Carrie, Tabatha and I left the Rut at different times. Necessary? Absolutely not. We were three best friends who had been hanging out together all evening. This had way more to do with cloak and dagger ideas Carrie had picked up in some sleuthing fiction than it did any kind of necessity.

Books were a rarity all over the continent — and rarer than an un-milked cow in the country — but that didn’t stop Carrie. Carrie had been bitten by the bug years back, when Iffan visited one time with a whole cart full of literature ranging from the erudite to the trite. Our lithe, refined friend leapt straight in at the deep end and never stopped paddling. Every time someone heads into town she sends them off with a bag full of coin — it's not that we don’t have it, we just don’t trade locally in it — and receives a paltry couple of pages for her fool’s fortune. Her dad once laughingly told me that Carrie’s whole inheritance was now on a small bookshelf in her room. There were real tears when he said it.

As a sort of apology for bailing on her, I walked Aunt Alicia back to hers before doubling back through the village again for my parents’ place. Aunt Alicia lived pretty centrally, seeing as she didn’t have a lot of land to her name; her investments were tied up with Iffan’s, and those were largely wasting away in Magalat. Whilst not exactly opulent, dad had seen that Alicia was put up in a sturdy little hovel that would dutifully ticked all the boxes of warmth, shelter, and… Just those two things, actually. There was a lot of politicking that went on around decisions like these, that frankly I found exhausting. Dad had to show some degree of responsibility for Alicia, but not too much. He had to keep her sort of close, but not too close. He had to see that she was somewhat comfortable, but not too comfortable. On the list goes.

“Have a good game?” I asked when we were far enough away from the pub that the silence was starting to feel a bit weird.

“Bloody cheaters, the lot of them.”

“And yet still you play with them.”

“The cheaters are the ones who play.” She punctuated with an outstretched finger.

“What does that say about you, I wonder.” I nudged her, shoulder to shoulder.

“Ha! Perhaps you’re right. Maybe that little gremlin lives in me too. I’ve simply never been bad enough at Ratshank to find out.”

I favoured her with a flourishing bow. “All hail the Queen of Cards.”

“May her fame spread far, and her purse grow fat.” We were at her door now. “So that she may stuff her little cottage from wall to wall with all the broccoli a widower could want.”

Ouch. That slap got us both. “Feeling a bit homesick, are we?”

Have you ever seen someone toying with an answer for so long that it looks like they’ve been bitten by an adder? That’s what I was dealing with.

“Ah, sometimes we’re still foolish enough to want what we can’t have,” she finally said — which, credit to her, was less evasive than I was expecting.

It also gave me a bit of an out. I’ve got days and moons for Aunt Alicia, but I also had an appointment tonight. “Things will seem better in the morning,” I copped out, and slightly resented her for not having done the same.

“They always do,” she said, and smiled a tragically weak smile.

You’re killing me, Alicia. Seriously, killing me. “I’ll stop by first thing to make sure you’re okay.”

“You’re sweet, but there’s no need for that.”

“No need, true. But I heard you were making pancakes.”

She snorted a chuckle. “The cheek on you, Lady Ous Targent. Very well, you’ve got yourself a deal.”

I gave her a hug. “I’ll see you bang on Not-Too-Early.”

“And not a minute sooner!” she called after me.

So that was most of tomorrow spoken for. It’s funny how a village girl’s calendar fills up.

I started off at a heavy pace back towards the square and had to remind myself to slow it down a bit — Carrie would be mortified if she heard I had blown her investigation by being anything less than a wraith on the wind. I tried to remember what a normal person walks like.

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It was a nice night. Clear skies, stars blinking and flittering between a broken layer of high, wispy cloud. It was a perfect night for… actually, I wasn’t sure what we were supposed to be doing. Avenging cats? Anyway, it was nice. The temperature was still pretty mild, but I knew there would be a bite in the air before long. Braxus was a village on the plains, with only a few copses and groves around to offer the wind any resistance. Luckily, the wind didn’t build up too badly over the shallow rises and hillocks at this time of year, but we weren’t exactly insulated either.

There hadn’t been a new family in Braxus in my lifetime. Most of the houses looked the same — sturdy beams and bleached daub, save for the mud brick tavern and grocer’s — because they all hailed from when my grandfather’s generation had been enticed to settle here by the Magalathy Baron of that era. It was a new life, on a new frontier. For a while, it was a good one.

The tithe the settlers paid was a modest fifteen percent of everything produced, back then. This soon soared when the drought hit, some twenty-five years ago, and then there was one Glade of a pushback. These days, the current Baron had to pay for his crops like everyone else.

