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It costs one hundred and fifty gold pieces for one use of Ayda Aguefort’s Sending spell. It takes an hour and a half for Sandra Lynn to scribble out twenty-five words that even come close to coherent. She elects not to stretch the message out with swear words, because cussing up a storm at Jawbone isn’t going to solve anything.
A lot of her first drafts get crumpled up and tossed on the ground.
Not right for each other. I can’t keep you tied to me. You’re free like the wind and I’m free like a bowl of condoms.
Stupid. Crummy poetry. She balls it up and starts over.
You were dumb to trust me. I cheated on you. I meant it. It will probably happen again if you don’t get out now.
What the fuck is wrong with her? She drags her charcoal pencil through the words, cutting deep gashes into the paper. It feels weird, trying to write a message instead of tapping it into her crystal. She uses a pencil and field guide for taking notes when she’s working, but those are always just notes to herself for later— descriptions of animals, reminders about which trails have been affected by flooding, normal ranger shit.
But trying to craft a message that concisely conveys exactly who she is and what she did— it’s taxing. It reminds her, weirdly, of passing notes in class when she was a teenager. She was always fucking bragging. Bobby’s taking me out in his elemental later. Folded up into triangles and flicked across the classroom to her friends. He’s gonna take me to help fight a wyrm this weekend.
Thirteen going on thirty. Someone with a centuries-long lifespan trying to cram so much in before she turned eighteen. Because once she stopped being young and hot, what was the point?
Even then, she knew— the second she gets old enough to know better, all this shit stops being fun and starts being her life.
Never should have made you agree to monogamy. I fucked up. I’ll move out. Can help cover mortgage for you and girls.
She stops staring at it and just sends it. It’s not like she’s trying to salvage something. This is one of those situations where a sledgehammer works just as well as a scalpel. She doesn’t need Jawbone to think kindly of her.
But she really doesn’t want to hurt him more than she already has.
Jawbone’s response comes sooner than she’s ready for it.
If you think I feel stuck, I don’t. I meant it. I’m happy to be each other’s one and only. I love you, darlin’.
Sandra Lynn throws up.
She can’t possibly be hungover anymore, but she feels it. Hollow and nauseous and angry. She thinks about the dead pirate king hanging from his tongue in Gibbety Square, just some dead thing for tourists to gawk at.
He doesn’t understand what she’s saying, probably because she’s not outright saying it. Because she’s a fucking coward. Jawbone thinks she’s feeling guilty for pressuring him into monogamy. And yeah, she is, but only because she’s a hypocrite and a whore. And too much a coward to just say what she did.
The fact that he used four of his limited words to say I love you, darlin’ just adds to the miserable shame pressing down on her chest. What the fuck is wrong with her?
She pays Ayda another hundred and fifty gold pieces.
Jawbone. I slept with someone else. I have a bad habit of sabotaging everything good, and I’m sorry you got caught up in it.
Fuck, she needs a drink. The violent parts of adventuring, she’s good at— swinging at pirates in the row, taking down demons, tackling elemental guardians. It’s all this in-between shit that sucks. The waiting. The talking things through. No, she wouldn’t want to live on this floating city, no matter how good Garthy O’Brien is at giving head. The way Leviathan works, the way it’s constantly in motion, constantly in a state of flux and yet exactly the same all the time— it’s too close to the way she experiences her own life. Every time she thinks she’s getting better, the tide comes back in and she’s left adrift.
She’s swallowing down another swig of whiskey back when the response arrives.
Were you possessed or under a spell? Nightmare King is some scary shit. Wish I could hold you, Sandy. Whatever happened, I forgive you.
That motherfucker.
Another hundred and fifty gold.
I wasn’t possessed. I was drunk, but I knew what I was doing. I fucked somebody else. I chose to do it. You deserve better.
By the time she receives a response to that, she’s crying, and it takes her a minute to read Jawbone’s words through the tears.
We can talk about this more when you get home. All my love to you and the kids. Stay safe.
It’s still— it’s still not what she needs. She can’t leave loose ends, not if she’s continuing on this journey with the kids. There’s a part of her— a part that gets louder and louder every day— that thinks it might be best for everyone if she goes into the Forest of the Nightmare King and doesn’t come back out.
It’s shitty.
It’s the worst kind of attitude to bring into a quest, but she’s trying hard to spin it into something positive. Of course she’d die for her daughter. She’d die for any of them. She’d die for Gilear. She’d die for Gorthalax.
(And wouldn’t it be so convenient, if she had to?)
She pays Ayda Aguefort one more time and then she locks her credit card so she won’t be tempted to keep explaining herself. This is it.
There’s nothing to talk about. I tried to rein myself in, and I failed. I’m not good in relationships. Sorry, Jawbone. I’m done.
If he responds, she doesn’t read it. She just stomps back outside of the Compass Points Library, hops onto Baxter and takes to the sky, letting the feel of the sea breeze in her hair drown out the self-hatred in her head. She pulls up, dips down, lets Baxter skim his wings in the water before flying back around to circle the Crow’s Keep.
Aloft, she buries her face in Baxter’s feathers.
At least there’s one guy she’ll never let down.