White Rat shrugged and nodded with an affirmative squeak.

Feista smirked. “I suppose that makes the rest of us too big?”

The tiny woman gave a massive eye roll, to the effect that this was an obvious point. A few of the other Wood Gnomes muttered under their breath.

“All right, I was just asking,” Feista said, paws in the air. An idea was forming in her head. “Mr. Poldo suggested that I ask for your help with my work.”

As one, every Wood Gnome suddenly discovered a fascinating patch of wall or ceiling to stare at. White Rat chittered something that was both unintelligible and yet also clearly an excuse.

“I’d pay you, of course,” said the Gnoll.

The number of Gnomes on her desk tripled before she had completed her sentence. Round, eager faces smiled up at her from beneath a variety of rodents’ skulls.

“It’s just that it’s not really a simple task,” sighed Feista. “The calculations are fairly complex.” By way of example, she sketched out a sample equation above the column for estimated tax burden. “See, you need to use the number from the fourth column and the tax rate from the nineteenth.”

Rat Pelt clapped three times and barked something. The Wood Gnomes all but disappeared, and Feista’s parchment trembled under a swirling morass of blurring Gnomes. A few high-pitched squabbles rose above the din, but when the dust and paper settled a few moments later, the entire column had been erased and filled in with corrected figures.

Feista stared past the paper, her mind’s eye locked on the amazing possibilities behind the fresh pencil marks. “Wait, what if we apply the new numbers to the rest of the columns?” she asked, filling out new formulas above each column.

Rat Pelt squeaked and clapped again. A sort of organized chaos erupted on Feista’s desk, like a tornado setting the table for tea. More than one brawl broke out regarding math and the order that it should be done in, and the Gnoll thought she would have to intervene at one point. Yet a sheet that would have taken Feista over an hour to fill out was completed and double-checked in less than a minute.

The Gnomes stared up at Feista with wide smiles. She stared back with wide eyes. “This changes everything,” she breathed. “This is going to make my life so much easier.”

“You probably shouldn’t say things like that.” Duine Poldo leaned forward in his saddle, or Thane’s backpack, to speak into the Troll’s ear. The birches and maples of the Green Span drifted by them, sun-dappled and painted the colors of a flame by autumn’s touch.

“I’m sorry?” rumbled Thane.

“I don’t mean to be rude,” said Poldo hurriedly. “It’s just not wise to make such statements aloud.”

“I shouldn’t say our next lodgings will be better,” the Troll said flatly.

“Well, not that specifically,” conceded the Gnome. “It’s the nature of the statement, not the subject.”

“We slept in a bramble thicket,” said Thane. “It couldn’t get much worse.”

“There again,” said Poldo. “You’re setting expectations. Don’t you remember Nove’s principles?”

Thane’s tectonic shrug rocked Poldo’s desk like a wave at sea. Several Wood Gnomes poked their head out of the Troll’s fur to discern the cause of the disruption. “Who is Nove again?” he rumbled.

“Nove? The great philosopher-scientist? The most famous scholar of Essenpi?”

“The name does sound familiar.” Thane looked skyward and worked his fanged maw as though tasting the word. “I can’t help remembering that he sold weapons. Or maybe toiletries.”

Poldo’s brow furrowed, but then a thought struck. “You mean Nove’s razor,” he told the Troll. “That’s one of his principles of universal irony.”

“That sounds right.” Thane nodded.

“Nove defined the ratio of matter to irony in the universe as a constant, and from that constant he derived several useful principles,” continued Poldo. He quickly launched into a history of the philosopher-scientist before his bodyguard could respond.

The Gnome’s lecture wasn’t due to any devout adherence to Nove’s teachings; Poldo was just desperate for any topic of conversation that didn’t involve plants or gardening. Thane had an enthusiasm for horticulture that most men reserved for money or vice. He had told Poldo that he had once been a gardener, and had proven it by coaxing a garden from the anemic soil of Adchul. The long months on that tiny, salt-sprayed island had given the Troll time to focus on his plants, but deprived him of variety.

Now Thane dashed through the woods with the eager energy of a child at a harvest festival. Between the forest’s autumnal glory and the wide array of flora they encountered, the Troll erupted in gasps of delight and gushes of gardening monologues with the regularity of a geyser. It was enough to bore the boots off a botanist. It was more than enough to drive Poldo to discussions of philosophy and metaphysics.