In Braxus we avoided that fight, though father tells me everyone was ready for it. Elsewhere, people were not so lucky. Villages were burned, farmers were whipped or hanged, and food was stolen right out from under the noses of those who grew it. The drought turned the city folk ugly. They squeezed and squeezed the villages to feed their own. You can only push people for so long, though. The rural folk retaliated by putting everyone without mud on their shoes to the sword — or, more accurately, the pitchfork.

It was an ugly time. It cost Tythia huge numbers of men and women, and set us back decades when compared to our neighbours. That was a long time ago, though. These were just stories to me and those like me.

“You’re out late,” Roland said with exaggerated cheer as I veered imprudently close to the Rut. “Care for some company on the walk home?”

I actually was going home — I needed my bow — so I saw no reason to snub him. “Sure, if you’ve not got anywhere better to be.”

He looked around thoughtfully. “Nope, looks like I’m free.”

Roland was a nice enough guy, and decently good looking — although he did have weirdly small hands for a guy. He’d openly declared to his friends that I was his top pick for bride-to-be, and had thus inadvertently openly declared it to the whole village. I figured I could do worse. He was definitely in my top three, so he was in the running. Sure, there were only eight viable males of marriageable age in Braxus, but top three still wasn’t bad. Besides, Carrie and Tabatha had already spoken for two of the eight, so options were dwindling.

I didn’t know if I would marry stocky little Roland, but I’d probably take him for a spin sometime. The younger generation wasn’t as stuffy about that as the elders were, but, then again, our grandparents probably only had a choice of one or two suitors to begin with. I was a post drought baby; there were comparatively loads of us. When the drought officially ended twenty years ago, it seems all our parents had the same idea about how to celebrate. Yes, ew.

“I was sorry to hear about Tabbie’s cat,” he said after a spell of companionable silence.

“You know about that?”

He barked. “Seriously? I know that you pick the cauliflower out of your stew even though it earns you a rap on the knuckles.”

I favoured him with a smile. “Well put. I guess there aren’t many secrets in Braxus.”

“Not many,” he agreed, eyeing me like he had one.

No, pal, I know about that too. “Surprised you can still walk in a straight line. You guys looked pretty into your game.”

Those tiny fingers rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s just a bit of fun. We don’t take it too far.”

“Relax, Roland, you don’t have to explain yourself to me; I’m not your girl.” Was I fishing? Maybe I was fishing a little bit.

“No, no, I suppose not.” I could feel him trying to smooth out the next sentence. “That might not be the worst thing, though.” Eh, I’m going to give those flirting skills a six out of ten — must try harder.

“I suppose there’s always forest fires, or plague, or another drought, of course. Those might be worse.” I can just never resist playing with someone when they feed me a line.

“Being eaten by a wyvern or mauled by a bear probably make the list too.” He grinned.

Hey, look at you! You know how to take a joke. Keep it up, Roland. You might be cementing your place in the top two. “Being forced to eat cauliflower,” I added.

“Or being covered head to toe in puss-filled sores?” he went for, and recoiled as soon as he did.

“Puss-filled sores, eh?” Weirdly, that didn’t hamper his chances as much as you might think. I gave him a grunting little laugh just to let him know that.

“Hey, look,” he said, desperate to change the subject, “the garnerblooms are out.” He plucked one of the wide-petaled white flowers from the stem and handed it to me like he were presenting a vintage wine. “For the lady.”

“Brave sir, you have executed a fine and innocent flower for me. I am most grateful,” I said, taking the token. “But, seriously, you shouldn’t do that.” This wasn’t me being all precious about some silly plants, it was literally local law — another drought-time relic.

“Really? But there are loads of them.” He wasn’t wrong.

“Yes, my dear boy,” I said in my dad’s raspy voicy, “and if we want more of them then we must cultivate them correctly. This flower is now dead. It has met its untimely demise, and shall grow no more. You have committed it to the grave.”

Roland was staring at the flower in my hand. He didn’t look so good.

“What?” I asked — a bit indignantly, if I do say so myself.

He pointed.

The flower didn’t look especially dead. I don’t mean it looked freshly picked —because they never look dead when they’re freshly picked — I mean it looked very much alive. The petals were as white as the moon, the stem was verdant and healthy, and, I swear by the Anvil, the blasted thing had grown more leaves.

I chucked it on the ground.

“That…” Roland attempted.

I stomped the flower for good measure. “Stupid thing. What did you hand me a flower for anyway? What am I supposed to do with that? Why didn’t you just— Gaargh!”

“I—I’m sorry.”

“You know what, Roland? Two? Fat chance! Number four. Are you happy? Number four!”