“How far could an inebriated ostrich get, anyway?” Thrain asked with a deep chuckle.
Lira was about to ask her uncle if his ostrich had ever drunk too much before when the tavern door opened, letting in a blast of cold air along with two tiny figures bundled in winter cloaks.
Halflings. But not Pip and Fenni, the brothers who ran the bakery and cheese shops, respectively. Lira knew their faces as well as her own by now. These two were strangers, and Lira suspected they’d come for the festival.
“We’re not serving supper tonight,” Sass called to them. “But we can offer you some chai to warm your insides if you’re on your way home.”
The taller of the two halflings pushed back his hood to reveal a cheerful face with rosy cheeks and bright eyes. “Sorry to interrupt!”
“We’re looking for the gnomes who make the apple brandy,” the second halfling added, shaking snowflakes from her red curls. “We were told they might be here?”
The blue-bearded gnome puffed out his chest. “I’m Rog and this is Rosie.”
“Oh, thank goodness!” The first halfling beamed at him. “I’m Poppin Brambleheart, and this is my sister Toobi. We’re Pip and Fenni’s cousins from Elmshire.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Toobi added with a little bow.
Iris stepped forward, her expression curious. “You aren’t here to visit your cousins?”
“Actually, no.” Poppin exchanged a glance with his sister. “Though we’d love to catch up with Pip and Fenni later. No, we came because we suspect apple brandy is the reason there’s a giant bird in Elmshire.”
The entire tavern went quiet.
Erindil moved forward so quickly he nearly tripped over his own robes. “Glen? You’ve seen my ostrich Glen?”
“Seen him?” Toobi’s eyes twinkled with barely suppressed amusement. “Oh, we’ve done more than see him. He’s currently passed out on top of my mother’s halfling hole, snoring loud enough to wake the dead and smelling distinctly of apple brandy.”
The silence in the tavern stretched for three heartbeats.
Then everyone started talking at once.
CHAPTER6
“Passed out?” Erindil’s voice cut through the chaos, high and tight. “What do you mean, passed out? Is he injured? Is he ill? What?—”
Poppin held up both hands in a placating gesture. “He’s fine! Perfectly fine, just sleeping soundly.”
“Very, very soundly,” Toobi added, unwinding her brown-and-orange striped scarf. “And snoring. I didn’t know ostriches could snore, but apparently they can.”
“And he wasn’t led there by an elf?” Erindil asked, arching a brow. “An elf that looks like a slightly younger version of me?”
Both halflings shook their heads in obvious confusion.
Lira cleared her throat. “Start from the beginning. When did you first see the ostrich?”
The two halflings exchanged another glance, and Poppin cleared his throat. “Well, it was earlier this evening. We were finishing up our own solstice preparations—Elmshire does a lovely midnight candle ceremony, you know—when we noticed an enormous ostrich running down the main lane.”
“He was hard to miss with those lavender feathers,” Toobi added. “We thought perhaps he belonged to some traveling performers.”
“At first, everyone gave him a wide berth.” Poppin gestured with his hands as he spoke. “He’d been running flat out when he entered Elmshire, but soon enough he slowed down and seemed a bit unsteady on his feet.”
“But then he got more wobbly,” Toobi said, her eyes wide. “He’d take a few steps, then list to one side. Then he’d shake his head as if he were trying to clear it and take a few more steps.”
That sounded like the effects of Rosie’s brandy.
“We were following at a distance, mind you, trying to figure out what to do about him,” Poppin said, “when he spotted my mother’s halfling hole. It’s got a nice, sloped grass roof, which is currently covered with a layer of fluffy snow.”
“So he climbed on top of it,” Toobi added. “Took him three tries because he kept sliding back down, but he was determined. And once he got up there, he sprawled out on his back and immediately started snoring.”
