Josie stood in darkness. She raised a hand. A spark of light formed in the palm of her

hand. She put it on a nearby sconce and grew it into a ball big enough to light the

room for her to see. She frowned at the cell she occupied.

She listened. The surroundings were silent. The princess had been in her cell. Her

captors thought she couldn’t escape. Why hang around if they had other things to do?

She let Zatanna go after creating a silent alarm to let her know if someone else arrived

to check on the princess. She had been ready to strike down any guard she found. No

one present meant she had to wait for someone to arrive so she could do what she was

planning.

She pulled out a sheet of paper and looked around for a place to write. She frowned

at the lack of furniture. The only thing present other than her was a set of manacles.

She frowned at that.

She decided to use Zatanna to clean the floor so she could sit down. Then she formed

a clipboard out of the air. She put the paper on the clipboard. She let the persona go

so she could pull out a pen from her bag.

She wrote down a list of things she wanted to do. She planned to do a number on the

members of the Montrose for retaliation for taking the princess. When she had the list

together, she put it down so she could think.

She had no idea what the goal had been, but the Society wanting it stopped when they

didn’t usually care about personal strife pointed to something larger on the horizon.

She could see leverage being used on the king to force him to send armed forces into

neighboring kingdoms, or to ignore their own wrongdoing, or any number of things.

It was a good thing she was there to put a stop to it.

She hoped the others were up to putting out the other fires without her. She had

already answered the quest, but wanted to make sure that the Montrose knew she was

there to rip them up any time they did something. She wanted them fleeing the

continent from her wrath.

And this war was something that was growing beyond her personal vow into

something of a holy war.

Her watch dinged to let her know it had recharged while she had been sitting in the

cell. She wondered when they would arrive to check on the princess. She wondered

if they even thought of that.

Had they decided to let her starve or run out of water in this dreary hole while telling

her father she was still alive?

That would be something expected from them.

Josie decided that she would give the guards five minutes to check on the princess,

and then she would go ahead with whatever she could find in the neighborhood.

She had promised the king to swing by the capitol and clean some of that out.

As the time limit was about to run out, she heard stomping outside the room’s door.

She looked at her list on the clipboard. How many was she prepared to kill?

It was time for her to get started.

She sat down and called on Zatanna as the footsteps approached the door. She hoped

whomever it was belonged to the Montrose. Otherwise, she would have to divert

some of her energy to deal with the guard while carrying out the rest of her business.

The door opened. A face covered in tattooed names looked in the room, blinking

against the light on the desk.

“Who are you?,” said the guard. “Where is the princess?”

“My name is Josie Fox,” said Josie. She carved out an array in the floor to boost her

coming spells. She should have thought of all this sooner. “The princess was sent

away where her father can pick her up when he wants. Those questions are

reasonable, but not what you should have asked.”

“What should I have asked?,” said the guard. Another man joined him, looking over

his shoulder.

“If the princess is rescued, will the rescuers allow me to live?,” said Josie.

The guard pulled the door shut. That was smarter than she had thought. Too bad

magic didn’t care about that unless it was another magic spell that tried to block it

from moving things around.

Josie unleashed a hoard of her firebirds in the room. They blasted through the wall.

She heard twin pops and the thumps of weight hitting the floor next to each other. Her

watch timed out, and she returned to normal. She wondered how many corpses she

had just made with that one simple action.

She watched the timer on the watch climb. As soon as it was full, she would do

something to clean up the bodies.

Vultures had to eat, but it would take a mess of vultures to clean up what she had

done with the array and her birds.

People were going to be afraid of her after what she had done, but she had chosen the

method to expedite her quest and to pay back the monsters for the king. She could

have captured them all, but they would have been sentenced to execution as soon as

they stood before the throne.

She didn’t have a problem with that.

Her watch dinged to let her know she could do the second spell to clean up the

corpses. She pulled on Zatanna and sent out her second wave of birds. It wasn’t as

energy intensive as blowing people’s skulls apart so she didn’t automatically time out.

She let Zatanna go so the watch could recharge again.

She had to make sure that she hadn’t trapped helpless women on the road with her

message. Then she could move on to the next step.

What could she do with a larger array? Did she want to find out? The Society was

already angry with Jack over his abuse of power. Did she want to walk the same path?

Did she have what it took to build a city for all the people who needed help and

couldn’t get it? Did she want to use this place as her base stop, wherever it was?

