Heimee put me to work the very next day—my first day as a master distiller’s apprentice. From the very beginning, I wasn’t too fond of my new title, especially after Heimee introduced me to a mountain of barley, a couple of spades, and two wheelbarrows. I had never seen so much cereal in my life, and I grew up around farms. To make matters worse, despite the wintery day outside, the air inside the malting building was thick, humid, and sweet.

I yawned as I reached for the spade and regretted it instantly. Breathing made me feel like a bee drowning in its own honey. “I’m alright,” I lied. I had, in fact, spent the night lost in the adventures of Salamorin and his white aramaz—a four-legged bird that can summon storms. Salamorin gathered a large army to face the hordes of evil demons at the service of the treacherous Queen of Sandar, who had ordered Salamorin’s family executed. When everything seemed lost, he rode the white aramaz into battle and summoned the biggest storm the world had ever seen, only to—oh right, whisky.

“Sure you are. Normally, we have a team to do this sort of thing,” Heimee signed, “but since there’s so little barley this year, I thought, why not do it ourselves.”

I pondered how the mountain of barley in front of me could ever be considered as ‘little’. I mean, how much barley did it take to be considered a lot of barley?

“First, we need to fill the steep tanks, then pump water in,” Heimee pointed to two large tanks occupying the end of the room. “The water temperature needs to be precise. I’ll show you how we do that later. What do you say? Since you’re so fresh, why not make it a race? A little competition always makes this more fun. I’ll make it easy on you; if you manage one barrow in the time it takes for me to take two, you win.”

I could do that. I took the spade into my hands and shoved it into the barley. “Prepare for defeat, old man.”

I lost miserably.

For starters, I couldn’t even fill and toss a spade full of barley. Heimee dug through the heap like a wild beast, while all I managed to do was watch helplessly as all the barley poured from the sides of the spade before even making it to the wheelbarrow. Once I finally filled the damned thing, I couldn’t even lift it. In a short while, my arm muscles turned to overcooked rice, and my back muscles decided they’d had enough of being soft and squishy and turned to stone. Soon Heimee was ahead by four wheelbarrows. “This is stupid,” I said, shoving the spade aside. “There must be a better way of doing this.”

“Don’t be such a sore loser.”

“Urrghh.” I nearly turned my back on him and left. Maybe that’s what I should’ve done. But he had been nothing but nice to me, and it was my duty to stick it out. A couple of hours later, we were done, and I had lost 32 to 3-ish. After that, it was time to fill the tanks. Fortunately, that part was a little easier.

I’m kidding. It was excruciating.

The water had to be pumped, and Heimee promptly volunteered me for the job. If my arms had become a soggy mess, now it was my shoulders’ turn. But to my credit, I didn’t quit. So I pumped and pumped and pumped until the blisters I’d earned from all the shoveling popped.

“This is a nifty invention,” Heimee said, holding a wood rod with numbers carved on the side like a ruler. A glass tube ran up the middle, ending in a bubble of red liquid. Heimee tapped the bubble. “That’s alcohol. It expands when heated and shoots up the glass. These numbers here tell us how hot or cold something is. It’s called a thermometer. The cretins who make these haven’t agreed on a universal scale. They keep coming up with new iterations, which they name after themselves—what a bunch of idiots. So I call these numbers: Heimees. Why not? Five Heimees is the temperature we want.”

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He dipped the red bubble into the water and waited. The red line went from room temperature—about 4.5 Heimees—to 0 Heimees from the frigid, toad-infested pond at the back of the building. Heimee poured pots of hot water he had been heating up, while I stirred the tank with a giant metal spoon.

“We come back here in a few hours,” Heimee signed. “We drain the water and refill the tanks.”

“Can’t wait.”

“Don’t fret; it builds character.”

As soon as my prickling back touched the soft mattress, I passed out.

Come dinner time, Heimee shoved me awake and signed, “Bastard’s bother, close that damned window.”

