is my life.
Not because it’s wrong, or bad, or that it’s not worthy of me.
That dream is just . . . not mine anymore, if it ever was, and I’m not even sure of that these days. ”
She swallowed. “None of that would be so bad if I hadn’t pretended it was. If I hadn’t led us all so far down that road. Let so many people I care about invest in it, until . . .”
“Hey, look—”
“No, I have to finish. Because that’s the part I need to apologize for.”
Then Fern rose and rounded the end of the table, standing beside Viv, still seated on the bench. The orc eyed her with confusion.
Fern raised both paws, palm up, in a gesture made to her only a month ago on an autumn road. She swallowed thickly. “Would you put your hands on mine, please?”
Viv didn’t question her, but gently placed her vast palms face-down upon Fern’s upturned ones, dwarfing them.
It took a moment to work the moisture back into her mouth. “I beg your forgiveness for the words I did not say,” Fern began, trying to remember Astryx’s phrasing exactly. “I beg your patience for the ways I failed you. I don’t expect it, but crave and strive for your regard.”
“Fern. It’s okay. You have it,” said Viv, thickly.
“I’m so fucking sorry I didn’t trust you with the truth,” sobbed Fern, and burst into messy tears.
Viv enfolded her in her massive arms, and they stayed that way for a long while.
“Potroast!” cried Fern.
She’d thought she’d done enough sobbing for one day, but it turned out that there was still room for more.
The gryphet barked and shimmied at the sight of her as she stood in the open entryway of Thistleburr with arms outstretched.
If anything, he was rounder than before, with a little more silver in his fur, but his great golden eyes were clear and joyful.
He barreled toward her and had his forepaws on her chest in moments, licking her snout frantically, whining and hooting his delight.
“I’m sorry to you, too, little man,” she whispered in his ear, kissing his forehead feathers.
Tandri stood open-mouthed with shock at the counter, a book in hand. Viv ducked into the shop behind Fern, edging around their teary reunion on the doormat and easing the door closed against the hard cold.
Fern barely registered the murmured conversation the two women had while she soothed Potroast and, if she was honest, herself.
Cal, predictably, found her later in the evening, after all the fuss. At least this time, it was on the front step instead of in the alley.
Fern sat on a stool beside the front door of the closed shop, wearing a heavy blue winter cloak that she’d dug out of her old things, with her ears tucked into a crocheted hat that she knew made her look ridiculous.
The shop didn’t feel like hers anymore, and though they’d left her room alone and urged her to reclaim it—at least for now—it seemed like trespassing to sleep there. She hadn’t decided what to do about that yet.
Finding a nice suite at an inn would be easy enough. She’d eventually given in and checked the contents of the purse Astryx had given her. The amount still seemed incomprehensible, and not at all deserved.
She glanced at Legends & Lattes, its windows still aglow. Viv and Tandri awaited her inside with Potroast. There was plenty left to discuss, and a great many arrangements to be made.
“Well,” said Cal. He was wrapped in a muffler and a heavy woolen peacoat, stamping in the cold as he sidled up to join her. “Heard you were back.”
“I guess I am. It’s really good to see you, Cal. I’m sorry about all the worry.”
She was, but Fern also thought she was wrung out of sorrow for a while, like a rag twisted dry.
“Hm.” This was one of his more aggrieved inflections.
Under the circumstances, it seemed warranted. “Worry” was a terrific understatement for what she’d made them endure.
Fern reached out a mittened paw. Cal took it in his own bare hand, and she squeezed.
“You gave me some very good advice,” she said. “I’m sorry it took me a little longer than it should have to finally take it.”
“Ah. Well, just so long’s you got there in the end.”
She nodded. “I’ll be leaving again. Not just yet. I have some things to do first.” She thought of the satchel full of pages and all the missing pieces yet to be added. “But at some point, I’m going to be going. I’m not sure for how long.”
“Appreciate knowin’ beforehand,” he said, with quiet earnestness.
“You’re a good friend, Cal. I hope to do a better job of holding up my end, even if I disappear for a while.”
“Well,” he observed. “I seem to recall that some friendships can stand a quiet stretch. Sturdy, I think we said.”
A long silence as they held each other’s hands in the cold, still, blue.
“Hm,” said Fern.
“Hm,” Cal replied.