Europe flatly refused to explain anything to Threnody, and it was starting to annoy the younger woman.
Courtesy-and curiosity-had dictated that Threnody should ask after her when it became clear that they were both staying at the Fend and Fodicar again. She had been polite, as much as she could, anyway, and had been brushed off in response.
"I don't see why you can't tell me where Rossamünd went. Unless you're upset that he had the good sense to escape your thumb," she said, after a sullen meal accompanied only by the performer in the pit. It was the fourth time she had asked, but she couldn't bear not to know.
Europe stood, face closed and posture tense. "You overstep any pretense of friendship, little calendar. Leave me be. Good night." With a twirl of her coat hems, she quit the room, Threnody glaring after.
In the pre-dawn light, Threnody pulled her things together. She had been out on an errand for the clave and was due back today, and the earlier she left this unfriendly company the better.
The paths through this bit of land were no less haunted than they had been the year before when she and Rossamünd had been stationed there, and she was on edge with every small creak of wood warming in the dismal sun. There was birdsong near, which helped: birds and monsters did not get along. Threnody put out of her mind the image of Rossamünd's bird friend and his little bogle friend. Neither would be helpful.
The sound of a soft, human-or human-like-voice made her pause. It couldn't be too far off the path, and did not seem to have heard her, because it was still speaking, quick and low. Threnody moved as silently as she could closer to the sound, peering around the brush to try to see who, or what, spoke.
A flash of red surprised her. Europe, hands on her hips, stood near a sparrow, both looking skeptical (if, of course, a sparrow could look anything at all).
"-just tell him he is sorely missed, will you? Oh. This is nonsense. Everything about this is nonsense. I don't know what made me think it would be otherwise."
She turned to go, and saw Threnody watching her. Behind her, the sparrow fluttered off, deeper into the woods.
"What are..." The sparrow. Rossamünd's sparrow. And Rossamünd gone.
"Not. One. Word." Europe was at her side in a moment, fingertips and hair already beginning to crackle with static. Threnody nodded, eyes wide. "You will not speak a word of what you have seen. He isn't safe, not even now, if you speak. Especially not now. So. You understand me? Nod if you do. Good girl. Back to your clave, little calendar. Put all of this out of your mind." Europe pressed her back, towards the path. "Go home."
Threnody began to walk away from the fulgar and her lightning, stumbling over a pothole in the dirt. Her thoughts were racing, but they kept coming back to the sparrow. It couldn't be the same one-how long did sparrows live? She shoved her hands in her pockets, glaring at the forest to either side of the path.
When she paused to eat the apple she had packed for a morning snack, about an hour's walk from the clave's boundaries, a sparrow hopped up beside her seat on an old stump. She started, blinking in surprise.
"You're Rossamünd's sparrow. You were speaking to the Branden Rose earlier, weren't you? You funny little creature. Well. If you are going to Rossamünd, tell him-oh, I don't know. Tell him I'm sorry for what happened at the inquiry. And that he could still be my friend. If he wanted."
The sparrow watched her with beady eyes, turning his head back and forth to fully see her, and then fluttered off into the trees. Threnody sighed, finished her apple, and began to walk again. What nonsense. It must have been infectious, a silly idea caught from the fular. Sparrows, after all, could not understand speech, and they certainly couldn't find lost boys in the woods. Nor, presumably, lost monsters.