Thimble

Teor clears the furniture from a narrow drainage grate and discovers Thimble lying unconscious within a space only someone of her tiny size could enter.

Thimble is a four-inch-tall pixie with short brown hair who appears older than Teor remembers. Her dark-green clothes are tattered, her normally bright spring-green wings are muted, one wing is bent, and she lies unconscious with her needle swords scattered beyond her reach.

A small ceramic rune lies concealed beside Thimble inside the drainage grate. It is small enough to have been slid through the narrow opening with her.

As Thimble hovers near death, she remembers Tír Cruthú, the land of Faerie beyond the mortal realm, and sees a Golden Orchard swimming through her mind.

Thimble remembers Thjazi and hears his final message asking that she be told not to be scared, while the image of a soaring falcon passes through her fading consciousness.

Thimble remembers being told that the doors to Faerie had closed. On that day, her connection to the realm beyond disappeared and she began to age like a mortal.

With two successful and two failed death saves, Thimble’s inner light begins to fade as death draws close.

Teor remembers Thimble as Thjazi’s constant partner in crime, adventure, war, and heroism. Wherever one travelled, the other was usually beside them.

Ignoring his own safety, Teor forces his claws through the narrow stone grate, skins his knuckles, and tears the obstruction from the floor to reach Thimble.

Teor channels divine radiance through his claw and into Thimble’s chest, healing her wounds and pulling her back from the edge of death.

Thimble’s fading light returns and she regains consciousness, immediately recognising Teor beside her.

Upon seeing the ceramic glyph beside her, Thimble insists that she must still deliver it to Thjazi, unaware that the execution has already occurred.

Azune, Occtis, and Teor tell Thimble that the rescue failed and Thjazi has been executed. Thimble realises that night has fallen and breaks down because she never had the chance to say goodbye.

Azune tells Thimble that he communicated with Thjazi before his death and that Thjazi wanted her to know she had done well and that he was proud of her.

Thimble says that people entered the hideout and attacked her before she could deliver the glyph. She is immediately disturbed by the question of how they knew about the plan.

Because the genuine escape glyph remains with Thimble, Azune concludes that a different object carrying the same magical signatures must still be concealed upon Thjazi’s body. The investigators decide that they need to return to the Fang home.

Thimble remembers masked figures forcing their way into the hideout while she was finishing the escape glyph and waiting for the moment when she could deliver it to Thjazi.

Thimble was supposed to fly through Dol-Makjar under cover of darkness and conceal the completed escape glyph inside Thjazi’s coat.

Azune’s assigned role was to manipulate the magical inspection so that the escape glyph would not be reported as magic upon Thjazi.

Thimble remembers killing at least three of the masked figures who attacked the hideout, yet none of their bodies remain when the investigators search the room.

With her final effort, Thimble grabbed the completed escape glyph and fell into the drainage grate, hiding both herself and the rune from the attackers.

An imposing figure appears in the entrance to Thimble’s hideout. Occtis does not recognise him, but Thimble, Teor, and Azune immediately know the man as Kattigan Vale.

Kattigan’s imposing entrance is weakened when he stumbles against the doorway, revealing that he has been drinking. Recovering quickly, he jokes that he expected a funeral rather than a reunion.

Thimble realises that the attackers broke open the glass case containing the Stone of Nightsong and stole the relic from the hideout.

Thimble establishes that Thjazi was taken into custody approximately two weeks before his execution.

Thimble draws the stolen relic for Occtis. It is a spherical carved stone formed by a bird embracing itself within its wings, which Thjazi described as a nightingale.

After studying Thimble’s drawing, Occtis says that he knows someone who may be able to help identify or understand the Stone of Nightsong.

While introducing Kattigan to Occtis, Thimble explains that Kattigan abandoned their old companions after a battle. Teor nevertheless describes him as a fierce warrior and a good man.

After learning that Thjazi’s body is at Halandil’s home, Thimble tearfully asks the others to take her there.

Before leaving the ransacked hideout, Thimble searches for something belonging to Thjazi that she cannot abandon. With help, she finds a letter bearing the single name Bolaire.

Aranessa remembers marrying Thjazi near the end of the War of Axe and Vine, when he was a dashing adventurer with a pixie companion and magic in his eyes.

Vaelus asks where the little fairy companion who travelled with Thjazi can be found. Murray and Bolaire realise that she means Thimble.

When Thimble’s name is spoken downstairs, the silver box upstairs flies open and the black clay and velvet hidden within begin moving together.

The shaking black clay and velvet rapidly assemble into the shape of a mask resembling the living clay mask worn by Bolaire.