And I'm a guy who knows his way.

  Skies are blue and clouds are white

  I know this day's gonna come out right.

  Got a charmed and a boring life.

  Who put that word inside my head?

  Boring's not how Jonathan rolls,

  'Cause I've got super not-boring goals.

  Cut the costs on the transit lines.

  Sign up new exclusive deals,

  This is how my best life feels.

  Before I need to get dentures!

  The wind's in the west, and there's hair on my chest.

  I can see all my best years ahead!

  Come on life, one more adventure, before I'm dead!

  Met a stranger and made a deal.

  Fought a monster and found true love,

  it's just what I was dreaming of.

  My girl got in trouble and I followed her down

  To the big city where I faced my fear,

  And swung a hundred yards on a chandelier.

  My ship came in but it feels like it sank.

  Please boss lady give me one more try,

  I've got my nose to your stone but I want to fly.

  It's where I want to be sent, sure as day follows night.

  I'm shaved, clean and dressed, and I'm looking my best.

  But I'm ready to wrestle the tide!

  Come on boss, send me on an adventure, before I've died!

  I'd like it best, to have a quest.

  I've hoped and prayed for some crusade,

  to be bestowed the open road.

  And I'm finding my own way.

  Every day life's a little shorter

  Time's a ship and we're was all aboard her.

  Leads back home to Merrily.

  Skies are blue and clouds are white,

  I hope it all turns out all right.

  We're a team—I won't bench her!

  Make a home, build a nest,

  Every day is a quest.

  I can see all our best years ahead!

  Together we're on an adventure, until we're dead!

  Jonathan, having concluded his musical number, strode boldly down the Warbling Way toward Hammarket over the lingering tune of the underscore. He stepped jauntily but awkwardly in time, in the manner of a prancing horse who had perhaps consumed a few too many beers. The damp drizzle of an overcast October evening revealed no sign of blue skies or white clouds; but Jonathan paid no mind to the weather here in shared objective reality.

  Merrily was home, and that made the day perfect.

  Warbling Way was broad—one of the main arteries for the dozens of bulky trade caravans that came and went from this quarter of Green Bridge every day. The crowds around Jonathan in the streets looked at him with expressions ranging from amused curiosity to shock. Many of them peered around in the waning dusk light, looking for the source of the music.

  He stopped before a small, tidy house in a row of other small, tidy houses. Entering the yard, he bounded up the steps and flung open the front door, in perfect time with the stinger at the end of the play-out.

  “Honey, I’m home!” he called out.

  There was no answer. The Snugg gate monitors had reported her early return to Green Bridge with Vicod Rayth and the rest of Cyrus Stoat’s summer interns. By the light of a small oil lamp, he saw that Merrily’s cloak and hood were on the two pegs near the door. But there was no sign of his wife.

  “Merrily!” he called again. Silence greeted him at first, followed by a muffled sound coming from the small drawing room. He poked his head through the doorway.

  Merrily sat at the tiny wooden table in one of their two chairs. Her head was buried in her hands, and her back heaved. The muffled sound he had heard earlier was her sobs.

  He sat down in the other chair next to her and put one gentle hand on her back.

  “What’s wrong, Merrily?”

  She looked up at him, tears staining her perfect cheeks and her radiant eyes puffy with weeping.

  “Rolly is dead,” she managed, between gasps.

  ???

  “Rolly saved my life with a cart full of horse manure,” announced Cyrus Stoat, standing near at hand to Jonathan and Merrily. “I learned how to be a better Applied Historian from him. My life is better because he lived.”

  Jonathan looked at the ground steadfastly, struggling with what he would say. Around him, the mourners waited quietly for the next one to speak.

  It was Merrily. Her eyes were dark and shadowed, and it seemed to Jonathan that she swayed slightly in the wind. She had not spent the night in their home last night. But her voice was loud and clear. “Rolly hid my words from people who would hurt me. He never saw the world for anything but a joke. My life is better because he lived.”

