Jacob ran into Grim the next morning while he was out for groceries. The wizard was just crouched outside the store when he walked up, a lit cigarette pinched between two fingers.

“I don’t suppose you’re here for eggs and milk,” Jacob said.

“No.”

“You going to train me to do magic or what?”

“Yes.”

“Right now?”

“Right now.”

“Well, I need to pick up groceries.”

“Later.”

Jacob sighed and sent a message to Becca saying that he would be late. “Whatever. Where are we going, then?”

Grim frowned about himself at the dirty sidewalk in a ‘this isn’t good enough for you?’ kind of way.

“This is where you’re going to teach me magic?”

“This is where I’m going to teach you to teach yourself magic. It won’t take long.”

Reluctantly, Jacob crouched down next to Grim, and the wizard handed him a cigarette, already lit. Jacob was forced to smoke while he waited for the lesson to start.

Grim was quiet for a long time. Then, suddenly, he said: “Close your eyes.”

“Fine.” Jacob closed his eyes.

“Imagine a feather.”

“Right.”

“Imagine making the feather float with your breath and keep it floating.”

“Okay. And then?”

“That’s it. Just think about that and nothing else.”

“It doesn’t really make sense though, because you can’t breathe out forever. So the visual is a bit off.”

“Even so.”

He tried, but all the noise of people walking around and the grinding of machinery from the city’s internals made it impossible to focus.

“You’re not concentrating,” Grim noted in a bored tone.

“Shut up. You couldn’t have picked a worse spot for this.”

“It doesn’t matter where you do it. Just concentrate.”

Jacob pulled on his cigarette out of sheer frustration. “You’re a shitty teacher, you know that?”

“Feel free to explore other options. I won’t get jealous.”

After about thirty minutes of trying and failing to picture a stupid feather floating, Jacob declared the effort a loss.

“It will take a long time before you see results,” Grim said helpfully. “Just keep practicing on your own.”

“What am I even looking for, anyway? I get that the feather is some kind of mind exercise to trick myself into learning how to channel magic, but how will I know if I’ve got it, or if I’m moving in the right direction?”

“Don’t worry about that. You’ll feel it.”

“Fine.”

Grim put out his last cigarette, placing it in a little pile of butts he had assembled, and stood up. “Well, if there’s nothing else, I need to be going.”

“I want your advice on something,” Jacob said.

“Fine. If it’s in my purview.”

“What do you know about Gorgobaryx? The baron is contracting me to meet with him, but I don’t know if I should accept.”

Grim shrugged. “He’s not so bad.”

“How do you know?”

“I’ve met him once or twice. He’s less irritable when he’s got some of that lubbard smoke in him. I recommend catching him in a good mood.”

“Okay. But you think I should do it?”

“As long as you’re not stupid about it.”

“If you know him, why don’t you come with? I can pay you.”

“No, thank you.” He threw Jacob a cigarette. “For the road.”

Then he walked away, merging with the flood of pedestrians.

Worst teacher ever, Jacob thought, stuffing the cigarette in his pocket.

*****

Jacob worked out the details of the job with Alfonse and his son and accepted the assignment, which was given the codename Wounded Wings. Apparently, shady deals made with the baron did not count as taxable income, so that was a plus.

He hired Danger officially as his pilot and got him to oversee the overhaul of the Quickdraw. Many components were replaced, the engine was completely reworked, the cabins were made somewhat liveable, and a four-seated lander was added, docked to the starboard airlock. He had the faulty AI core ripped out and replaced with a more pleasant one named Vivi. Lastly, he had four chainguns mounted on the ship’s underside.

All in all, it cost around 600 000 flora, which Jacob thought was a fair price considering he ended up with a ship that was now in comfortably usable condition and could even put up a fight if it came to that.

Jacob spent his days with Becca and Tarim. The kid was still mopey, but at least slightly less obnoxious about it. He only attended court once with them, then refused to go because of all the people staring at his face and women snickering at him behind his back.

Jacob saw Thatch a few times at court. During the day he was often caught up in secretive conversations with the baron and his confidantes. Despite his persistent efforts, Jacob was unable to get anything out of him about what exactly they were talking about, which only made him want to find out more. But Thatch revealed none of his plans, and then he had to leave for Earth again, hiring a new ship and a new pilot to take him since Jacob had poached the previous ones from him.

However, the director did say that he was confident they’d be meeting each other again soon, so he clearly had something planned. Maybe it even had something to do with this Crusade of Reprisal business, talk of which was spreading amongst the Martian populace, with support growing every day. For Earth, they said, but Jacob was fairly certain they mostly just liked to have something to be angry about and go to war over.

To his shame, Jacob was sleeping better. He didn’t know why. By all accounts, he felt worse than before regarding just about everything.

Or maybe he was just desperately trying to convince himself that he was feeling worse.

The ship overhaul took a little over a week. Lord Alfonse had some of his men check over the Quickdraw to make sure it was appropriately safe to accommodate his son. They were given a thumbs up, which meant they were all ready to leave after Anton had had all of his many, many bags moved on board.

