We got the camp bay back, and we headed out.

  That day, we ran into bandits.

  “Stand and deliver your valuables!” one said.

  Bere answered with a khrow. We tussled for a bit, and they ran off. The one dead bandit had 20 silver pieces, 5 copper, a crossbow we didn’t need, some bolts, and a curious neckce — a bck lion on a silver medallion.

  More on that ter. Much ter.

  That night we practiced our songs. I suggested we put them together into some kind of narrative, but she said we didn’t have time, or enough pyers. I eventually agreed.

  I held her for a bit, in a way that felt routine, but also made my heart ache like somebody had kicked me in the chest. Later, I took first watbsp; This time, it was uful. I had a strange feeling that someone else was watg me too. I chalked that up to paranoia and exhaustion. But I did live in a world of magic, so who knows.

  When it was her turn for watch, I stayed up thinking for a while, but was able to get some sleep eventually.

  In the m, I saw her talking to Robin.

  The pixie was in the palm of her haig.

  “And they round up anybody that so much as looks at them funny!” they said. “I barely got out with my life!”

  “Yeah, that’s messed up,” Bernie said politely.

  “Hey, you!” I said with a wave.

  “Hey, hero guy,” they said.

  “His name is Zach,” Bernie said in a stage whisper.

  “Thanks,” Robin replied with an exaggerated wink.

  “What did you find?” I asked.

  They flew over to me, and gave me the lowdown.

  Amaryllis was a city with an incredible presence of wat that guarded it, and apparently they were hyper vigint. Robin thought it may have something to do with the fact that at least one Knight of the Word was there, someone called Captain Wen. Everyone from shopkeepers to children acted as if they were scared of making a single misstep.

  Robin couldn’t find aion of Rachel.

  “And then this skank sprite said they wouldn’t give me the time of day!”

  “I thought you thought sprites were gross?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” they said with a flirty shrug, “well sometimes I’m looking fross, if you know what I mean.”

  “Okay,” I said, a little embarrassed, “anything else?”

  “Yeah! Apparently the street tacos aren’t always made with quail, sometimes it’s pigeons!”

  “Tacos?” I asked. I wasn’t sure I had heard them right.

  “Okay, thanks bye!” They said, then flew off again with their new hat that I’d sown together from a scrap of cloth during watch.

  I turo Bere.

  “This pce has tacos?”

  She shrugged bewilderedly. We broke camp a out.

  “You know Robin offered to be my patron,” she said out of the blue, the leaves rolling dowrail at our feet.

  “Like, patron, as in the Game, or patron, like money?”

  “In the Game,” she crified.

  “You already took the deal,” I said.

  “Yeah.”

  I thought about this for a bit. This meah took magic csses as a multicss. I thih uood how strong magic was, but she had five levels ue first as a stronger base to just my two levels of fighter.

  Man. We really needed Rachel. her of us did well in a fair fight.

  My mi back to that moment ient with the Knight of Flowers. It could have ehere.

  Then my ADHD kicked in and I thought about what kind of Warlock Bernie had bee.

  “You know what kind of Warlock you are?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a Fey Warlock.”

  “Yeah, but like, your patron.”

  “What are you getting at?”

  “You’re a Manic Pixie Dream Girl now.”

  “Oh, no,” she said horrified. “Oh god no. I’m not!”

  “I don’t know,” I said, a big smile taking over my face, “I think you’re pretty dreamy.”

  “Robin!” she yelled into the forest, “I take it babsp; I don’t want it anymore!”

  “I’m just joking,” I said.

  “You better be! Things are pretty cool with us right now, but if you start talking about ‘seeing the beauty in life,’ or ‘learning to live in the moment,’ I’m gonna stab you so hard! And I won’t feel bad about it either, because I know you heal!”

  “Noted!” I said, patting the air i.

  Eventually, we found a pce to rest and she showed me her ats oe.

  Shade the level 5 Assassin Rogue and level 1 Fey Warlock.

  Hit Points 31, Armor Css 15 (leather armor)

  STR 7 (-2) DEX 18 (+4) 12 (+1)

  INT 13 (+1) WIS 10 (+0) CHA 18 (+4)

  Items: Thirsting Thorn +2, crossbow of pierg +1, dagger of trag +1, leather armor, 17 throwing daggers, 2 bat knives, 1 ration, 1 flint and tinder box, charcoal, 3 sheets loose paper

  Abilities frue: Backstab (+150% additional damage against targets from behind ainst targets that are otherwise distracted), Assassiriple backstab damage against targets that do not identify you as a threat), Beguiling Allure (double proficy bonus to charisma checks against the opposite sex)

  Abilities from warlock: Fey Sight (see farther and through dim light or darkness), Spiderwalk (walk oical surfaces and even upside down), Charm (one use of the charm spell per day)

  Skills: Acrobatics, Deception, Iigate, Sedu, Sleight of Hand, Stealth

  I handed her ste bad we took turns drinking from a water skin. Later, she showed her spiderwalk feature by putting her foot orunk of a tree then walking to stand horizontally, pletely defying gravity. Man, did that seem useful. Not sure I wao make a pact with a fairy to do it though.

