Tanis strode over to the disheveled bed and began poking through the covers. "It probably fell out of your pocket while you slept."
Flint's face brightened with hope. "I bet you're right!" He helped Tanis strip the bed, but they found nothing. Flint flapped the sheets, then flapped them harder, and finally clawed his way through them like an animal. Then he turned back to the bed and poked his nose into every cranny of the mattress and the frame. Finally he dropped to his knees and glared under it, peering into every dust ball and pushing aside old shoes. But he came up empty-handed. Flint felt panic rising past his stomach, reaching up to his throat, threatening to strangle him unless he controlled it.
"When do you last remember seeing it?" Tanis asked calmly.
Flint exploded. "I don't know!" He flailed his arms uselessly and paced between the bed and the hearth. "I don't remember much at all from last night." He tugged at the corners of his mustache until Tanis thought he would pull it right off.
"That's it!" Tanis said, snapping his fingers. "Last night at the Inn-you showed it to us while you talked about it. You probably just forgot it on the table. I'll bet Otik found it and is wondering right this minute who it belongs to." Tanis looked pleased with himself. "Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go get your bracelet and a couple plates of potatoes for breakfast!"
Flint looked marginally calmer as he followed Tanis's slender form out the door. "I hope you're right…" he said, his voice trailing off with doubt as he glanced back over his shoulder. "I've had a strange feeling about that bracelet from the moment I read those instructions." He shuddered, remembering. "There's something very odd about someone being willing to pay that much for a copper bracelet."
Knowing his friend's superstitious nature, Tanis felt compelled to ask, "Then why did you agree to make it?"
Flint's ample cheeks grew crimson under his salt-and-pepper beard. "I'll admit, at first I fell for her flattery. She said she'd heard I was the greatest metalsmith around." Suddenly, he frowned and scratched his graying head above the right ear. "Given her praise, I was surprised to see how simple it was in design-nowhere near as difficult as my usual work, and that's my professional opinion, not just ego." He shrugged. "Anyway, it was a long, cold winter, and I couldn't pass up the money."
Tanis stretched in the sunshine as Flint pulled shut the heavy, ornately carved door. He fished a heavy key from his pocket, jammed it in the brass lock, and gave it a twist. The bolt shot home with a satisfying thunk. Tanis looked back with raised eyebrows. "Why'd you do that? You never lock your house."
"I don't know, at the rate I've been losing things lately, I'd better start," mumbled Flint. He pocketed the key and patted it. "I thought you were hungry. What are you gawking at me for?" Tanis shrugged and smiled reassuringly, then the pair set off across Solace.
With the streets empty because of the festival, Tanis and Flint quickly covered the short distance to the inn. They fairly ran up the bridgewalk circling the massive tree trunk that held the inn aloft. With the weather so unseasonably warm, the door to the eatery was propped open with a keg. Otik stood behind the bar, polishing stoneware mugs with a soiled rag. He looked up as Flint clomped in, noted the dwarf's agitated expression, and nodded as Tanis followed him in.
"Hullo! I didn't expect to see you two again until the festival closed down for the evening. Back so soon for more of the dog that bit you?" the hearty innkeeper asked, smirking. He held the mug he was wiping under the ale spigot until a thick finger of foam curled down the outside, then offered it to Flint.
Flint scowled at the mug, but didn't reach for it. "Otik, tell me you've found a copper bracelet," he demanded without preamble.
Never one to hurry, Otik pursed his lips and absently gazed across the room thoughtfully. "A copper bracelet, you say? Hmm… That's a hard one."
Flint's eyes blazed. "Look, either you have found one or you haven't!"
Otik was unperturbed. "I once found a ring…"
Flint rolled his eyes impatiently and blew out his mustache. "I meant last night. Did you find a bracelet here, last night, when you cleaned up?"
"Oh, that's different, let me think… I didn't clean up last night-waited until this morning. That's right, I came downstairs early to ready the inn for breaking fast. Took a bowl of gruel from the porridge pot-not a good batch at all, though, all lumpy and gluey." Otik's eyes narrowed, and he scrubbed overzealously at a spot on the bar. "I'll be speaking to Amos Cartney. He can't go on selling grains that choke a man."
"Otik, the bracelet," Tanis reminded the innkeeper before Flint exploded.
"Oh, yes." Otik shook his head. "No, no bracelet. I'm sure I didn't find a bracelet. I could ask one of the serving girls, or you could check around your table yourself…"
Before the innkeeper could finish the sentence, Flint ran to the table and dropped to his knees, pushing chairs and benches out of his way. He gave up the search after only a few minutes, falling back on his haunches with a resigned, hopeless sigh, his arms folded across his knees.
"That doesn't look good," Otik muttered to Tanis. "What's so important about this bracelet?"
"It was commissioned by a lady from out of town, and she's coming to fetch it at the festival." Tanis remembered something and chuckled. "He lost it once already, yesterday, to a kender…" Tanis's voice trailed off as an awful idea took form in his head.
Tanis stepped away from the bar and approached his friend cautiously. The dwarf still sat on the floor, back against the wall, muttering incomprehensibly to himself. "Say, Flint, you don't suppose the bracelet could be with Tasslehoff-?"
"Burrfoot!" Flint spurted. His eyes shot open and his hands twisted into tight fists. "I should have thought of that. I knew he was just another thieving, scheming little-" The dwarf cut his verbal tirade short when he noticed a young serving girl, eyes wide and staring, as she lugged ashes from the fireplace.
"Well, that's simple, then," Tanis said. "The kender said he intended to stay here at the inn for a few days. Let's just find him and get it back," he finished reasonably.
"Yeah, I'll get it back." Flint rose to his feet, an evil glint in his eyes.
Otik leaned across the bar on his elbows. "You talking about that little kender fellow you two were drinking with last night?" Flint nodded. Otik shook his balding head. "You won't find him here. He bounced down the stairs early, ate breakfast-and a mighty big one, I'll add, for such a little fellow-then left, that little sling-stick over his shoulder."
Flint seized Otik's arm. "He was just going out for the day, right?"
Otik shook his head again. "I don't think so… He paid off his bill." Otik's expression turned to wonder. "Can you imagine, a kender actually paying his bill? Of course, I had to remind him several times-once he was all the way out the door-but he paid it, all right."
"Did he say where he was headed? The festival, perhaps?" Tanis asked.
Otik eased his bulk onto a stool and tapped his chin in thought. "Festival, hmm. I don't recollect… no, I'm sure not, come to think of it. Just making conversation, I asked him that very question myself. He said he'd had his fill the day before, said he was going to lick his finger, stick it in the air, and go wherever the wind was blowing."
Tanis shook his head sadly and clapped Flint's hunched shoulder sympathetically. "That about clinches it, Flint. You'll just have to tell this lady the truth and give her money back. She'll probably understand."
Flint had been staring silently at some distant point in space, absorbed in thoughts of revenge and kender hunting. Suddenly he spun, grabbed Tanis by the lapels, and shook him. "You don't understand! I don't have the money to give back to her! I spent it on supplies for our trading trip! I can't very well explain that, can I?"