  Jonathan swallowed hard. Merrily had changed. This was the old Merrily; but he had seen another one last night.

  “” she had screamed at him, as he stood in mystified horror in their parlor, his cheek still smarting from a slap. “” And just like that, she had left. It wasn’t even that time of the month.

  Jonathan felt it was his time to speak. But as he opened his mouth, he suddenly found his mind falling into a different pattern of thinking, shifting his view of the world around him.

  “,” he said quietly in the fey-tongue. It was a little-used skill of his childhood, learned from the elusive and shadowy denizens of the deep forest around his home. “

  Merrily looked at him for a long moment, her emerald eyes unreadable. His heart sank a little, remembering the reality he was in now. But as he looked away, his mind still operating in the variegated reality induced by the fey-speech, his eyes drifted over a peculiar figure in the crowd. It stood at the back, nearly obscured by several large men. It wore a hood. The bright path—its golden thread shining through all the shadows of close realities—ran directly through him.

  A tiny humanoid figure sat on one shoulder, watching Jonathan. The bright path ran through her too. She was a snarf, plainly; and he caught a faint hint of familiarity in the contemptuous slouch of her posture. It was impossible—but there she was.

  He turned back to Merrily to point out the pair. But when he returned his gaze to where the man and his tiny companion had stood, they were gone, in the irritating manner of characters in a cheap mystery story.

  If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

  ???

  The eulogies carried on for longer than Jonathan would have liked. He was itching to chase after the hooded man and his tiny companion.

  Victor Hogman surprised Jonathan by making an appearance, and surprised him even more with his invocation of Ash. It wasn’t safe to be an Advocate anymore, and in any event, Jonathan had no idea that Victor was acquainted with Rolly. But any curiosity at Victor’s presence was soon driven out by the gnawing fear in his heart at Merrily’s change—and, too, by the suddenly urgent need to find the mismatched pair from the funeral.

  He nibbled listlessly at the luncheon after the service. But compared to Merrily, he engaged in rank gluttony. She simply sat in her chair next to him, staring wordlessly at a bit of broccoli on her plate.

  “Are you alright?” he asked awkwardly. He knew it was a waste of breath. She was not alright. He wanted to embrace her, but remembered last night’s painful lesson in the consequences would follow.

  “I’m fine,” she answered. Jonathan knew Merrily well enough to read her body language as if she was speaking to him. This was , as clearly as if she had shouted it.

  He left her alone.

  Throughout lunch, when he wasn’t gnawing at the thin bone of marital strife, Jonathan looked around at the other guests, hoping to spot the man in the hood and his small companion. He excused himself once or twice and made a circuit around the graveyard, but the only people he found were a handful of mathematicians cheerfully relieving themselves on the verge.

  “Have you seen a man in a hood with a snarf?” he asked them.

  “A man… and a snarf?” repeated one of the mathematicians, raising an eyebrow.

  “Yes,” he confirmed. “Did you see them?”

  “Aye,” said the academic.

  “Which way did the man go?” asked Jonathan, growing suddenly excited.

  “He flew off into the sky on wings of gold, shitting candy and singing of death and glory,” replied the mathematician. “And as it happens, I have a bridge to Farley Island I can sell you, if you’re interested.”

  Jonathan’s face grew stony as the sarcastic mathematician and his companions made their way back to the luncheon tables. But no one else he encountered had any more helpful clues.

  Before he could resume his place at the tables, Veridia Snipe flagged him down. She wore a smart suit of black-dyed wool and a gray cravat, after the style of her male colleagues and competitors in the trade quarter. The sober business attire was heavily modified to accommodate her expanding belly; she looked to be nearly due. Her hair was loose, and it gave her face an unusually feminine cast.

  “Mr. Miller,” she said, “I want you to come to my office immediately once we get back to the city.”

  “I’d like to spend the evening with my—” he began.

  “My office, Miller,” she interrupted sharply. “Time-sensitive matter. I have it from reliable sources that Mrs. Hunter won’t be home, anyway.” Her face softened slightly. “I’m sorry,” she added. “But work will take your mind off it. My office.”