They were leaving early the next morning, and Jacob was whiling away his last evening at court, watching snooty Martians dance in circles around each other. The curiosity over him had largely faded, and at this point only a few people approached him each night to ask vapid questions, which he was grateful for.

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At least he got to enjoy the view of Becca all prettied up like a princess every night. He’d bought her enough dresses and accessories over the last week and a half to fill a wardrobe. They were in an array of styles and colors, but they all suited her beautifully.

It was the only part of the Martian King Arthur experience that he was going to miss.

Jacob was about to get up to refill their drinks when he noticed several people coming towards their table. A withered, ancient-looking old man slumped to one side of an electric wheelchair, surrounded by two men in Heroes’ Guild uniforms, of all things.

“Hello,” Jacob said, trying to conceal his confusion. “Who am I speaking to?”

He wasn’t sure if the old man could hear him, his mouth agape and his foggy eyes fixed somewhere far away.

The old man stopped his wheelchair by Jacob’s table, his head flopping with the sudden arrest. “Hanged Man,” he worked out through cracked lips, his voice dry and whispery.

“Yeah, I’m the Hanged Man, I guess. Who are you?”

“Drayphus.”

That didn’t tell him anything. “I see. And what’s your…?” He trailed off when Becca leaned into him.

“That’s William Drayphus,” she whispered in his ear. “Sage, the S-Rank hero.”

Oh.

He was the one who had foreseen the apocalypse.

“Oh. Sage, right. I’m sorry I didn’t recognize you. What did you want to talk to me about?”

“Find the tree again,” Sage said flatly.

“Sorry?”

“Find the tree again.”

“Is that a prophecy?”

“Yes.”

“What does it mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“Okay… Is it important?”

“I don’t know.”

Then he wheeled off, and the support workers gave Jacob vaguely apologetic looks before following him.

“Wow,” Becca murmured once he was gone. “You got a prophecy from Sage. That’s a big deal.”

“If you say so.”

“What do you think it means?”

“I can only think of one tree that I’ve visited before that would be important enough to mention.”

“That big scary one you told me about? With the snake?”

“Mmhmm.”

“Do you think you’d find something important there?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

“But you can only get there by dying, right?”

“Yeah. So hopefully I won’t be fulfilling that prophecy anytime soon. But I guess if I do die, I’ll pay the tree a visit.”

“I wish I could go with you,” she pouted, resting her chin on his shoulder.

“It’s really not much to look at. But if you come up with a name for the snake, I’ll make sure to propose it to him. If he’s still there.”

Becca gave an impish grin. “Okay, deal.”

*****

Everything was ready. Everyone was on board. Danger had performed all the last-minute checks, the landing pad had been extended to give them a view of the hazy-red Martian sky, and they had gotten permission from the tower to depart.

Sir Anton was worryingly excited about the whole thing. Jacob had already resigned himself to the fact that this was mostly going to involve babysitting the young knight, keeping him from getting killed in some stupid way. Jacob did not imagine that his penchant for braggadocio would prove charming to a dragon.

Hopefully some of Johnny’s luck would rub off on him. Or maybe Johnny could stay behind on the ship and give him Favorite Child to transfer all of his luck over.

On this trip, the crew consisted of: Jacob himself, Becca, Tarim, Fenris, Bob, Johnny, Danger, and Anton. Jacob, Becca, and Fenris all stayed in the same cabin, giving them just enough rooms for everyone.

Everyone strapped in, they took off and left the walking city behind. Once they breached the Martian atmosphere, a few of them went down to the lower deck to watch the red planet recede.

If Anton was the most enthusiastic, Becca was a close second. She had technically never been in space before, only traveling through the waylines, which was sort of a weird halfway gray area. The idea that they now owned a spaceship and could go wherever they liked was an exciting prospect to her.

Her and Tarim swapped ideas for places they could go when they had some down time. The consensus seemed to be that they wanted to visit the thune Nomad Fleet. After this job was over, he’d make the time to take them there. It wasn’t like they’d be lacking for money at that point. They’d be able to just live easy for a while.

Gorgobaryx was supposedly spending his exile on Gamuun, home to the amphibian lubbards—’friendly yet reclusive’, as the AI put it. Jacob wasn’t sure how someone could be friendly and reclusive at the same time, but he was probably going to find out.

The trip was supposed to take three weeks one way, since Gamuun was quite far off the beaten path. That meant they’d get plenty of time to get to know young Sir Knight on an intimate basis. Fun.

Becca was even clingier than usual. More sexually demanding, too, putting him through his paces more or less every night. He had her easily beat in terms of stamina, but when it came to pure enthusiasm she couldn’t be topped.

He had a hard time putting all that she’d said out of his head. Whenever he looked at her, her words replayed in some deep recess of his mind. But the way she acted was nothing but sweet, and she was good with Tarim. She had him laughing and cooperating and doing his chores in a way that Jacob could never quite manage.

