Brigands & Breadknives (Legends & Lattes, #2)

by Travis Baldree

Always remember, although the unimaginative see life as a thread stretched from one point to another, birth to death, a life truly lived is a glorious tangle. One is never lost. And if one is lucky, one is never found, either.

As folk had done since time immemorial, she got on with things, because otherwise … who would feed the dog?

The startling appearance of a shaggy gray cat the size of a timber wolf that nobody remarked upon. Its tail crested the tops of the shelves like the fin of a shark roving shallow waters as it prowled the shop with an air of menacing indifference.

The opening of Thistleburr Booksellers in Thune was an unmitigated success. A new chapter freshly opened in Fern’s life—the page turned, the title printed, and ready to be filled with words of renewal, purpose, and peace.

“Is she really a prisoner?” asked Fern. Astryx scratched her ear. “Hm.” “Honestly, she’s not very good at it.”

The cuisine was one Fern had never had occasion to try in the sleepy coastal town of Murk. Vast, shallow pans heaped with fragrantly spiced rice, peppers, cured meats, and mushrooms passed steaming before them to low tables of diners scattered around the place. Charred flatbreads arrived alongside them folded into padded mitts. To their right, in the open kitchen, a cookfire blazed within a huge, white brick stove capped with iron cooking grates sizzling with kebabs and roasting capsicum.

Fern’s face flushed with the delicious sense of slipping into a story that you know welcomes you.

“I think for the first time in a long time, I wasn’t looking backward … or forward, either. So maybe I was looking at whatever is between those things.”

“I’ve tried to make a habit of never talking about what I do until I’m out of anything else to talk about. In my experience, it’s a terrible way to get to know somebody—at least if you want to know anything worthwhile. I want to learn what you laugh at, what makes you roll your eyes, what gets you upset, or passionate, or puts you at ease. Work is just…” He flapped a paw as they ducked under the eaves in front of the mercantile. “The stuff that holds the rest of it together. It’s like describing a house by talking about the nails.”

For the first time in weeks, they saw the snowline ahead of them like a tattered white skirt. Frosted evergreens stippled the land here and there until they swelled in number and crowded together into a mottled emerald quilt that bunched across the lowlands.

“That books are a weapon against loneliness. Putting them in the right hands lets people see one another. It makes us … better to one another. I think that’s a worthy thing to do.”

“Well,” he observed. “I seem to recall that some friendships can stand a quiet stretch. Sturdy, I think we said.”