Josie didn’t bother trying to fix the wounded slavers that she wanted to question. She

knew they wouldn’t last long after she asked her questions. She doubted they would

last long if she wasn’t there.

She doubted they would still be alive if she wasn’t there to ask her questions.

“There are some cages in the back of the encampment,” said Lou. “They have been

used recently from the looks of things.”

“Probably missed a caravan to the next city,” said Fass. “We would like to know

where Emily Budd is, Markam. What do you say?”

“I don’t know where she is,” said Markam. “I handed her over and that was the last

I saw of her.”

“Then we don’t need you,” said Josie. She changed into Zatanna just long enough to

wish him into the air. He vanished from the ground to appear high above the ground.

He hit and broke some of his bones. He tried to move away from the impact site with

his crooked arm and leg hanging loosely as he tried to pull himself along with his

whole limbs. Something small with too many teeth and a bad temper found him like

that moments later. No one heard him screaming from the eating.

“Who are you?,” Josie asked the second survivor of her attack. He looked at where

Markam had been. He seemed stunned. She slapped his face as hard as she could.

“What is your name, dummy?”

“Hasler Poat,” said the commander. “What did you do with him?”

“I sent him somewhere he will have to work to get home from before the local

animals find him,” said Josie. “I would like for you to tell me what is going on here,

and where did you send Emily Budd.”

“I have no idea where she wound up,” said Poat. “We were given an order and we

carried it out.”

“You were given an order and you carried it out,” said Josie. The look on her face

made the adventurers stand back.

“I don’t see anything wrong with that,” said Poat.

“All right,” said Josie. She turned back into Zatanna. She began loading his acts into

a notebook. He stared at the letters forming on the paper. “I want you to know that I

might have been willing to deal with you, but I don’t think that is possible.”

“What are you doing?,” asked Fass.

“I am going to give you another place to look at from here,” said Josie. “I am going

to pay you to wipe out any of the marked men. I am going to go ahead to see if I can

find Emily.”

“All right,” said Fass. “What about him?”

“Take this,” said Josie. “I’m going to let him go the same way I did Markam.”

The way she stated that cold fact made Fass frown. He had killed plenty of people

that needed killing, but not like this.

“What are you going to do?,” demanded Poat.

“I am going to introduce you to the power of flight,” said Josie. She wished him high

in the air after his subordinate. She saw the counter go down again after a few

minutes.

Fass flipped through the pages of the notebook. He frowned at the maps with routes

marked in as he thumbed them down..

“So what have we learned?,” said Budd.

“This organization is bigger than we thought,” said Fass. “The route from here is set

due east. We could spend months chasing down every name on this list.”

“We’re not going to do that,” said Josie. “What’s the farthest location in the book?”

Fass flipped through the pages until he found the post Josie asked about. He made a

face.

“It’s a month away according to this,” he said. “A messenger could get there faster,

but they would run their horses into the ground doing it.”

“There has to be some way to get there faster,” said Josie. “I think Emily is

somewhere along that line. I don’t know if she is still out there, but if she got free, she

might be coming back here.”

“I wish we could let her know we’re looking for her,” said Budd. “She should know

we’re looking for her.”

“Maybe we can send her a letter,” said Josie. “Can she read?”

“I think so,” said Budd. “I think she can read three different languages. Why?”

“I am going to write her a letter, and see if we can let her know that we’re coming,”

said Josie. “Then I am going to ask Jack for ideas on something that will get us there

faster.”

“Can you do that?,” asked Fass.

“Write a letter?,” said Josie. “Yes. Get something faster than a horse? Maybe. Find

your girl? Almost certainly, but I am expecting jobs to come up for the Society and

I might have to put this on the backburner to do those. The Society doesn’t seem to

mind if I help people in the pursuit of my quests, but they want their jobs done first.”

“Sounds like every contractor everywhere,” said Fass.

“All right,” said Josie. She checked her bag. She still had some paper and her pen.

She wrote down an explanation of what was going on, what she wanted to do, and

how to send back a reply. She put that in an envelope and addressed it to Emily. She

turned in Zatanna and sent it on its way.

“All right,” said Josie, changing back. “The letter is on the way. If she sees it and

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

writes an answer, we’ll know where to go.”

“Why can’t we do that?,” said Budd.

“Because my range for transport is half the distance to Kernly,” said Josie. “And I

expect the range will be lesser if I try to bring all of you along with me.”

“What about the letter?,” asked Fass. He waved at the space where the letter had been.

“It’s not alive and it doesn’t matter if it gets set on fire by the transport,” said Josie.

“I can’t say the same for us.”

“I like not being on fire,” said Budd. “I think that’s good for us.”

“I’m glad that you like it,” said Josie. “It warms my heart.”

The envelope appeared in front of her. She opened the envelope and read the

contents. She nodded.

“She thinks she is in a town named Cairn,” said Josie. “She says she can hold on us

until we figure out what we want to do to get to her.”

“Cairn is next to the border,” said Fass. “It’s days away from here by horse.”

“How do you want to handle this?,” asked Josie.

“We can ride up there and get in position to figure out what we can do to get her

back, and safe,” said Fass. “We can deal with things there once we know what’s on

the ground.”

“I think we need to head back to the city,” said Josie. “We can talk about how to get

you guys there faster than a month of running your horses into the ground.”

“All right,” said Fass. “Budd, get everybody together. We’ll head back to the city and

try to come up with something. Dinnertime is almost on us.”

“What about these bodies?,” Budd asked.

“Vultures have to eat too,” said Fass. “Make sure you get their money. We’ll need

that to finance anything we want to do and we’re not going to want to take time to

claim bounties unless they fall in our lap.”

