Page 50 of Skalterra By Nightmare
“And here I thought bankers were supposed to be heartless,” Gams chuckled as I wrapped the chicken in paper and took Stanley’s payment.
“Maybe in Keel Watch, but not up in Dunningham! If you shipped chickens to one of the shops in town, I wouldn’t have to drive all this way for new ones.”
“And run myself out of business?” Gams patted Stanley on the back. “My chickens will stay here, thanks. Supply and demand! Surely they taught you that at your fancy banker school?”
Stanley shook his head as he laughed, thanked me for the chicken, and headed back out the door.
Gams returned to her workshop, and Liam didn’t ask anymore about Riley’s posters, but that might’ve been thanks to the steady stream of customers keeping his ice-cream scoop busy. The invisible rain let up around noon, just in time for me to go enjoy my lunch break in the sun of the back deck. I convinced myself it must’ve been the sound of Gams’s air conditioning I’d heard, or maybe Jonquil was running laps upstairs.
Whatever it had been, it could not have been rain, because the streets of Keel Watch Harbor stayed dry.
With the exception of the mystery sound, the day passed without consequence and with no word from Galahad. I dared to stay up later than I should have, but by the time ten o’clock came, I figured I was going to pass another night unbothered by Skalterra, and crawled into my covers.
I fell into a dream that felt real enough. I stared at my hands and was trying to determine if they’d always had six fingers each, when a voice cut into the scene.
“Let’s see if it works this time. Wren Warrender?”
I looked up from my hands at the fuzzy darkness that opened before me.
“Galahad?” I asked.
“There she is,” Galahad’s gruff voice responded. “Already asleep, are you?”
The darkness shifted, closing in on me until I was under a low ceiling lit by glowing yellow orbs resting on sconces. The floor was uneven beneath my leather boots, and warped wood creaked as I stumbled backwards to catch my footing.
“See? That salesman didn’t rip you off.” A familiar hand pressed against my back to steady me. Ferrin’s facial hair had become rugged and unkempt in the days we’d been apart. “Welcome back, Just-Wren. Miss us?”
“What happened?” My stomach felt sluggish, and my limbs buzzed with an uncomfortable energy. Something invisible pressed on my chest, and breathing was difficult. My veins burned with a dull heat, like my blood was attacking me from the inside. “I feel like garbage.”
“Maybe the salesman did rip you off after all,” Ferrin mused. “The Skal was probably diluted with something.”
“She’ll be fine,” Galahad grunted. “Lots of Nightmares get made out of diluted Skal for cheap labor.”
“I hate it.” I thought I’d be more relieved at seeing they were okay, though maybe “okay” was a bit of a stretch. As my eyes adjusted to the dim light, I could tell they were both dirty, and their clothes were torn. Galahad had a black eye that looked several days old.
“Just-Wren is back?” A door to our right slammed open, and Orla tore from the room to wrap me in an embrace. “Thank the Three Magicians, we thought you might be dead!”
“Dead?” I pushed her off of me. Her short brown hair stuck out in every direction, and one of her goggle lenses was cracked.
“The rotsbane! It had you. We thought Galahad might’ve been too late in releasing you,” she gushed. “And then the rotsbane ate all the Skal on the steamcart, so we couldn’t call you back. And the city sent a rescue cart, but one of the diners figured out you had been a lucid Nightmare, which is illegal, so we had to run into the woods, and then it took us two days to walk here without any Skal.”
“Oh.” I looked between the three of them, relieved I’d missed spending time in the woods. “But no Grimguard?”
“Not yet.” Either the yellow light of the wall sconces made Galahad’s wrinkles look deeper than usual, or the forested trek to wherever we were now had been harrowing enough to age him several years. “But we can’t be too careful. He’s had plenty of time to catch up. He could be here in the city for all we know.”
“The city?” I looked around the dingy hall.
“Vanderfall, the capital of the Grand Barony!” Orla said. “You’ll love it. It’s the biggest city in Skalterra.”
“Yeah, so far it’s beautiful.” Something lurched inside me, and I leaned against the wall of unfinished wood. Whatever Skal Galahad had made me out of was definitely not sitting well.
“Galahad and I are going to request an audience with the Baron.” Ferrin shifted his weight from foot to foot, and looked sideways at Galahad. His hair had lost some of its usual height and now drooped to the side. “We’re hoping to secure passage as far north as Riverstead, and maybe secure some better quality Skal, but the Baron isn’t exactly known for being generous. We need you to watch the inn with Orla and Tiernan while we’re out.”
If this was an inn, then the rows of doors on either side of the hall made sense. I glanced down the line of them, noticing Tiernan for the first time where he sat on the floor with his back against what was probably Fana’s door.
“We’ve paid for the entire floor,” Galahad explained, “so if anyone who isn’t a Riftkeeper comes up here, get rid of them.”
Orla nodded importantly, and her cracked goggles slid from their perch on her head to hang around her neck. Ferrin pulled her in to press his forehead against hers.
