Page 34 of The Trick of It

“I can teach you,” he said, shrugging. “Saves on trips to the market. And there’re all sorts of edible shelled things along the beach come winter too.”

She wrinkled her nose, her lips pursing together.

“You cook them first, Seph,” he assured her. “Another pint?”

She looked at his empty glass and frowned. “How many have you had?”

“This is my first,” he lied, immediately giggling at her flat reaction. “It’ll keep me warm on the walk.”

“A coat would keep you warm,” she said. “You ought to go change so you don’t lose all your toes while we’re out there.”

“Fine, fine,” he told her with a sigh, pushing back from the bar. “I’ve a scarf in the room.”

“‘A scarf’?! That isn’t enough.”

“It’s made of fluffy rabbit,” he told her, his tone somber. “Angor…Angelic? How many did I have?”

She kicked the back of his knee, making him scuttle in amusement and reappear as quickly as he could manage, bundled to the best of his ability.

“Don’t fret,” he told her as soon as she’d opened her mouth. “I’ve always run hot, anyhow.”

“Did you hear that awful snoring upstairs?” she asked, dropping off her stool and tightening her cloak around her shoulders. “It was rattling the doorknob to my room from across the hall.”

“I didn’t notice it,” he told her, watching her lift her hood up over her hair. “Ready?”

“Ready,” she agreed, taking a bracing, little breath. “God help me.”

*

The fog had thickened in the absence of the sun, coating the walkways and grassy curbs with a murky wading pool of white smoke.

Rhys imagined that if one were viewing the city from above, the fog likely encompassed all of it, but for the highest spires.

It was an odd thought, he acknowledged, swinging the lantern a little to watch the reflection of the firelight inside dance in the walls of oxygen around him. It was strange to realize that one’s own self was in the midst of a cloud.

“I wish we could see the stars,” Seph muttered. “Or the moon, at the very least. Are you certain this is the right direction?”

“I’m certain,” he told her. “I learned my north from my south before I learned my right from my left.”

She did not respond, but he imagined she was skeptical.

It was true, however.

Rhys had not known until coming to Starling’s Rest that there were directions other than the ones on a compass. He had not realized for another year that everyone did not inherently know which way was north.

And it still baffled him that people thought he was lying when he insisted he always did, even blindfolded and dizzy in a dark pit. Privately, he had always thought that the only reason others could not sense direction was only because they did not think they should be able to.

If he hadn’t learned before someone had told him about right and left, he might have agreed with them.

So, thank goodness for rough beginnings, as far as Rhys was concerned.

“Fire,” he told her, holding the lantern up in the direction of the dim, flickering light. “A brazier or two, I think.”

“Maybe a campfire?” she agreed, squinting into the night. “Is that the priory?”

He nodded. “Stay close.”

“Oh, I was about to dart off into the night,” she snapped. “Thank goodness you’ve told me to do otherwise.”