  I had my own spells.

  The rest of the hike was hard, but we were in good spirits.

  The front gates of Amaryllis were huge metal and wood portcullis set in a high brick wall. The guards were only four strong. Maybe there were more past the portcullis.

  We submitted s to iion, and they fiscated our crossbows and bolts. They also made Ber her daggers in her bag.

  Bere was fuming mad. I mostly kept it cool. They let us keep our swords, iingly enough. Said a side on was allowed, as long as we kept them sheathed, and that we o exit this dire if we wanted our other ons back.

  Our ticket, so to speak, was a scroll with the seal of the Throne of Light itself. It was a blocky, stylized seat, seemingly made of some kind of stone or crystal, with rays emanating to the sky. A guard had scribbled our names in a book, and we were free to go.

  Bernie mentiohat she was keen to try out her new charm spell but that it would only work on one person at a time, and so was useless at the gate.

  The city itself was marvelous.

  Stucd beam facades shone white and blue iernoon light. A charming red brick tavered us down the ne. People walked here and there, but everyoheir faces down. Guards strolled in pairs past every er, their bd gold tabards fluttering in the breeze. A cart with a portable stove bolted to it had what looked like hanging roasted chis across a stick at the top.

  The cart said ‘takos’ in a kind of english on the side.

  “I guess these are the aforementioacos,” I said.

  Bere shrugged. She still seemed a little put off by the loss of her magic crossbow.

  Upon approag the food cart, we were greeted first by a strange pink dragoure, then the splendid smell of the roasted fowl. It had been days since we had the rabbit orail. Fresh herbs and onions had been prepared in little cups. I was ready. My stomach growled.

  “Takos! You want tasty takos, yes!” the creature called.

  The creature must have been standing on a stool or something as they were very small, about sized like the goblins we had fought. Its pointy snout she air involuntarily. Bere brightened a bit at the sight of the creature.

  “Are you a kobold?” she asked.

  “I could be. You have ?”

  “We do,” I said.

  He held his scally hand out, while his tail poio a sign that said ‘two takos for a copper.’

  I dropped a copper into his hand, and a sed creature leapt from the cart, and began to shave pieces of the hanging bird with a knife, while the first tossed a kind of tortil shaped thing on the grill. A third juggled kit utensils and waggled his brow.

  What a show.

  In a matter of seds iping hot tacos for each of us. It smelled like heaven. I didn’t care if they were pigeons or not. I bit into the tad a burst of fvht an involuntary sigh. There were no tomatoes, but the fresh onion and the mild peppers gave it the ch it needed. And the bird tasted enough like quail that I didn’t mind not knowily either way. They had roasted it perfectly.

  The tortil was some kind of flour, though a little rougher than I was used to. Maybe rger grains.

  “This is so good,” I said.

  Bere nodded as she chewed her own.

  “Hey,” I started, “you know anything about this town?”

  “Nope,” said the first kobold. “First time here.”

  “Sed time here,” said the other.

  “Here only sometime,” said the third.

  “Right, so where did you get the recipe?” I asked.

  “My great-grandma started business. She dead now.”

  The sed kobold interrupted him, saying that it was actually ‘his great grandma.’ The third whacked him on the head with a spatu.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, because what else was I supposed to say? “Where do you think she lear?”

  “Family secret,” said the first.

  My mio Caleb, who may have e to this pce thirty years ago. Maybe it had spread from him? How old did kobolds get? Or maybe tacos were an indepe iion that just happeo be he same.

  We paid for two more tacos, thahe kobolds and walked toward the tavern, as they began putting cups in the cart. In moments the whole thing was shut down, and they wheeled the cart off to another location.

  I waved to two guards as we walked and finished our food, and they waved back cheerfully. Our hands were horribly greasy, but we wiped them on our pants. I was still pretty hungry, but I could feel a sense of satisfa spread from my belly to my whole body.

  Man, I loved meat. Stupid elves, and their cheese bread, and onion soups. If it indeed was Caleb whht tacos here, I thanked him.

  We walked around the city a bit, just trying to get a y of the nd. The more official buildings, like the courthouse, and the Sheriffs’ estate were huge marble things, very neocssical. Reminded me of a lot of the gover buildings bae.

  Eventually, after a couple hours, we made it to a tavern that looked nid .

  The pce had a sign with five stars on it, one much bigger thahers.