How much did she want to change the world?

She decided to hold on to the thought until she talked with the Society again. She

didn’t want rules of engagement imposed on her just because she had created a city

out of nothing.

It was better to get their opinion first before she took such a drastic step which

seemed counter to what they wanted their champions to do.

The idea didn’t flee from her, but she admitted that anything like that here would be

like Camelot and doomed to failure.

And it was something she would have to defend for the rest of her life.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

She put the idea away. Maybe one of the girls could think about it when they were

older.

Aviras would like being the official dragon if they did follow through with her

thoughts.

Her watch dinged, and she sent out the third wave of birds to free any captives and

transport them to where she was. She needed to do something about that. Killing their

guards meant leaving them to die if they couldn’t get out of their wagons.

She stood when she heard voices out in the hall. She let Zatanna go so the watch

could recharge. If she needed it in the next few minutes, she had enough juice to be

the Human Bomb for a second.

She decided to step out in the hall. She saw a crowd of women and girls in rags and

dirt looking around. She heard some of them ask if they had died and if this was

where they were supposed to go and they expected better of the afterlife.

Josie whistled the highest note she could manage. Some of the women winced at the

sonic assault. She held up a hand to let them know she had made the noise to attract

their attention.

“Everybody,” said Josie. “Listen to me. My name is Josie Fox. How many have

homes to go back to from here?”

The women looked around. They seemed confused about the question. For a large

part, they were concerned about where they were and what was going to happen to

them.

“Ladies,” said Josie. “I can send you home if you want to go home. All of you who

have a place to return to please come to the front of the crowd. I can send you on your

way in a second. Everyone who doesn’t have a home, please step into the nearest

room and watch from the door.”

The women shuffled around until Josie felt like they had decided on what was going

on. She nodded. She could send these people home. Then she had to do something

with the rest.

They could come with her to the royal court and she could see what the king could

do for her.

“All right,” said Josie. “I am going to send you home. I will heal you as much as I

can. The only thing I can tell you is you were taken by an organization to be sold as

cattle, and I killed as many of those men as I could and freed you. If you know where

those wagons were from where you land, you can send people out to get them, but I

am probably going to send a group of adventurers to clear the roads. Get ready to go.”

Josie stepped into the cell. She sat down in the array she had constructed. She pulled

on Zatanna. Firebirds exploded from her body. They flew away to the places they

needed to be and burst. A woman stepped from the flash of flame.

She changed back long enough to write a letter to the king and then changed back to

Zatanna to carry out the rest of her mission.

She sent the letter first. The king needed to know they were coming. She didn’t want

some kind of misunderstanding where she had to do something harsh to those

involved.

She went to the door and looked at the remaining women and children. She frowned

at them. She wouldn’t be able to protect them if she cast something massive like her

first spell.

She should have brought Jack along to get her the time she needed.

She decided that she could modify the first spell into the following curse she had used

on the bank guard she and Three Russ had beaten. It wasn’t a good compromise, but

it was better than taking a bunch of people into a situation where they could be killed

by being close to her.

“Are you ready to go?,” said Josie. She was burning energy just by being her persona.

She needed their decision right then.

“Yes,” said one of the women. “I need help after being carried away in the back of

that wagon for so long. They made us stay in our own waste as we traveled.”

“I want you to stay close to me,” said Josie. “I will protect you as much as I can.”

She sent out a bird to prepare a space for them and create an array. Then she sent out

a line of birds to bring the group to that space with her in the center. Once there, she

would have to clear the room of the Montrose.

The castle, and then the capitol would follow in rapid succession.

She frowned, knowing she was doing the opposite of what the Society wanted. She

would take any verbal drubbing with grace.

Josie appeared in the middle of a carved runic circle in the middle of the throne room.

Guards had started forward at the arrival of the ragged women and children. She

noted the king standing up and holding up his hand to keep his guards in place. She

nodded as men and women with the Makeover had been arrested and remained off to

one side of the room.

She let her persona go so she could charge up her watch.

The king frowned at the dirty peasants in his room. He turned his gaze on the people

with the Makeover. They were going to get the axe whether Josie was there, or not.

That much was in his eyes.

“Mistress Fox?,” asked the king.

“That’s me,” said Josie. “These people have been hurt and need aid. I plan to ask an

ally to take care of them and get them back on their feet.”

“Caroline?,” asked the king.