  ???

  “Merrily,” Cyrus called as Jonathan and Merrily stepped out of the carriage box. “I’ll need you tonight at Redbun. We must have a close look at Rolly’s office, and I want your help with organizing the interviews tomorrow. We mustn’t waste any more time; you can line them up while I talk to them.”

  A flash of irritation and anger crossed Merrily’s face, and Jonathan cringed reflexively. “I still have hours of reading to do for Glibgrub’s lecture, an essay on Gorgovian foreign policy for your course, and work to do for the Queen. And in case you’d forgotten, Stoat, I am now married. So—no. I cannot help you tonight at Redbun.” And with that she flounced away angrily, leaving Jonathan to trail awkwardly after her. He cast a sheepish look over his shoulder at Cyrus in mute apology for his wife.

  Jonathan found Veridia Snipe already at work in her office when he arrived. A coal stove heated the room to a cozy temperature. But for the harsh, chill breeze of the October air outside, he would have found it uncomfortable. His host sat back awkwardly in her chair, unable to lean forward toward her writing with the huge bump in her belly.

  “I have dispatches here for you to take with you when you go to Hog Hurst,” she announced without any greeting. “I’ll need you to leave tomorrow.”

  “Hog Hurst?” he repeated cautiously. “I just got back yesterday. Can’t we send a post rider?”

  She shook her head sternly. “You’re not just carrying the mail, Mr. Miller. I need you to check in on the Gray Kingdom. The weekly dispatch didn’t come in, and the latest coal shipment was late and underweight.”

  Jonathan clenched his fist in frustration, out of Miss Snipe’s eyesight below the level of the table.

  “Miss Snipe, surely I can be more helpful here in Green Bridge. Let me… assist Cyrus Stoat with his investigation of Rolly’s murder! I know it’s terrible for Merrily. They were good friends, and she’s awfully torn up about it. Or I can help figure out where the goblins here in the city have gotten to. Or—”

  “Mr. Miller,” she interrupted him. Her face was surprisingly neutral. After his ill-advised outburst, he’d expected lightning and thunder. But she simply looked at him, her eyes narrowed appraisingly, as one might look at a difficult tool or an unwelcome piece of mail.

  “Mr. Miller,” she repeated. “I need you in the Gray Kingdom. I need you to sort things out with the goblins.”

  “But there are things happening here!” he protested again, taking his life in his hands. “Important things! is where I need to be. King Simon has got the goblins under control, and he’s got plenty of help from The Gizzard and the Quiet Ones—”

  The storm clouds began to gather on Miss Snipe’s face, and Jonathan gulped, suddenly finding that his voice had abandoned him. But then she took a deep breath and put a hand on her belly, closing her eyes for a moment, and the storm passed as abruptly as it had come on.

  “Adventure, Mr. Miller,” she remarked calmly. “That’s what you were singing about earlier, wasn’t it? I could hear you all the way at the other end of Warbling Way. You want adventure. You want to make things right with your wife. You want to swing on a chandelier… again. But that’s not what I need from you. I need you to make your piece of our organization work, and work well. You’ve made an acceptable start. But the work isn’t finished. That’s where you need to find adventure, Mr. Miller. Or you need to find it outside of Snugg and Company.”

  “Don’t you care who killed Rolly?” he asked plaintively.

  “Don’t you trust Cyrus Stoat to find out?” she countered.

  “No,” he answered. “No, I don’t. He’s arrogant, erratic, and actually I think he’s coming a bit unhinged.”

  A coy smile played on Veridia’s lips.

  “Correct on all counts,” she said. “Fortunately, I already know who killed Rolland Gorp.”

  He stared at her in silence for several moments.

  Miss Snipe rolled her eyes.

  “Mr. Miller, I’m going to extend you a bit of additional trust. You haven’t really earned it yet, but I’m feeling adventurous myself. If I even suspect you’ve repeated what I’m about to tell you, I’ll have you killed immediately. Do we understand each other?”

