“Maybe Tocaya set new ones alight.” Uriah shivered and hugged herself. “Ugh. Too soon. It has been a day.”
“Indeed. My body aches like the plague, and my purse has eaten whatever I had left. Can’t even find Slager’s—would you like half of a Linzer cookie? The fill is a lemon preserve.”
“Duh.”
“So, you finally have a quest. Will you dress like a Templar? Shall we visit a pond and ask that a benevolent nøkk float you a better blade?”
“Shut up. I would have had Feri if I’d… hand me that cookie.”
“Of course she knew,” Maren said, passing the Linzer.
“Tocaya?”
“Yes. She—hey, half. Don’t short me on lemon, either. Ragged scamp.” Maren scowled. “This is more reckless than heeding my stone. Tocaya knew that if you were tasked with stupidity, I’d be sure to follow.”
“Are you? Sure?”
Maren sucked a dollop of honey-thick lemon filling from her thumb and flipped a mussed braid of darkening silver hair over her shoulder.
“I have always been sure, Uriah. You are the pillar of my entire exis—don’t start with faces. One must never cry while eating a Linzer. It’s bad luck.”
Uriah sniffled. “Is not. You’re my pillar, too. Will you teach… can we start with this? The lemon recipe?”
“Uriah Lee, asking for kitchen duty! The world is ending.” Uriah blinked at tears, and Maren put an arm around her ally. “Stop that, you blowzy rannell. Of course I’ll show you. Anything I know is yours.”
“I can’t believe you threw love at a werewolf. Who does that?”
“Desperate old witches bending their last branch, that’s who. You reminded me not to quit. That turned the tide. Still standing, aren’t we?”
“Yes. Hag.”
“And proudly so. No need to mark our backtrail. I’ve noted the site of our encounter.”
“Why?”
“This quest of yours. I need to think, but Tocaya is… complicated. We’ll do well to revisit her motives in the light. That, and there’s a promising new witch you should meet. Oh, and I mustn’t forget to collect that pesky spider—he has a sweet tooth, that one. I’ll need to chase after him.”
“But not at dawn.”
“I said I want breakfast before I… there is no deadline on the hour. Breakfast tastes the same when the sun is overhead.”
“Good. How much farther?”
“I have no idea, Uriah. To the end, I suppose.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No, but it is what I answered. We are near my winter cantonment, if you mean that. It has meager wares, being just begun.”
“Is it warm?”
“It’s a bothy with the start of a roof, which is more than can be said of sleeping in the rough. Our breath will smoke by morning, but there is a pit for a fire. I will let you know when we’ve arrived. I say we go by hill and dale. Can you see?”
“Does it matter? You might as well be a belled ewe. If I go blind, I’ll follow the chatter.”
“Brave now, but when you climbed that pole… I can see the warpaint you mentioned. Electric blue. The hottest stars produce more ultraviolet than the rest, you know. Chemical rays—remember when they called them that?”
“Are you talking to keep me awake? You can stop.”
“I’m talking to hear myself, as my student doesn’t want to listen. Three percent of their output reaches us on the ground, but I can see the pattern on your skin. What do they call that—tribal?”
“It looked fine before Feri hit—”
“—I’m grateful you never got into tattoos. Did Tocaya remember to make that police cruiser disappear, do you think? It will make the front of the newspaper.”
“Shouldn’t we be quiet?”
“Let’s hope not. You couldn’t manage it.”
“What? You talk a thousand times more than I do!”
“Do you ever stop to consider that I might have more of substance to say? What’s a topic for a walk, arm in arm? Tiān Shén?”
“Ugh, can we not? Have you met Tinny?”
“She’s known to me only by reputation—and as we’ve seen, reputations are no way to know anything. They may be bought or bullied. Just look at night worms.”
Uriah cleared her throat. “I met Tinny forever ago. Couple of times since. Serious demeanor. Black hair; single braid. High in the cheeks, strong of arm—likes the cold; lives up north. She walks like a ghost and punches like a prizefighter. A star-reader of the highest order. If you mean to visit, Tiān will know we are coming before we do. Can we change the… Tell me something pleasant.”
“It’d be a repeat. You already know everything. Typical teenager.”
“I’m a hundred gifts from… I know too little of night worms, apparently.”
“They got a bad rap. I can tell you how one is made, and what it can fully do. Would you like to know?”
“Duh.”
“This won’t be good for university credit. I’m too tired to be technical.”
“And I’m too tired to remember. Tell me you have horn balm for my feet—the kind you made during the longer triumphs?”
“A triumph! Weren’t those a hoot? Hmm… flamingo tongue, belladonna, a cutting from a red boot, horn shavings from a white ox…”
“You have all of that in a bothy?”
“Not by half. I may have a tot of slow loris unguent that isn’t a fossil. Worst to worst, I can… mammoth lard is in short supply, but I could substitute a reduction of countertop aspirin cream. You won’t note the difference.”
“Countertop cream? Where’d you get that? You hate going to the store.”
“As will you, if you ever go silver—but a store is easier to find than a mammoth. I don’t like to shop, but I despise the thought of kicking at a retreating glacier, too. Right this moment, anyway.”
“Your worms. You were talking about them.”
“So I was. They’re no Linzer cookie. It takes decades merely to begin to… I finally discovered the most critical ingredient in a retirement home… hey, I’m serious!”
Uriah Lee’s laughter shook the night.
YOUR FREE GIFT
Thank you for reading All Hallows. The adventures of Maren, Uriah, Obi, and the rest continue in book two.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
W. Sheridan Bradford was born and raised on a fifth-generation cattle ranch in Colorado, which explains the smell. Despite his best efforts, he graduated from the University of Houston. To stalk him properly, visit wsbradford.com or holler @wsbradford on Twitter.
All Hallows Page 33
