"Aye, well. Come back then." Murphy smiled.
"I will."
"Oona." He waved.
"Murphy O'Reilly." She waved back.
"Travel safe."
"Always."
The coach pulled away. The Hadwins stood on the lane below The Boozy Cauldron and watched it go. Murphy waved his tea towel until the coach rounded the bend, and then he tucked it back over his shoulder and patted Edgar on the arm once and went back inside his pub.
Rhoda blew her nose into Edgar's handkerchief.
"Well." She wiped her eyes. "That was a fine joke."
They came up the lane toward home with the late-morning light slanting through the bare branches. Honey took Rhoda's arm. Edgar lagged a step behind with his hands in his pockets.
When they reached the porch, an owl was on the railing.
She was small and dust-pale, with one foot tucked neatly under her chest and the other extended for the small leather pouch on her ankle to be opened. She watched Rhoda come up the steps with the patient gold-ringed eyes of a creature who had flown a long way.
"Mary," Rhoda said. She knew her by sight. Colin's owl from Spellbinders.
Edgar's hand was already at the pouch. The seal on the folded letter was wax the color of an old library shelf, and the address on the front, written in a neat scholar's hand Rhoda had seen across her dining table only days ago, said:
Quill.
Rhoda did not breathe for a long moment.
"Edgar," she said.
"I see it, darlin'."
She took the letter in both hands and went into the house. She stopped at the parlor doorway. Quill was where she had left him in the wing chair by the fire, his small grey chin laid along the arm.
Rhoda lowered herself down to the rug beside the chair. She broke the seal carefully. She unfolded the page.
"Quill, sweetheart," she said. "There is a letter."
Quill's small grey head came up. His eyes settled on the page in her hands. He did not move otherwise.
Rhoda began to read aloud, very gently.
My dearest Quill,
If you are reading this, my friend, then I am not coming back to you. I am sorry. I had hoped to.
I have written this letter many times in many places. I have carried it in my coat through six countries against the day I might need to send it. I sealed it in a small bookshop in a town I had not been to before yesterday, and I have asked the owl who lives there to find you. I am told she is reliable. I trust she will.
I want you to know I did my best. I tried, Quill. I tried for both of us.
Quill stepped down off the arm of the chair and into her lap. He laid his head across the back of her wrist. He listened.
You have been the best friend of my life. I have loved you the way I have loved very few things. I want you to know that the small things were the dearest. The way you tucked yourself against my knee in the carriage. The way you sat with me at the long table in the library and watched me read. The way you said my name when you wanted me, which was not often, but was always perfectly timed.
I want you to be happy. I want you to be warm. I want, more than anything in this world, for your next bond to be the best you have ever known. I think you will find her. I think she will be a great soul. I think she will know what she has the moment you step into her lap. I think she will love you all the days of her life.