  He swallowed and nodded silently.

  “Mr. Gorp was killed by a religious lunatic named Robert of Gorham. He’s had a number of aliases over the years, largely to obscure the fact that he’s King Leeland’s uncle. He presently poses as a janitor in the College of mathematics, named Demiter Filtch. Gorham was acting at the direction of Sir Richard of Enderly, a Crown Knight who Hobb the Wise banished two years ago. And Sir Richard, if my reports are correct, has either succumbed to profound and charismatic insanity, or else has become the tool of something calling itself ‘God,’ the true nature of which, I confess, is wholly unknown to me.”

  Jonathan simply stared at her, trying to keep up.

  “How do you know this?” he asked. “And if you’re sure it’s true, why don’t you tell the Billies?”

  “I know it’s true,” she replied, “because I have a mole in Gorham’s cult who witnessed all the relevant discussions. And I haven’t told the Billies because I don’t want them to disrupt Prince Robert just yet.”

  Jonathan rose to his feet in outrage.

  “You want Rolly’s murderer to go free?” he demanded. “I should tell the Billies myself, and damn your assassins!”

  Miss Snipe rose to her feet as well, somewhat awkwardly with her distended belly.

  “Sit down, Mr. Miller,” she said. Her voice brooked no disobedience. It was a terrible voice; she could have killed him with it herself, without bothering the Special Operations Department. He sat. She followed him back down.

  “I do not want to disrupt Prince Robert yet, or Filtch, or whatever he’s calling himself, because both Queen Anne and Cyrus Stoat are focused on the wrong question. killed Rolland Gorp is irrelevant; the question I need answered is .

  “Cyrus is going to find out , though he doesn’t know it yet. He may be arrogant, erratic, and unhinged, as you say, but he is also brilliant. He’ll become obsessed with the case, and won’t let himself rest until he solves it. He’ll make connections I don’t see, and blunder about getting into trouble until he steps in the answer by accident. If I told him, now, what I know about Gorham, his investigation would be over. I would also have to expose my mole, losing my intelligence source. Gorham would be condemned as an insane fanatic, executed for murder, and forgotten. None of that would solve the problem of So I need Robert of Gorham to live on—for now—so that Cyrus can discover he killed Rolland Gorp.”

  Jonathan thought about that.

  “Why does ‘why’ matter?” he asked finally.

  “Because ‘why’ is the most important question, Mr. Miller,” she answered softly. “If you can ask ‘why,’ then you must. But to be more concrete: I must better understand the risk posed by Sir Richard of Enderly—or whatever he is. There was a reason he manipulated Gorham to kill Rolly, and that reason has nothing to do with Gorham’s tired old dogma. Sir Richard is playing a game of war stones against someone, but I can’t see the whole board, and I don’t know his opponent. My job is to detect, understand, and mitigate risks. That includes both new pricing by our competitors and the rise of an unknown power with delusions of divinity.”

  She folded her hands precisely on the swelling lump of her belly, and stared at him with a terrifying intensity.

  “I will not permit God to meddle in our markets,” she concluded.

  Jonathan looked for a long time at the surface of the table. He found that his hand had unclenched, and he was sweating in the heat of the coal stove.

  “What does this have to do with me going to the Gray Kingdom?” he asked.

  “Nothing at all,” she said. “You’re going to the Gray Kingdom to sort out our coal shipments with King Simon. Leave the detective work to a professional scoundrel, Mr. Miller, and leave Green Bridge tomorrow to do your job.”

  He silently stood and turned to leave. But then a thought struck him, and he turned back.

  “You

  tell Cyrus who killed Rolly, just so he’d do what you want him to and carry on with his investigation.”

  She nodded curtly.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” he continued.

  Veridia Snipe smiled at him—a shocking expression on her drawn, pinched face—and winked.

  “Nothing at all,” she repeated. He was absolutely certain it was a lie.

  To listen to a performance of the song at the beginning of the chapter,

  please look for "The Bright Path Podcast" on SoundCloud, and choose .