“I pretended I lived there,” said Nev. “I don’t need Quona Varana knowing exactly where I live. Come on, it’s this way.” Then, a small pack on her back and her fox still strapped to her front, she marched right off the cliff edge. Immediately it became apparent that there was a stair of rock where she’d stepped, but still, Giddon started forward in alarm.
Gathering himself, he stepped in behind her, Hava following.
* * *
—
The beach below was difficult, covered with loose, uneven rocks. Nev marched along it as if it were a smooth path through a grassy glade.
The gathering clouds on the horizon seemed closer, more menacing. “Is that a storm?” asked Giddon.
“Probably,” said Nev, not even glancing at it. “They grow for days, then move in.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“We’re used to it.”
After another minute, Giddon tried again. “Are you missing classes to take this trip?”
“Yes,” she said shortly, breaking off from the beach and beginning up a dirt path that climbed steeply into hills of golden grass.
“Will you be able to pick up where you stopped?” said Giddon, who usually left this nosiness to Hava, but today he was feeling unlike himself. Off-kilter, ever since the silbercows had shown him Bitterblue.
“I don’t know,” she said, then changed course again, leading them over the top of a hill and down onto the other side. “Shortcut,” she said, at Giddon’s puzzled noise.
“I wouldn’t want to have to follow verbal directions,” he said.
“I would never send a stranger this way.”
On the other side of the hill was a low wooden door, built so neatly into the hill’s slope that Giddon almost didn’t notice it. “What is that?” said Giddon. “Does that open into the hill?”
“It’s a sod hut,” said Nev, “for if you get caught in a storm.”
“But you have to know it’s there for it to be useful,” said Giddon. “Why is it hidden from the path?”
Nev hesitated, considering her own climbing feet. Then she said, “This is federally owned land. It’s against the law for us to build on it or into it. But storms rise fast. One of my neighbors died once, when I was a kid. We do what we have to, but out of the way.”
“But wouldn’t Parliament understand the need for a survival hut in a place with sudden storms?”
“Parliament takes forever,” said Nev. “And no. With the exception of our own few reps, they don’t tend to understand anything about life in the north. They don’t understand anything about anything, really. Why are they talking about legalizing zilfium use, for one, when Torla’s running out of zilfium? Every time someone reminds them of that, they pretend not to hear. That’s how they are. Why should we need the permission of one of their committees to do something that’s common sense? We prefer to take care of ourselves without drawing their attention. None of which I would tell you if I thought you were unsympathetic, but you seem too interested in the silbercows’ recent stories for that.”
Giddon glanced at Hava. Hava considered him flatly, then said, “We think someone in Winterkeep drowned two Monsean diplomats because they learned a dangerous secret. We don’t know if it’s connected to the explosion in the silbercow stories, but we do know it connects to the Cavenda house in the north.”
“I see,” said Nev. “So you’ve come north to look at the Cavenda house?”
“Yes.”
“And then what?”
Hava shrugged. “That’ll depend on what we find.”
“Can silbercows testify in court in Winterkeep?” asked Giddon.
“No,” said Nev. “Their stories are too chaotic, and mixed with things they’ve imagined. Or anyway, that’s what Parliament’s decided.”
“Have—have the silbercows shown you the story of the drowning of our queen?” asked Giddon, trying, and failing, to sound casual.
“No,” said Nev. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s quite all right,” said Giddon, sinking into disappointment. Falling behind the others, he climbed the red-gold hills, higher and higher, colder and windier, looking out at another wrinkled glacier ahead, at the whitecapped sea. This place was so different from Ledra. The views stretched on forever, vast and open, and the wind felt like it was blowing uninterrupted from the other side of the earth.
I feel like I’ve been sprung from a trap, he told Bitterblue, aching for her to be able to see this and feel that way too.
* * *
—
It would not have been possible to find Nev’s house without her guidance, no matter if she’d given them the most detailed instructions. She continued to climb, fast and untiring, just as if she weren’t carrying a pack on her back. It was beginning to grow dark.
In a part of the forest that smelled like sulfur, they wound their way among small, steaming pools of water.
“Those ones are boiling,” Nev said. “Keep your distance. There’s a bath behind our house that’s warm and safe. We also have a barn that we use as a kind of inn for passing traders. I’m sure it’s nothing like what you’re accustomed to, but you’re welcome to stay there. I’m afraid our house is too small to accommodate you,” she added, in a voice that contained no apology, and the tiniest challenge.
“I’ve slept in plenty of haystacks,” Hava said.
“I spent my last birthday sleeping in a wedge of wet rock while moldy water dripped on my head,” Giddon said.
“Show-off,” said Hava, switching into Lingian to deliver her insult.
“Brat.”
“Bully.”
Giddon was relieved to see Hava’s grin. Hava had a way of peering out across the landscapes of Torla’s Neck, eyes narrowed and calculating, that made him feel like she was planning escape routes. “You know we need you for the Cavenda house operation, right?”
Hava snorted. “Giddon, I am the Cavenda house operation.”
A stone barn with a wood-shingled roof emerged through the trees, with a garden and a tiny stone house just beyond, smoke rising from its chimney.
A sob caught in Nev’s throat, then she began to run.
* * *
—
Nev’s father was the only person home, and he couldn’t have been more astonished to see Nev. Or more happy. He embraced her, this steel-haired man named Davvi who was as big as Giddon, tears streaming down his brown face. Nev and Davvi looked very much alike, tall, straight-shouldered. “And a fox kit?” he asked wonderingly.