Hi, all! A super-quick note to say: three (3!) pre-orders to go! And 8 days left before the deadline! We’re so close, and I’m so excited and so grateful to every one of you, I don’t even have good words.
As a partial thank-you, have a preview of the new opening scene of chapter four, just written today:
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They camped that night in a pool of emerald grass surrounded by silver-barked trees; the green was a bit too green and the trunks too silver, to Oliver’s artist’s eye. He couldn’t decide whether he wanted to paint the North or back slowly away from it. Either way he wasn’t certain he could ever do a description justice.
He handled wood-gathering and fire-building and roasting potatoes. Tir offered to help; Ollie scowled at him until he sat down meekly and got out a book. Bandages remained around slim fingers, catching light under distant stars.
They both knew enough not to go hunting or trapping, in the Northern Territories; for one thing, it was impolite, given that some fairies could shapeshift, and for another, nobody really knew what eating too much fairy game or fruit would do to a human. Tir said that the local berries and fruit that almost-but-not-entirely resembled apricots were probably safe, and anyway they were still on the human side of the border; the fruit would’ve adapted itself to less-magic conditions. Oliver considered the almost-apricot and its potential for sentience and deliberate adaptation, and did not eat it. Tirian rolled eyes, got up and picked two, and threw one at him. “You export these, you know.”
“Well…yeah, but—wait, go sit down!”
“And you make wine out of them. Expensive wine.”
“Not me personally,” Ollie said. “I have no clue how to make wine. Yes, I know, you’ve made your point, thank you.” The not-apricot was delicious. “Potatoes in a minute. Read your book.”
The fire crackled. The stars glittered. Night-birds made crystalline swooping noises in the forest. And Tirian had a book, and Ollie drew little sketches of leaping flames and many-petaled flowers and tall gleaming trees, and the night settled in, content.
He wanted to check under those bandages, but did not want to interrupt his fairy; he put aside confrontation of this conundrum for a moment.