Josie wrote another letter and sent it. She wanted Emily to know they were trying to

think of a way to get there faster than a horse.

What they needed was a van, or a helicopter, but she had no way of making anything

like that without a heavy duty leaning on Zatanna’s magic to make the unreal real.

Jack was doing all right with his magic user. Maybe she could do something with

Zatanna. She had already mastered scrying and message sending. How much harder

would it be to make a vehicle for the adventurers.

She doubted she would be able to just whip something up out of her imagination.

Maybe she could, if she sat down and thought about things enough. Her Zatanna

worked by wishing like Johnny Thunder’s command of the Thunderbolt. The magic

flexed and took some of the charge off the watch as it tried to do what she wanted.

She could build something. She thought about the house in Up, the Tardis, the

Wanderer. She nodded her head. All she needed was a little bit of time to get the job

done.

Would Fass go for having an enchanted headquarters that could carry his team

anywhere in the world faster than any beast on the ground? She thought that he

would.

The problem was she didn’t know if she could make such a thing a permanent fixture

in the real world. It might take them where they needed to go and then fall apart like

the Bluesmobile.

It wouldn’t be the first time magic had acted in a way she hadn’t been prepared to

answer.

“I think I can get you to Cairn,” said Josie. “I need to think about the ideas before I

promise anything. Emily knows we’re looking for her, so unless something happens

in the intervening time, we’ll get her back. I just need to think about things tonight.”

“You have done wonders for us already, Mistress Fox,” said Fass. “We could never

repay you for the help you have given us.”

“I’m going to leave you to your pillaging,” said Josie. “Meet me at the Hall in the

morning. Then we’ll see about turning things into something we can use.”

“Are you going to come with us?,” said Fass.

“I think Emily has got into trouble in Cairn, and it’s going to take more than the eight

of you to get her out of it,” said Josie. “She didn’t say so in the letter, but she is on the

run from an organization with ties to the government. She might have had to kill

some of the local Guard, or nobility to get free.”

She might still be killing them. That was something they would have to work out

when they caught up with her.

She thought they needed transportation. She would have a talk with Jack. Maybe he

could help her turn some of the stray ideas in her head into something realistic. At

the very least, they needed something to cross the distance faster than a horse.

She didn’t think they had more than a few days to get Emily back before someone

caught up with her.

At the very least, she wanted to look at things on a map to show her where she needed

to be.

Josie walked out of the tent. She looked up at the sky. She wanted to change the

world for the better. She looked around at the dead bodies being stacked up. Was she

doing it right?

Saving the girl was something good. She could do that. She had the skills and the

watch. She could do it.

She changed into a hawk and headed back to the city. She needed to talk to Jack

about some kind of transportation. Maybe she could get him to help her build it. Then

she could fly out with Fass’s party to do what they had to do.

She hoped they didn’t have problems with flying, or high speed along the ground.

She dropped at the Hall. She went inside to the training rooms. The girls had already

started for home. She had to catch up with them.

She left the hall, waving at the shift change in the clerks. She jogged down the street,

looking for a gaggle of girls talking about things. She wondered if they went into the

stores to pick up supplies, or rented a cart to get home.

Melanie would love that.

She spotted the Ducklings a few streets over. She checked her watch as she jogged

behind them. She had enough for a fast sprint as Quick to catch up with them.

She changed back when she fell in step behind Alicia walking along silently. The girl

paused to look in a window, but didn’t seem to see Josie’s own reflection.

“How are things, kiddo?,” Josie asked.

“All right,” said the second youngest. “Not a good archer yet.”

“Do you think you will be?,” asked Josie.

“Maybe,” said the girl. “Maybe not as good as an Elf, but still all right.”

“Do you want to practice at home between sessions?,” asked Josie. “I’m sure Jack can

put in a shooting gallery for you to shoot at a target.”

“Where would we put it?,” asked Alicia. She raised her hands to demonstrate the need

to expand the Hole in the Wall for such a thing.

“There are things that Jack could do,” said Josie. “It might call for some rearranging

of things. He might need your help to get some of it done.”

“What is it like?,” said Alicia.

“What?,” said Josie.

“Being able to do anything you want,” said the girl.

“Do you think I can do anything I want?,” asked Josie.

“Yes,” said Alicia.

“What is it like being young and having your life ahead of you when you haven’t

done things you regret for the rest of your life?,” asked Josie.

“I don’t know,” said Alicia.

“It’s the same for adults,” said Josie. “We don’t know what we’re really doing, and

for some of us, navigating choices between trying to just eat and excelling at

something we love is something that has to be worked at just as much as children

have to figure out what they want to do with the rest of their lives.”

“It sounds hard,” said Alicia.

“Responsibilities are what people pick up when they care about others,” said Josie.

“There are always going to be people who would rather duck what they should do for

what they want. It will be up to you to think about what you want to do, and what you

need to make that happen.”

“Archery,” said Alicia.

“Then I will talk to Jack about that while I am talking to him about building a flying

machine,” said Josie. “I am going to have to go out of town, and I won’t be able to get

to where I need to go fast enough on my own.”

“Can’t do everything?,” asked the Duckling.

“There are always going to be practical limits,” said Josie. “That’s something to

remember for the future. Some things are impossible to get no matter what you can

do.”

“I understand,” said Alicia. “I don’t like that.”

“It makes things interesting when things don’t fall in your lap,” said Josie.

“I don’t like interesting,” said Alicia.

“No one does,” said Josie.

They followed the rest of the girls toward home. Their thoughts were on their

personal futures.