He kept doing the meditation exercise Grim had taught him. He let the kid join him for that once per day. It was an easy way to make him feel like he was getting some of that ‘hero training’ he felt entitled to without really giving him anything at all. Grim had said it could take years to gain an understanding of nim manipulation. Seemingly in confirmation of that, neither Jacob nor Tarim had any breakthroughs.

Unsurprisingly, Anton and Johnny got along well. Apparently their Blessings had some synergy too. Since Anton’s Blessing relied on his luck at drawing specific cards from his deck to make combos, if Johnny donated his luck to him he could consistently draw the best ones. He didn’t have much of a chance to show them off, considering that taking the risk of blowing a hole through the ship didn’t sound like such a good idea, but Jacob imagined it might prove useful at some point.

Jacob and Becca spent their evenings—when they weren’t having sex—watching old movies they’d preloaded onto the TV in their cabin. He’d forgotten many of what were apparently ‘the classics’ that they used to watch together, so she was getting him up to speed. She said she was envious of him for getting to watch them for the first time again.

Jacob wasn’t so sure. Most of them were painfully bad. Clearly, he had not had much input in choosing ‘the classics’ back in the day. At least it was something to pass the time with once they got out of System range.

They were watching Scythe Hands 4—the best in the series by far, which wasn’t saying much—when Jacob noticed that Becca had a weirdly smug look on her face. When he asked her what she was up to, she reached under the bed and handed him a box wrapped in pink paper with a red ribbon.

“Happy birthday, bro,” she said.

Jacob took the present with a frown. “Uh… It’s not even close to my birthday, though, is it?”

“We missed it while we were apart, so I’m celebrating it now. Now open your present! That’s an order!”

“Let me guess what it is first.”

“Ooh, okay! Guess, guess.”

He shook the box. There was a rattle of something hard. It sounded large. Not heavy, but not light either. “Hmm, well it’s definitely something I don’t need.”

“Rude.” She stuck her tongue out at him.

He flicked her nose for that, and she gave a little choked whine.

“The sequel to 202 Perfect Knee-Slappers, maybe?” he guessed.

“Where would I even get that? Earth blew up, remember? And that book came out like, decades ago.”

“Whatever, Miss Logic. Then, maybe like a cologne or something?”

“Man, you suck at this! Just open it!”

“Fine, fine.” Jacob tore off the wrapping and opened the red gift box.

Inside lay a small painting with a wooden frame, the lines done with pencil and the colors done with watercolor. It depicted a quaint cottage on a sun-soaked hill, a few trees in the background. Smoke rose from the chimney, and a soft, warm light emanated from the windows and the open door. A yellow cat sat in a lawn chair on the front porch, and below it lay a large, gray dog.

The colors were beautiful. Greens, yellows, oranges, with the washed-out watercolor look that gave it a vague, far-off, nostalgic feeling.

“I’ve been working on it while you were gone,” she said.

“I didn’t know you could draw.”

“I mean, I’m not great or anything. I took art in secondary school for a few years. Bob helped me clean up the lines a little. He’s got steady hands, you know.”

“It’s pretty. I’m impressed.”

Becca blushed, hugging her legs to her chest with a bashful smile. “It’s supposed to be, like… our home. Our future home, or something. Imagining the two of us there all old and stuff helped me when you weren’t here. The cat is me and the dog is you.”

“I really like it. Thank you, Becca. I fully expected it to be something shitty.”

“You have so little faith in me it’s almost insulting. I was going to give you a pregnancy test, too, but I haven’t gotten knocked up yet.” She looked unreasonably annoyed about that.

“Not to burst your bubble, Becca, but I’m pretty sure I’m shooting blanks these days. You know, half-dead and all.” He got up off the bed and placed the painting against the table at the far end of the cabin.

“Oh. I didn’t think about that. I guess we’re adopting, then.”

“You’re just assuming I want kids. We’ve never talked about it.”

“Of course you want kids. You’ve already got Tarim. And speaking of adoption, when are you going to be making that official?”

“Uh, never. He’s just some kid I’m taking care of until he finds something better.”

She gave a derisive snort. “Is this some kind of emotionally repressed manly-man thing? Too embarrassed to admit you care about him?”

He joined her back in bed, and she wrapped her arms around his neck, nuzzling her nose against him.

“I do care about him,” he said. “I just don’t think either of us want me as his dad.”

“Have you asked him?”

“Why are you being so pushy about this?”

“Because I want babies, Jacob!” She shook him insistently. “With everything that’s happened, I’m not going to waste any time. So you’re going to talk to Tarim about adoption, or I’ll do it instead. And you better start bringing me more strays. And no condoms. Just in case. These are my demands.”

“Those are some scary demands,” Jacob muttered.

“Tough, mister. Gimme babies.”

“I’ll… talk to Tarim, okay? That’s the compromise I’m willing to make.”

She rolled her eyes and threw her arms up dramatically. “Fiiine. For now.”

I got in bed with one scary woman.