"If I had to work with that I'd never go anywhere. They don't cover weightlifting in magic school. I filled my gym credit on a broomstick - that was before my accident."

"Accident...?"

"I was kind of a daredevil on that thing. It didn't get me into trouble until I'd been out of school for a while. Got distracted at high altitude and a witch plowed right into me and I fell and had to spend two days in the healer's ward. I'm not scared of heights, now, just brooms. My broom was completely wrecked anyway, and they're not any cheaper than carpets - not if you get one that can fly and not one that just does, you know, floors - so I've just been saving for a nice rug."

"Hmm?"

"Nothiiiiiiiing."

"Awwwwww," says Bella as the camp is struck and they proceed castleward. "Pleeeeease?"

"No, okay, I promise you'll find out eventually," she says, "I just have to..." She waves her hands inarticulately. "Stuff."

"Aha, stuff. I misunderstand incompletely."

"Stuff," she agrees. "I really will explain later. When there is actually something to explain."

"Fair enough," laughs Bella. "Broomsticks are uncomfortable anyway, even if you do sit sidesaddle like you're supposed to, and I was never that reckless when I was trying to do tricks..."

"Yes, that does sound potentially troublesome," muses Sherlock.

"Very. I understand they're easy to enchant compared to, say, chairs with straps to hold you in nice and snug, but there are actually staggering numbers of broom accidents if you look at the per hatpoint statistics." Pause. "That being the witch-only term for per capita."

Tony cracks up.

Bella taps the point of her hat and smirks. "I didn't make it up, but I will take full responsibility for propagating the term."

She giggles some more.

"We're coming up on the lime-flavored river," Bella observes after they've been walking for about half an hour. "There's a bridge, but it doesn't hold still, so I can't tell you how to intercept it."

"I feel confident that we can track it down."

"Quite probably!" agrees Bella. "We should also watch out for giant watersnakes. They can't get at the bridge itself, but they can and do hang out on the banks of the river."

"I am duly warned."

"I suppose you must have already crossed this river to find my house, sorry. Unless you went far enough north first to go around the Limespring."

"I don't remember a lime-flavoured river," Tony contributes, "but I also haven't tasted every single river we've crossed, so..."

"It flows from a limestone spring," explains Bella. "Only logical. I get most of my drinking water from a stream that branches off from the river. I made the limeade with it."

"Limestone spring," she laughs. "Gotcha."

Presently they come to the river. No bridge is immediately in evidence. Bella picks a direction to look in and goes left, peering ahead for evidence of the bridge.