Blissfully he didn’t wake me for the second round of pumping, and I didn’t protest. But what I was ready to protest about was dinner—pork and barley stew. After getting acquainted with barley all morning, I wasn’t too eager to shove it down my mouth. But boy, was I wrong. As it turns out, a full day of heavy labor turns you into a gobbling machine. I barely chewed the food, gulping down spoonful after spoonful.

“Easy there,” Heimee signed. “There’s more where that came from.”

“What joy awaits us after steeping?”

“We spread it on the floor.”

I nodded sagely, having no idea what to make of it.

After supper, I headed back to my room. It was nice and warm, so I opened the window. Since Leftover, I couldn’t sleep right in a warm room. I hoped to finish the Salamorin book but ended up reading the same sentence a dozen times before drifting into a deep sleep.

When I opened my eyes, Heimee stood above me, frowning. Daylight flooded the room, and my brain had turned to molasses. “It’s freezing in here,” Heimee signed and closed the window. “You are going to fall ill. It’s winter, for Bastard’s sake.”

I groggily sat up and regretted every single second of it. I had experienced much physical pain until that moment in time and had been sure that nothing could surprise me. I was wrong. Leaving the bed took a feat of inhuman strength and willpower. Even my forehead muscles ached.

After breakfast, we were back at the steeps. Heimee dug his hand into the barley and pulled out a handful, feeling its weight and generally considering it. “See how puffed it got?”

I nodded.

“Means it’s ready.”

We drained the tanks and grabbed a couple of spades. I assumed it would be easier this time around, with the added experience and all, but that turned out to be plain wishful thinking. Not only did my sore muscles refuse to keep up, but the soaked grain was much, much heavier. The only advantage seemed to be that it clumped together instead of falling out from the sides. Although, I’m not entirely sure if advantage is the right way to describe it. Afterward, we pushed the wheelbarrows up ramps, all the way up to the third floor.

“If you’re going to be sick,” Heimee signed once we reached our destination, “do it in a bucket, not on the barley.”

I shook my head. “I’m fine,” I signed, pressing my lips together to plug my mouth. “You do know there’s plenty of floor space next to steeping tanks. Why not drop the barley there?”

“You see that hole in the wall? That’s a chute that leads directly to the kiln. After the barley germinates, all there’s left to do is to push it in.”

I wasn’t entirely satisfied with his answer. How would less work later help me now?

“The trick is,” Heimee continued, ignoring my mopiness, “you tilt the barrow and pull it in one smooth motion.” Heimee exemplified, producing a perfectly even barley line like a painter's brushstroke.

I tilted my wheelbarrow forward and watched as all the barley clumped in a heap in front of me. I began to suspect Heimee had taken me into his service so that I could amuse him.

“Don’t be so grumpy,” he signed. “You’ll get the hang of it. But for now, here’s a rake. Also, stop being so pale. You’re sucking the joy out of the room.”

So, I raked the barley heap into a somewhat even layer and went back for more. I’m not going to lie. I didn’t want to look weak in front of the man who’d saved my life, but I took every chance I found to dawdle. Raking was a great excuse to take a break from shoveling or pushing the wheelbarrow up the ramps. It took the whole day, but we got it done. And I have to say, I was grateful for it, regardless of how sick I felt. It got my mind off things. I went through the day without thinking about Mom and Dad and the other terrible things that had happened to me. That night, I slept like a rock, leaving me no time to weep or feel sorry for myself. But most of all, I felt proud for doing something hard and not giving up.

The following day, I woke up with Heimee at the foot of the bed again, closing the cracked window. “If you want to freeze, that’s on you, but this sucks the heat out of the whole house. At the very least, clog the door with something.”

“Heimee,” I said. “I don’t think I can move. Can you help me out of bed?”

Heimee smirked. “Quit whining. We need only to rake the barley today to let it breathe. It’ll feel like a day off.”