Barnaby Croaksworth had rehearsed his apology for two years, and no one alive had heard it. He rehearsed it now to the mushrooms. He stood at the mouth of his hollow log, the moss cold under his webbed feet, red caps crowding the bark like an audience that would not leave. "Honored elders," he croaked, "I was wrong." The words tasted sour. They always did. The elders had exiled him for his temper, and his temper had followed him here, far past the last marker anyone knew. The village lay three days' march through the marsh. Barnaby had walked it once. The gatekeepers turned him back before he cleared the reeds. An exile who simply arrives gets no hearing, they said. He needed a reason they could not refuse. He had spent two years finding none. A branch snapped in the fog. Barnaby snatched up his walking stick. "Whoever you are, I'm in no mood." A small figure stepped from the reeds. She wore a dark hood pulled low, and two round golden eyes shone under it. A frog-gnome girl, barely grown, mud to the knees of her boots. She was the apprentice the elders trusted with quiet errands. He had seen her once, years ago, sweeping the council floor. "Ribella Puddlewick," she said, before he could ask. "I came the long way so no one would see. The elders didn't send me." She pushed back her hood. "I sent me." Barnaby lowered the stick. "Then go home, girl. There's nothing here." "There's you." She reached into her cloak and drew out something wrapped in oilcloth. She peeled it back. A stone tablet lay in her hands, cracked at one edge, its face carved with faded runes in red and green. Barnaby's breath caught. He knew that relic. It had vanished from the council hall the winter he was cast out. Half the village blamed him. "They think a thief took it," Ribella said. "They've mourned it for years. Bring it back yourself, and no gatekeeper can turn you away. You'd be the gnome who returned the sacred relic. They'd have to open the gates." Barnaby stared at the tablet. His hands itched to take it. "Where did you find it?" "That's the second question." She wrapped it again and held it against her chest. "The first is whether you'll walk with me. I can't carry it three days through the marsh alone. And I won't hand it to a man who might smash it in a temper." He opened his mouth to snarl at her. Then he shut it. For once he swallowed the anger down. "I'll walk," he said. Ribella nodded and stepped back into the fog. Barnaby grabbed his pack from the log and followed. He had his reason now. He also had a debt he did not understand, and a girl who knew how the relic had gone missing.