Chapter Ten
When you are ready, Konrad had written in his note to Nanda, I await you.
He did not need to specify where; she would remember. He bade his coachman drive him to the city gate, and from there he made the rest of the journey on foot. No gentleman’s attire today, to his relief. For a venture into the enchanting dangers of the Bone Forest, he wore the simplest of garb: stout boots, a waxed great-coat, layers against the cold. Always he donned these with relief, for thus attired he felt like himself again.
Whoever that was.
Nanda laughed at his hut. It did make a comical sight in some respects, hiked up on its leggy stilts above the treacherously ice-wreathed swamp-water beneath. The hut itself looked overlarge, perched up there, its weather-darkened wooden slats extending a f
