Tink Cogsworth's Arc

Chapter 6 of 7

The three shards sat cool in Tink's pack. Griselda would come to the windmill at dawn, and if the friend stood there when she arrived, she might dismantle it before Tink could say a word. So Tink chose not to wait. Better to meet her on the road, far from the windmill, and hand the shards over clean. Tink pulled on layered traveling robes to pass as a merchant, then walked to the roadside waystation where every path north crossed. Tink reached the waystation before the sun cleared the hills. She was already there. Griselda sat on the porch steps, filling the whole width of them, her yellow eyes fixed on the road that led to the windmill. Wet mud dripped from her feet onto the boards. Tink's stomach dropped. The disguise felt useless now. "You," Griselda said. She did not stand. "I smell the tree on you. Three steps and you'd have sunk in my mud. Give them back." Tink pulled the shards out and held them flat on both palms. "Whole. Cool. Just like I promised." Griselda took them one at a time. She turned each in her thick fingers, checking the seams. Then she closed her fist. "The bird?" "It runs on something else now. Nothing of yours." Tink swallowed. "The debt's paid. That was the deal." Griselda's jaw worked. She looked at the shards, then back at Tink. "You'd know the wood. You'd know how to take it again." Her voice stayed flat. "Someone always follows the first drinker. Then the spring is not secret." Tink saw where this was going. Paid or not, she meant to make sure no one ever came for the wood again. Tink thought fast. There was a man who had come for far more than three shards. "There's an alderman in the village," Tink said. "Blackwell. Wealthy. He's been paying men to harvest whole branches, not just shards. Selling them." Tink pulled the old apprenticeship papers from the robe and held them up, hands shaking. "I kept my master's papers. I was taught to work small. One shard at a time. Blackwell's crew cuts the living wood by the cartload." Griselda snatched the papers. Her eyes moved over the faded lines. She had heard the name before; Tink saw it land. The frogre stood at last, and the porch groaned under her. "Small thief," she said. She dropped the papers back in Tink's hands. "You I remember. Blackwell I'll visit." She tucked the three shards into her belt. "Debt's done. Don't come near my spring." She stepped off the porch and turned north, toward the village, away from the windmill. Mud marked each footprint. Tink stood on the empty steps, breathing hard. The friend was safe. The shards were gone. But Tink had just aimed a frogre at the most powerful man in the village, and Blackwell would want to know who sent her.