She could recognize Valerica’s handwriting anywhere. The curvy way she wrote her M’s, the small hearts inside each O. And if it was Valerica writing it, then this letter wasn’t just some standard-issue funeral invitation. It was her first communication with Momo in months.

Her first communication with her since the Viper.

Nerves eating at her insides, Momo peeled open the envelope and unfurled the scroll inside.

Strangely, while the page itself was long, only two sentences were written on it.

Hello darling.

Be a dear and pour my favorite condiment on this scroll. It’s a bit hard to read when dry.

Momo laughed in disbelief. Of course. A riddle. It wouldn’t be Valerica without one.

But she could understand why; the means in which they could communicate were only getting more and more easy to intercept. With Kyros newly in charge, even the other dokkaebis—formerly Morgana’s devout servants—didn’t seem trustworthy.

Something about Venice had made her skin crawl in particular.

She looked down at her still-full plate, nudging her uneaten food with her fork as she contemplated Valerica’s message. Her favorite condiment... All Valerica liked eating was insects, and she certainly didn’t season them with anything conventional. Momo’s attempts to introduce her to mayonnaise and ketchup had been futile; the only thing she enjoyed dunking her prey into was…

Her eyes widened.

Of course. Poison.

Then she grimaced. That wasn’t exactly something she had packed for the trip.

—

She knocked twice on the kitchen cart door. She heard the sound of someone yelping, then what was probably a knife and several plates clattering to the floor.

Chevri was easily surprised; something that did not combine well with the already jittery cabin.

“Oye, Chevri!” Moger, the chef, yelled. “For the last time, keep your hands on the cutlery!”

“Yes, chef. Sorry, chef.”

“You better be,” he growled. “You’ll be really sorry when you end up slicing my ear off.”

“Won’t happen, chef.”

A moment later, the door to the cabin rapidly slid open, thudding against the wall.

A disgruntled Chevri greeted Momo; her already-dirty apron was covered in tomato paste, her hands were nursing bandaids, and she was wearing an eye-patch on one eye.

“Oh my god,” Momo said, covering her mouth in shock. “Your eye…”

“Is fine,” she grimaced. “Moger’s just making me wear it as a precautionary measure.”

Moger stood several paces behind her on a small stool, his back to them. He was rather short, even for a dwarf, and wore an alarmingly tall chef’s hat in what Momo could only assume was an effort to overcompensate for his height. He busied himself chopping and dicing onions, throwing them into a simmering broth. It smelled intoxicating.

“Aye, that’s right,” he said, giving the pot a stir. “It’s inevitable that she’ll lose an eye due to all that clumsiness. So might as well protect the other one while we can.”

Chevri sighed.

“What do you need, Mo—” She paused, schooling her frown into a polite smile. “Queen Momo, your majesty.”

As Momo was about to open her mouth, a grainy sound played over the wagon’s magical intercom. It was the driver, Grundel. She had heard his voice a few times during the trip so far—mostly apologizing for turbulence, i.e. Momo’s head being thrust into the wall repeatedly.

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

“We’ll be arriving at our first stop, Wyrmeridge, in two hours. We’ll take a rest there until tomorrow afternoon, so feel free to do some touristing.”

Wyrmeridge. They had handed her a pamphlet on the place the day she boarded the carriage. It was the first stop on the journey up towards the Ivories, and one of the more popular ones. It apparently had a fantastic view of the waterfalls.

“Thank god,” Chevri said, stress releasing from her shoulders. “I’ve been needing a smoke break for ages. I nearly considered throwing myself into the road like our last passenger did just for the chance to light one.”

Momo frowned at her like a pitying auntie. “You smoke? Don’t do that. You’re so young.”

Chevri rolled her eyes. “You’re like, four feet tall. Don’t tell me what to do.”

Moger turned his head slowly, like a gargoyle. His cheeks were burning with fury.

“CHEVRI!” he growled, his facial expression scarier than the sharpened knife in his hand. “I must have heard you wrong.”

Chevri looked like she had been caught mid-murder attempt. Momo couldn’t even pity her on that one. Using a short joke in the proximity of a dwarf was like telling a hammerhead shark they had a big forehead. Absolutely asking for it.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Moger,” Momo said politically, leaning to the side so she could flash him a polite smile. “Chevri’s sense of humor is just a little … underdeveloped.”

