The Orphan and the Thief

Chapter 15: Northern Most Tip

Agatha's web worked just as well as the first time. They emerged in a thick patch of frigid mist and Toad immediately crossed his arms against the chill. In the distance, he could see the blurred dark shapes of pitched roofs and spires up ahead.

He turned to Melena, his teeth beginning to chatter. "Fancy we get some of those sweaters?"

Toad had never seen snow and the city of East-of-Burg looked like it had been dusted with powdered sugar. The bricked streets were nearly as bustling as Hickory with buggies and carts, pedestrians hailing each other from across the road. Toad's chest flooded with nostalgia. He missed Hickory. The clattering, the buzz, the energy. They passed a few people taking their Spit-Fires (dressed in cozy looking sweaters) on walks. Hazel snorted at the sight. The inhabitants of East-of-Burg were dressed far warmer than Toad or Melena in fur-lined coats, wool hats and high boots. Shivering, Toad eyed them with envy, feeling that his coat, which had always managed just fine in the cool Hickory nights, was criminally threadbare.

Melena quickly spotted a clothing shop squeezed between a barber's and a ratty looking bookshop.

Hazel wasn't allowed inside the clothing store (even though he couldn't read the words on the sign nailed to the door, the large X over a stenciled dragon made it clear enough) and he waited with the dragon outside under a glowing lamppost while Melena acquired their new assortment of clothing. The moment she returned back onto the street, loaded down with parcels, Toad pulled the new thick, woolly sweater Melena passed him over his head. They stopped by three more shops, even one that made the miniature fire-proof sweaters for Spit-Fires, before Melena deemed them well enough prepared. They then hurried to the train station. But after a short conversation at the ticket booth, they discovered the train to the Blackens wouldn't depart until tomorrow at six in the morning.

Shouldering their belongings, they trooped back out of the station and rented a room for the night at the cheapest hotel they could find, which happened to be directly over a stretch of tracks. They stuffed all the new garments into their knapsacks — Melena had bought Toad a new one. Toad couldn't imagine how they would need even half of what Melena had bought. They ate some of the cauliflower cheese sandwiches Izzie had packed them and Melena, after a spell of indecision, fed three silvertons into an ancient gas heater.

Hazel didn't like the new sweater Melena had bought her. Toad had been highly entertained (and slightly surprised) to watch Melena wrestle with the dragon for a good ten minutes before the checkered sweater was in place. Hazel had always been well behaved with Melena, but apparently she'd never attempted to put a sweater on her.

"Hazel!" Melena's scold was like a whip. Hazel froze in her attempt to shred the sweater to pieces and the dragon slunk off under one of the beds to — Toad was sure — chew up her new garment in peace.

Melena wound a battered looking alarm clock Toad had found in the depths of a dusty wardrobe, and they turned in, shivering, despite the efforts of the groaning heater in the corner. Their sleep was splintered by a periodic sharp whistle and the roar of pistons as a train barreled under their window, making the room shake, showering them with bits of plaster.

They were relieved when the alarm blared at five in the morning. They gathered their things (Melena retrieved the sweater Hazel had successfully removed from under the bed and spent another ten minutes wrestling it back on), and hurried into the frigid morning. It was still dark out and Toad nearly cracked a hip slipping on a patch of ice outside the hotel's door. After snatching up two blisteringly hot meat pasties from a blue-jawed cart vendor for a hasty breakfast, they entered the train station to find it just as busy in the early morning as it had been late yesterday evening.