“She is safe,” said Josie. “I left her with Duke Hent and Lord Brant. If you want, I can

ask about her.”

“Right now?,” asked the king.

Josie pushed the button for the Enterprise. The ship might be in combat, but it could

still be used as a relay back to Hawk Ridge.

“Communication acknowledged,” said the machine.

“Enterprise,” said Josie. “Can you call Jane for me?”

“Affirmative,” said the machine.

“What’s going on?,” asked Jane.

“Jane, did Duke Hent bring a girl to the hospital to be checked?,” said Josie.

“She is under guard on the top floor next to Massa,” said Jane. “I have said some

things to Hent and the lordling with him about getting in the way.”

“Can you put her on the line?,” asked Josie. “Her father would like to talk to her.”

“It’ll take me a few minutes to get up there,” said Jane.

“Tell Eric that I am hiring him to be that girl’s guard until we move her out of Hawk

Ridge,” said Josie. “Tell him I don’t care how many adventurers he has to hire to do

it. No one goes in or out without him, or one of his party, present. I will pay double

to any man he puts on the detail.”

Jane stopped to talk to someone in the hall. She made sure that he was to get Madam

Fass and Eric on the double and have them meet her on the top floor.

A few more minutes, and Jane engaged with someone who didn’t want to let her pass.

“Tell whomever that is that he will be scrubbing chamber pots for the rest of his short

life,” said the king. It was loud enough to carry through the band. The guard allowed

Jane access. She warned him that a bunch of people would be layering on top of them

and they should be ready for that.

“I’m Jane Morn,” said Jane. “I run this place for Josie Fox. Are you up for talking?”

“Yes,” said the girl. “I’m Caroline Grecius, the princess. I don’t know how I got

here.”

“Caroline?,” said the king. “Are you all right?”

“Father?,” said the princess. “I’m a little hurt. The people here are looking out for me.

I saw Lord Brant and the local Duke earlier. How are we talking? I don’t know where

I am.”

“I have an artifact that let’s me talk to Josie,” said Jane. “And she is with your father.

Has anyone talked to you about the scan sheet?”

“No,” said the princess.

“Josie,” said Jane. “I have to talk to Caroline in private. I am going to cut the call.”

“Jane, we’re in the middle of Society business,” said Josie. “I will give the king letter

paper so he can write to the princess, or you.”

“All right,” said Jane. “I wish things were better, Your Majesty.”

She cut the line.

“Mistress Fox?,” said the king.

“Your daughter is safe with Jane,” said Josie. She let her arm drop. “I am going to

give you enchanted paper so you can write Caroline, or Jane. As soon as Caroline is

feeling better, I will bring her home. These women are going to need you to look out

for them until I can make arrangements to help them rebuild their lives. Can you do

that?”

“Yes,” said the King. He didn’t seem taken aback about the casualness of the

wording. “The Chancellor’s residence is empty, and there are holes in his staffing, but

it should do for right now.”

“Can I make that permanent?,” asked Josie. She pulled out a stack of paper from her

messenger bag. “I would like to shelter any I rescue from the Montrose.”

“The Queen and I will discuss this since it is not a normal policy,” said the king. “Are

you seeking this as a favor, Mistress Fox?”

“I can buy a place, but I thought this would save me time looking,” said Josie. “I

doubt I need a staff, but I will need someone to help with clothes and food until this

group can govern themselves.”

“All right,” said the king.

“I just have one more piece of business,” said Josie. She placed the paper to one side

as she sat down. “Then I am going to have to go. I am counting on you to look out for

these women until I come back. Don’t let me down.”

The king nodded.

Josie took on her magician form and released enough birds to cover the capitol and

some of the surrounding landscape. She erased the bodies and checked to make sure

any captured women were freed, and brought back to the throne room. She enchanted

the paper so it could be sent anywhere.

“There are a lot of stray horses and wagons roaming the roads right now, Your

Majesty,” said Josie. “It’s up to you if you want to gather them up.”

She split the paper and handed some to the king and some to one of the women who

looked like she could handle things.

“Write the name of the person you want to send it too on the top of the page, what

you want to say, then fold it,” said Josie. “The letter will go where you want it to go.

Everyone, the king is going to house you until I can send whomever wants to go

home, or I can think of a permanent solution. Look out for each other until I come

back.”

She reached out for the bird on the Enterprise and vanished.