“Oh, that’s putting it lightly,” Moger said, foaming at the mouth. Even so, he seemed to reign it in. His commitment to customer service was commendable. “My apologies, my queen. But if you need me to teach her a lesson—”

“Don’t worry about it.” Momo waved her hand. “I just need one second of her time.”

This seemed to placate the chef, who went back to his chopping, muttering nonsensical profanities under his breath. Chevri looked at her with a mixture of gratitude and annoyance.

“I’d say thanks, but I know he’s going to make me pay for it later,” the lizard girl muttered quietly. “But at least I’ve got a few moments of serenity. What can I get you?”

Momo gave her a guilty smile.

“Do you have any… How do I put this.” She winced before speaking. “Poison?”

Chevri snorted.

“You mean like, alcohol?”

Momo’s eyes widened.

I wonder if that would count.

Probably not. Valerica’s tastes were a bit more intense than a nip of vodka. And she didn’t want to accidentally ruin the page by pouring the wrong substance.

“Unfortunately, no. Something a little stronger. Enough to put down a horse.”

Chevri leaned against the wall, her shoulder vibrating as the wagon jittered along.

“Look, I don’t know what kind of nefarious stuff you’re getting up to, but… Wyrmeridge might have something,” she suggested after a moment, looking slightly uncomfortable. “There are witches there. Pretty powerful ones.”

“Witches?” Momo said, intrigued. She had met mages of all kinds—but what made one a witch, she wasn’t sure. All she knew is that Sera had referred to Valerica as one repeatedly.

Chevri nodded. “Mountaintop witches. I met a few of them on my first drive up to the Ivories. Their magic is usually derived from powders and concoctions, not spells.”

“Interesting,” Momo mumbled. But with how the System worked, she knew they had to be tied to someone in the pantheon. “Which deity do they worship?”

“I think they’re unaffiliated.”

“Unaffiliated?” Her eyes widened. “That’s… possible?”

Chevri nodded. “Sure it is. There was a time before the Class System, you know. The gods created us, sure, but for a long time, they didn’t give us any way to advance in power. So people had to turn to other means. Natural ones. Potions, elixirs.”

Momo hummed. Right. I forgot about that. There were mortals before there was a System. In fact, it seemed obvious to her now, seeing as Earth was one of the planets without one.

“Uh huh,” Momo said slowly, digesting the information. “It’s actually like that still, where I’m from. People who want to be strong and fast take things called steroids. People who want to be smart take… well…” Her mind drifted towards all the drugs she had been prescribed.

“Really?” Chevri’s eyes lit up. “I thought you were from the Vagrant Dunes. I was under the impression they largely worshiped the orc guy. At least, that’s what my father taught me.”

Momo laughed nervously. She had also forgotten about the made up backstory she sold to people during the election.

“Not exactly. But, anyway.” She turned away from the door. “Thanks for the tip.”

“Anytime, weirdo,” she said quietly. “Now, back to carrot-shredding purgatory I go.”

—

“Ladies and gentlemen—err, I suppose, now it’s just lady—we have arrived in Wyremeridge.”

As the wagon came to a gentle halt, Momo balanced her arms on the windowsill, gazing down at the steep cliff below her. It was nearly a ninety degree angle drop down. From what she could see from the window, the entire city of Wyrmeridge seemed to sit similarly just at the edge of certain death: houses teetering on mere pebbles, large buildings of white rock bellying from the mountainside.

The city sat on a circular ridge of mountains, a curvature of waterfalls that descended into a valley far below. In the far distance, parallel to where they were now, Momo could see a statue of a wyvern. Its marble wings and curving snout were both covered with snow.

“It’s beautiful,” she said, awed. Her breath fogged up the glass.

For a moment, everything felt simple again. She was on vacation. She was on a proper mountainous retreat. This is what she had come here for—the views, the serenity.

She knew that she had to deal with Morgana, and Valerica, and the Nether, and all those big, cataclysmic things, but.

For the first time, she didn’t really care. The Nether had been in jeopardy for eons. Time there passed at a completely different speed; she didn’t need to solve it all by tomorrow.

More importantly, there was no way she was going to save Morgana without saving herself, first.

“Come on, Dusk,” she said, beckoning the cat with a mischievous smile. “You haven’t had a poison-coated cat treat in a while.”