Quest givers, traders and trainers.
“The lanterns hold the dark back, friend. Barely.”
“You've the look of someone the Lattice has touched. Good. We need you.”
“Bring me ore and I'll bring you an edge.”
“The forge never sleeps. Neither do I, much.”
“Potions, scrolls, glyphs. If you can pay, I can sell.”
“Careful with the cheap phials. They fizz.”
“The crypt east of town has been stirring. My guards won't go near it.”
“Steel and lantern-light. That's all the Hollow respects.”
“Warm bed, warm stew, cold ale. Pick two.”
“Rest here a while, and you'll fight better for it.”
“A good horse is worth ten swords on the road.”
“She'll carry you anywhere, so long as there's grass at the end.”
“Bring me Lattice Dust and I'll weave a little more into your gear.”
“Imbuing is patient work.”
“The Shattered Hall wants fighters. Lantern or Thorn, it makes no difference to the stones.”
“Hold the hearths, come back with honour, and I'll see you armed for it.”
“Wear what keeps you alive. Look like whatever you please.”
“Anything you've ever worn, I can make your gear look like. A stitch here, a dye there.”
“Mirrorpool's full of trout, and the Silverrun has char if you've patience.”
“Cook what you catch over a fire. A full belly fights better.”
“Every hall under Aldervast keeps its own time. Turn a sigil in my glass and the sand keeps yours.”
“The omens shift with the week: hardened halls one week, haunted the next. The sand doesn't care which.”
“Beat the glass and your sigil burns brighter. Fall behind it and it dims. That's the whole of the craft.”
“Boars in the turnips again. And wolves. And something worse, I think.”
“The Heartroot bleeds, outsider. Something beneath it drinks.”
“We do not trust easily. Earn it.”
“The Rootdeep Warrens were sealed for a reason. Someone unsealed them.”
“Rootsteel, sapwine, moonmoss. Fair trades only.”
“Ships go out. Fewer come back. Something in the grotto is calling them.”
“The Tidewardens pay their debts.”
“Buy low, sell high, and never ask where it came from.”
“The Exchange takes a small fee. Very small. Mostly.”
“Your stash is safe with us. Safer than with you.”
“Want to found a guild? The charter costs gold, and friends.”
“Herbs in, potions out. Mind the fumes.”
“Sea salt fades everything. I put the colour back, or any colour you like.”
“Bring me a look you've worn before and I'll stitch it onto what you wear now.”
“Herring off the harbour wall, mackerel further out. Watch for the schools: where the water boils, the big ones are feeding.”
“Cast, wait, and strike when the float goes under. Not before. Never before.”
“Worms bring them quicker. A good lure brings the big ones up. I sell both.”
“The Choir is gathering in Old Kaldris. We need eyes inside.”
“Ash in your lungs means you're alive. Keep it that way.”
“The Cinder Fall wasn't natural. The glass remembers what happened.”
“The Lattice Gate opens to places that should not exist. Bring Waystones and I'll open the way.”
“The sun is very loud. Nobody told me it would be so loud.”
“Ysolde keeps the Gate better than I did. Don't tell her I said so. She'd only stand up straighter.”
“I can still feel the far side's places coming undone, one at a time, like teeth. It doesn't hurt. I'd thought it would.”
“Patience walked that wheel three hundred years because I never told her she could stop. Remember that, about people.”
“Highwatch has stood eight hundred years. It will not fall on my watch.”
“The Spire is waking. I can feel it in the stones.”
“Frostforged steel holds an edge in any cold.”
“Warm water. Do you know how long I've wanted my feet in warm water? Neither do I. Longer than that.”
“The king was a fool, but he was a fool on my side. I'll say that for him and nothing else.”
“My girls are snow now. That's all right. They always did say they'd rather be anything than carding.”
“She'll come back for it, you know. The one with the shears. Spindle or no spindle. She's patient. Cutters are.”
“Hallam kept this Light forty years. I've kept it eleven, and I've never seen the sea do this.”
“Mind the shingle when the tide's out. The pools are deeper than they look, and some of them glow.”
“Since the Undertow the warp goes out with every tide, and where it goes out past the Gate, the sea goes after it. Find the bell it rings down there. Then mind your feet.”
“That glass the sea leaves in its chests: set a piece in a waystone and the tide will find that place for certain. The sea goes where the light is.”
“Every thread in the Lattice passes through this shrine. I count them. Lately there are fewer every night.”
“The cold keeps the threads still. Sit, if you can bear it.”
“Thirty winters I've kept these stones, and the threads never moved. Now hark at them.”
“Mind the snow by the third anchor. It's not all snow.”
“Everything up here is so bright. I keep shutting my eyes, and then I find I don't want to.”
“Your world keeps its knots on the inside. I keep wanting to turn it over and look.”
“She wore my face for ten thousand winters. I never once asked her if she minded.”
“She's in there. I can feel her the way you feel a step in the dark.”
“Every piece of her is a piece of me, turned round. I don't know what that makes us.”
“Wenna weaves the way Hesper did. Quick, and humming, and sure.”
“I sit by the water in the evenings. Sometimes it's only me in it. Sometimes it isn't.”
“Petra says the Gate is still weaving. I know that sound. Somebody is keeping the other side of it.”
“Thirty-one frames. I walk them every morning and count the hooks. My father did, and his.”
“Mind the sheep. They're not mine, mostly. They just like the frames.”
“The guild's been gone a hundred years. Nobody told the frames.”
“Not yet, she says. Well. I've waited this long. I'm a finisher. Waiting's most of it.”
“Hob shells a pea like a man cutting a purse. I've told him.”
“She'll know when it's done. Weavers always know. They just don't like to say.”
“There were three of us that night, you know. I never did ask the other one's name. She was too busy with her yardwand.”
“I keep the grass down. The dead don't mind it long, but the living do.”
“That's the guild's bell. It rang for every one of them. It'll ring for me, I suppose, if there's anybody to pull it.”
“She measured me once, when I was a boy and bad with the fever. I got better. She said she'd keep it.”
“Short by an ell. Fancy her lying to me. Fancy me not seeing it. I'd have been proud of her, if she were mine.”
“Dunstan cuts the grass too short at the edges. I've told him. He says the dead don't mind.”
“It's in her basket. It'll keep. Good linen keeps.”
“I never asked who sent us, you know. None of us did. You don't ask, when you're asked to measure. You measure.”