Fern stands paralyzed outside Legends & Lattes, terrified to reunite with Viv after decades apart. Only the need to care for Potroast gets her moving. Viv opens the door, and they have an emotional reunion.

Inside, Fern tries coffee and politely lies about enjoying it, disappointing Viv. Overwhelmed, Fern changes the subject by asking if Viv got married, breaking the tension. She meets Viv’s wife, Tandri, a succubus; plus Cal, a taciturn hobgoblin carpenter; and Thimble, a shy, gray rattkin baker.

Cal and Viv show Fern the derelict building next door that will become her bookshop. Despite vacant windows and peeling paint, they reassure her it has good bones. Inside, Tandri reveals a cozy furnished bedroom they prepared, complete with a basket bed for Potroast. Overwhelmed, Fern bursts into tears.

Later, Fern recounts being rescued from pescadines by Astryx One-Ear. Viv expresses awe at the legendary Blademistress, while Tandri has never heard of her. Thimble quietly leaves cookies. Fern attributes her emotional state to the near-death experience.

Over the following weeks, Fern renovates the bookshop alongside Cal, finding the work therapeutic. They develop a comfortable, mostly wordless partnership. Cal gently probes her emotional state, correctly inferring she’s still worried about her choices.

Thimble delivers lunch daily but remains too shy to speak. Fern suspects Viv and Tandri are matchmaking and complains to Cal, who suggests they simply hope that people they care about find happiness. Cal teases her affectionately.

One evening, Fern and Viv unpack book crates, discovering old seagull-shaped bookends and a copy of Ten Links in the Chain, the first book Fern sold Viv decades ago. Viv grows serious, saying Fern saved her life by setting her on a new path, and she can now return the favor.

Fern names the shop Thistleburr Booksellers, a variation on the name of her old shop, Thistlebrun, which her father originally built. Opening day is an overwhelming success with many memorable customers.

One week after the successful opening, Fern sobs in the alley. Despite everything working perfectly, the hollow dissatisfaction within her has grown worse. Cal finds her and offers his flask. After drinking, Fern confesses her emptiness, and she fears she cannot continue or admit this to Viv. Cal points out their friendship survived decades of silence and urges her to talk to Viv tomorrow. Fern agrees, drunkenly calling him uncle.

Later that night, drunk and restless, Fern leaves her unlocked shop with her satchel and Ten Links in the Chain as a peace offering. She sees lights on at Legends & Lattes but decides to walk around the block first. Slightly lost, she spots Astryx securing a tarpaulin on a two-wheeled cart.

Imagining the painful conversation ahead, Fern panics. On drunken impulse, she climbs into the cart and hides under the tarpaulin. She berates herself but doesn’t leave. As Astryx returns and tends the cart, Fern falls asleep.

Fern wakes hungover in the moving cart, face-to-face with a grinning, bound goblin. She screams and tumbles out onto a country road. Astryx recognizes her from the pescadine attack.

Astryx explains the goblin is a bounty and they are a day and a half from Thune. She offers cheese and bread, then prepares to send Fern walking back to a village. Fern realizes with horror she has no money. Astryx makes clear she will not turn back.

The goblin curses in its own language. Seeing an opportunity, Fern implies she understands Goblin when Astryx asks. She proposes translating in exchange for passage to the next town. Astryx accepts despite skepticism about how a penniless bookseller will afford the return trip.

As they travel, Fern struggles to write an apology to Viv, feeling immense guilt for abandoning her shop and especially Potroast. The goblin, named Zyll, watches with interest. Astryx jogs tirelessly alongside. Fern speaks nonsensical Goblin to keep up her ruse with Astryx; Zyll is surprised but does not respond.

That evening, Fern asks about Zyll’s crimes. Astryx recounts that Zyll allegedly disrupted the supply chain of the Seventy Saint army in the North Territory. She explains bounties are contractual deliveries, not moral judgments—after centuries, good and evil blur. Zyll studies Astryx’s sheathed sword, murmuring in Goblin.

Fern challenges Astryx’s indifference, comparing her attitude to her legendary status. Astryx expresses weariness with expectations of excitement, saying that after 10 centuries, dry socks are what she finds exciting.

Fern dreams of her empty bookshop, where dream-Viv and Tandri discuss selling it while Potroast pines. In the dream, Viv says Fern is gone, waking her.

Astryx wakes Fern to report that Zyll has escaped. During a fruitless search through the woods that leaves Fern scratched by brambles, Astryx carries her part of the way. Astryx gives up, apathetic about what may have happened to Zyll, and Fern rebukes her indifferent attitude. Astryx says getting upset over plans gone awry isn’t worth it, and they return to camp to find the goblin calmly waiting with a captured hazferou, a venomous chicken-like creature.

Astryx attempts to separate Zyll from the hazferou, but both resist. She offers a bargain: rebind Zyll less severely and spare the bird if Zyll cooperates. Zyll agrees. The hazferou reappears on the buckboard two leagues later. Astryx reaches for her sword, but Zyll waves her bound hands significantly. At Zyll’s hissed command, the bird hops into the cart and roosts. Astryx relents.

As the journey continues, Fern’s fur is grimy and scratched. Zyll produces moldy-looking herbs from one of her many pockets, which numb and soothe the scratches. Later, Astryx questions why Fern fled her life as a bookseller. Fern vents that bookselling is stressful and unpredictable, but she does it because she loved it and believed it important. Astryx notes Fern used past tense. Fern deflects, asking if Astryx always felt good about her work. Astryx replies nothing feels good all the time and reminds Fern that Bycross is a day away, ending the conversation.

Fern rehearses her apology aloud, using Zyll as audience. She tries various approaches, imagining Viv’s responses. When she voices a hypothetical dismissal, she despairs at how ridiculous her situation is.

Astryx jogs backward beside the cart and advises simplicity, noting that the guilty dog barks loudest and a quick cut is best. Fern objects that she wants to apologize, not stab Viv. Astryx says it seems wasteful to agonize over something Fern already ran from.

Fern points ahead where someone waits. Astryx’s hand goes to her sword. A snakelike man called a tapenti blocks a footbridge. He wears two magestones on his belt, meaning he uses magic. Holding a slim dagger, he demands Zyll for safe passage, momentarily confused by the hazferou.

Astryx declines and draws her blade. The sword—an Elder Blade named Nigel—speaks pompously, identifying the tapenti’s magestones as common hedge-wizard fare. Astryx cuts him off.

The tapenti identifies himself as Chak the Pathless. He recognizes Astryx and claims to be her greatest student. Fern warns he faces a legend, but Chak says he came prepared. He formally challenges Astryx for custody of Zyll, to disarm rather than death. Astryx agrees.