“And so, Nove’s first principle of universal irony is best observed by avoiding statements that set expectations for the universe to upset.” Poldo noticed that a few of the Wood Gnomes riding in Thane’s fur were listening to his speech with interest. The rest of the Domovoy had made themselves conspicuously absent.

“So you think we won’t find an inn tonight because I said I expect to?” Thane made no attempt to hide his skepticism.

“We’re less likely to,” corrected Poldo. “It’s about odds, not certainty. There can be no irony in a certain universe. And our universe is most uncertain.”

“Is that a crimson willow?” asked Thane.

“Although the philosopher-priestess Bregit wrote that even an absolutely certain universe would be sufficiently complex to appear uncertain to all but the gods!” Poldo interjected hurriedly, trying to divert his bodyguard from the tree. “Even so, judging by the temples’ histories, our universe is most uncertain. And so Nove’s principles stand.”

Thane sighed as he pulled his eyes from the willow, but then a thought struck him. “Although I didn’t say I expected to find an inn last night, or the night before, and we’ve spent both nights sleeping in the open.”

“Yes, I remember.” Poldo reflexively reached for his aching back. Noting that Thane was eyeing a thick shrub in its golden fall plumage, he quickly launched into an explanation.

Poldo noted that though Nove’s second principle appeared to deal with the universe’s cruel sense of timing, it actually held that space was no kinder. Straightforward derivations of Nove’s second principle demonstrated that the desirability of an object decreased the likelihood that it was within a given radius of those desiring it.

“The actual math includes several complex functions, but it’s easiest remembered with the proverb of the town guard,” Poldo said. “A town guard is almost never around when a crime is committed against you, and yet is almost always present to observe a crime you commit.”

Thane shook his head. “That can’t be right,” he rumbled. “If it’s true for you, it’s not true for the person you committed crimes against.”

“Well, the analogy isn’t perfect⁠—”

“Or what about the inns?” continued Thane. “If they had been built where we are not, wouldn’t they be on more traveled roads then? Or are you suggesting that innkeepers only set up shops where people don’t go?”

“Aha!” Poldo rocked back in his seat, triumphant. “I’m saying that building inns makes it less likely that travelers will go there, which is ironic for both the innkeepers and the guests.”

Thane glanced back over his shoulder with a dagger-toothed grin. “So all inns are doomed, then?”

“No, you’re speaking in certainties again. Nove’s principles relate to the angle of trends, the arcs of probability curves. They don’t apply in a certain universe.”

“Well, then, why bother observing them at all?” asked Thane. “If the principles don’t always apply, it seems silly to do anything about them.”

“They apply often enough. It’s mathematically proven.” Poldo waved his hands as if to shoo the question away. “Regardless, Nove’s teachings are easy enough to observe. You just always assume the worst case is the true one.”

“That sounds like a miserable way to live.” Thane pushed a low-hanging branch out of the way. “I don’t want to go around assuming the next day will be worse than today. Besides, it can’t always be the worst case. If it was always bad, it wouldn’t be ironic, right? There’s no irony in a certain universe.”

“Of course! That’s actually the basis for Nove’s sev—” At this point, by some twist of Novian timing or arboreal resentment, the branch that Thane had pushed aside slipped through his fingers. The Troll instinctively ducked under the arc of crimson leaves, but in so doing he exposed Poldo, and the Scribkin’s instincts were only of use behind a desk. The branch caught the Gnome full in the face, filling his mouth with leaves and his eyes with stars. A chorus of tiny squeaks of dismay rang out from the Wood Gnomes as Poldo nearly fell from his perch, followed by sighs of relief as he slumped forward in his seat.

It was still a fierce blow, and Poldo didn’t fully recover his faculties until well after the Troll had set him down on the ground and the Wood Gnomes had fetched him a canteen of water. He thanked them all and waved away their concern once he felt able to stand, and then spent a few more minutes consoling his guilt-ridden bodyguard. All in all, it was nearly a half hour before they were ready to move on.

“And let’s stop at the first inn we find,” Poldo remarked as Thane lifted his seat into place.

“So you’re confident we’ll find one,” said Thane affably, trying a little too hard to return to their prior conversation.