  Inside acked with people, but versation was hushed. A carved relief of a woman hung over the firepbsp; She looked familiar, but I couldn’t pce who it was. A dart board with a row of darts sat unused in the er. It robably too early for the after work crowd, so why all of these people?

  I walked up to the bar. My eye caught the elegant mythril bde hung above the kegs. Then I saw the woman, and was startled by her face.

  “Are you—” I began to ask.

  “Deny,” she said, cutting me off. “You are traveling up from the South?”

  “Yes, how did you know?”

  “My twin sister works at the Sword-Bearing Squirrel.”

  “Oh! That makes sense!”

  Deny gave a knowing smile, and asked what she should get for us. Bere spoke first, sliding a gold over to her.

  “Two ales and a question.”

  The beautiful elven woman took the , then pocketed it. She, like her sister, had an alluring spray of freckles across her ample cleavage.

  “Two ales ing right up,” she said.

  Bernie leaned in and whispered, “she cut her eyes behind you. Don’t look. I clocked them on the way in. Two guards in bck cloaks in the er.”

  I nodded. Curse my gosh darn male libido. I was too busy staring at the bartender’s boobs to notice the pinclothes cops in the er.

  Deny slid the drinks to us and waited expetly, suddenly nervous. I took a sip of the ale. It was a little too warm. Bernie leaned in.

  “Woman named Oriana may have passed through here with an adventuring crew. Any word on where she was headed?” she asked, using Rachel’s adventuring name.

  “No, ma’am,” said Deny. “Adveend to stay away from Amaryllis. The Throne likes to take care of problems in its own way, so there generally is not any work for them here.”

  “What about goblin attacks?” I asked.

  “The Throne fears no goblins,” Deny said with a smile.

  “Thank you,” Bernie said.

  The bartender paced away, and started wiping down the bar from the furthest end from us. As soon as her back turned I chilled my ale with a Little Tricks spell.

  My eyes went back to that sword. I wasn’t sure but it looked an awful lot like the one hung above the fe in the Squirrel. I’d spent hours looking at that thing.

  Now, where had I seen the woman above the hearth?

  It looked like Sofia, but couldn’t be. So who was it? Well, maybe it was Inara from her adventuring days. What kind of life had she had before being forced to serve evil?

  “I’m gonna go ‘talk’ to the guards we met on the way in.”

  “Bernie,” I warned. “If you’re doing what I think you’re doing—”

  “I don’t know what you think I’m doing, but I won’t be gone lohan an hour. Stay here. Maybe take a bath.”

  I sighed. She robably going to grab our crossbows. If she wound up in jail I was going to be in big trouble. But I was worried that if I went with her, I may draw too much attention. I wasn’t sneaky like her, and I wasn’t as persuasive.

  Oher hand, if she wound up in jail maybe she’d get word about Rachel. Hell, maybe they’d toss her in the same cell. Then I could rescue them both.

  “Back soon,” she said, kissing me on the cheek, and slipping away.

  I sipped my ale, and pulled out my ste.

  I texted Caleb on a whim.

  Breznik: Did y tacos to Vesperalis?

  3:00pm

  He didn’t text back immediately. I finished my ale, chatted with Deny a bit, she was less of a versationalist than her sister but maybe a bit more flirty with her posture, leaning over the ter, batting her eyeshes, that sort of thing. I k was an old barterick to get me to spend more , but it worked.

  The ste buzzed.

  Caleb: his majesty, when asked about the iion of tacos, says ‘I’ve introduced them to the castle, but haven’t heard of them served elsewhere. It could be possible, but certainly not iional on my end.’

  Caleb: Do you have any other queries?

  Breznio thanks. Appreciate it.

  3:31pm

  That was a frustratingly vague answer. I thought it was gonna be an easy ‘yes.’

  I took a bath, auro the bar. Deny served me a sandwich very simir to a reuben, sliced beef with some kind of fermented cabbage. It was delicious. It was my first bit of beef since I’d e to Vesperalis. I tried not to gush about how good it was.

  “You don’t uand, the elves just have mb. And so many types of mushrooms. God, I could go months without ever seeing a mushroom again.”

  “We’re blessed that the Throne is able to keep us with plentiful beef, even out here,” Deny said.

  My ste buzzed again. Expeg it to be Caleb, I pulled it out without thinking.

  Oriana: where are you?

  4:07pm

  I muttered a curse under my breath and tried to angle my ste away from Deny. Not that I thought she was gonna turn me in or anything. If she was anything like her sister, she was likely trustworthy. I tapped a message back quickly.

  Breznik: at a tavern called ‘the five stars.’

  Oriana: great. Goddamned cop bar. Stay there. I’ll e get you.

  Oriana: be ready for a fight.

  4:08pm

  I cursed again, and looked up just in time to see three more figures walk through the door, silver mail twinkling, and bd gold tabards peeking from underh their cloaks.