Jessica would have liked to look for the Serf family among the gawking crowd of Barleyfielders but scrambling to keep up with Sir Hayek kept her busy.

  The knight had tied her hands by a lead to his horse’s saddle forcing her to keep pace or be dragged behind. If the Serfs were there, they didn’t bother calling out. The thought that they might be glad to see her leave haunted her all the way out of the hamlet. After that, the limits of her non-existent stamina were the more pressing concern.

  “This—huff—isn’t—huff—gonna work!” Jessica called out after an hour of travel.

  “Burnish here is at a walking pace,” Sir Hayek said. “We can’t be going more than three miles an hour.”

  “How much—further?” she asked between gulps of air.

  “Elsifeya City is a week’s travel at this pace.”

  She groaned loudly. They pressed on like this for an agonizing couple of hours before somehow, some way, Jessica made it to their first break.

  Sir Hayek turned off the road and hopped off Burnish. Tying the horse to a tree, he produced a waterskin and some jerky and dried cheese from his saddlebags and handed some to Jessica who had to fumble to keep them from falling out of her bound hands. Sir Hayek, meanwhile, squatted down and munched on his own jerky while staring off into space.

  Jessica swallowed a gulp of water and said, “I didn’t burn Barleyfield.”

  “I know. I have been dealing with adventurers for longer than you’ve been alive. They’ve already paid compensation to Earl Heinrich,” Sir Hayek said.

  “What’s going to happen to Barleyfield?” she asked.

  “There’s fertile soil and groundwater, so it’ll eventually be rebuilt.”

  “And the people?”

  Sir Hayek looked up at her. “They’ll get moved to another estate.”

  “They don’t get released from their contract?”

  “No.”

  Jessica swallowed some cheese. Sheer caloric deficit suppressed the nausea of sleep deprivation for now, but if Sir Hayek kept driving her on, she was going to die.

  “I need rest,” she said. “You have to let me take a nap or I’m gonna die of exhaustion!”

  “For all I know you’ll use witch magic on me if I give you time to cast spells,” he replied.

  “I’m not a witch! I am an alchemist! I can’t do anything without access to chemicals. And if I could cast spells, why the hell wouldn’t I have done that to begin with!?”

  Sir Hayek stroked his chin in consideration of this small oversight on his part.

  “You’re right. I should’ve gagged you too.”

  “No! That’s not the point! I clearly cannot cast spells of any kind. I brew potions. And as for the stuff I was carrying out of the forest, that was stuff to make an analgesic— I mean a painkilling brew. For the queen.”

  “Out of the same stuff that burned those peasants and blew up a building?”

  “No, those are different chemicals. And either way, I haven’t harmed anyone. I warned the Barleyfielders to be careful around caustic slurry and they learned their lesson the hard way. But now we have— had a well-functioning soapmaking operation. Executing me for that is ridiculous! And the queen won’t even get her painkiller!”

  “I arrest witches, I don’t debate them. If you want your nap, grab it quick. We’re moving again in twenty minutes.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Jessica needed no further encouragement. This time her ball of internal guilt shut up long enough to grab a desperately needed catnap. It lasted only as long as a blink before Sir Hayek’s mailed foot was nudging her ribs.

  “A few more hours before we arrive at Earl Heinrich’s manor. You can make it,” he said.

  The second leg of the journey wasn’t as bad. There was still the burning heat and the arrow wound in her calf and the indignity of being towed behind a horse by her raw wrists, but the food, water, and nap mostly had her body working again.

  By the time they arrived at whatever village Sir Hayek was taking her to, she was ready to sleep for at least 24 hours. Not even being paraded in front of the astounded peasants penetrated her mental fatigue.

  Wherever this was, it was a step up from Barleyfield by virtue of having two-story buildings and a street grid. There were even remnants of a palisade, though most of it had been pulled down. There were also no signs of subsistence agriculture. Instead, the village was surrounded on all sides by forest with a sawmill at the northern edge.

  There was a picturesque-ness about the village that made it feel like the smallest settlement you could expect to find in an RPG. Or an isekai story, for that matter. Something like Barleyfield wouldn’t have even had a name. It would have been background art of farms as the characters traveled. This village was an actual setting.

  As for its name, a sign hanging out front of a timber lodge answered that:

  Traehagen General Store

  Unless ‘Traehagen’ was somehow the name of a chain of general stores, it seemed likely this was the name of the village.

  Sir Hayek made a right turn at this store headed for a stone mansion hemmed in by a wrought-iron fence. The gate was opened by a pair of halberd-wielding guards and Jessica and Burnish were directed toward the stables. The knight dismounted and took over the duty of dragging her along.

  “Do not even think of casting any spells,” Sir Hayek said as they approached the manor’s oversized double-doors.

  Jessica sighed. “Again, I can’t cast spells, man.”

  He hushed her as he knocked on the door. The knock was answered by a vacant-eyed bunnygirl in a maid outfit.

  “Good afternoon, Master Hayek. Earl Heinrich is awaiting you in the study. Shall I prepare your afternoon tea?”

  “Tell him I’ll be up once I secure the witch,” Hayek replied. “And yes to the tea.”

  The bunny maid bowed. “Very good, Master.”

  Jessica strained her mind for any last-minute ‘impress the nobles with chemistry’ gambit. Unfortunately, everything she thought of was too long-term. She couldn’t sit the Earl down and explain open-hearth metallurgy or cement-mixing or atmospheric nitrogen. The best idea her overheated brain could concoct was building a clock from scratch. Except she didn’t know how to do that.

  Her last chance came when Hayek dragged her past the kitchen. Strands of yellow kelp were laid out on a tray beside a dog-eared boy chopping vegetables.

  “Wait! Let me help cook dinner and I’ll make special flavor crystals that will instantly enhance the flavor of any food,” Jessica said.

  Sir Hayek squinted at her. “What did you say?”

  “Special. Flavor. Crystals.”

  “You plan to poison us now, is that it?”

  “Goddammit, just lemme invent MSG! It’ll make Earl Heinrich wealthy and famous!”

  “Why should I care if that tub of lard becomes wealthy and famous? He isn’t my liege. I serve King Capra directly. We are only here because the earl would never dare turn away a knight of—”

  While Sir Hayek yapped, Jessica caught the dog boy’s attention with a whistle.

  “Hey! If you wanna impress your master, boil off a concentrated stock of kelp under medium-low heat until crystals form. It’ll take about five or six hours. Use it like salt. And when he asks what you did differently, tell him the witch made special flavor crystals. Got it?

  The wide-eyed dog boy nodded. Before she could ask him to repeat the instructions back to her, Sir Hayek boxed her across the ear.

  “None of that now! Belay that order, boy.”

  “Ow!” Jessica rubbed her ringing ear against her shoulder. “It’s just kelp! Make me eat it first if you have to. I’ll show you it’s fine.”

  Sir Hayek considered this for a moment. She could almost see the thought bubbles swirling around him about whether the instant Enhance Flavor powder was worth it.

  “Fine. Make the powder. And if it doesn’t impress me…”

  Jessica rolled her eyes. “You'll do what, burn me alive?”

  “I’ll have Burnish go faster tomorrow.”

  The knight dragged her onward to a set of stairs leading to a cobblestone basement. He took her past racks of wine and barrels of produce cooling in the subterranean air to where a row of pillars held up the floor above. Forcing Jessica onto her butt, he tied her hands behind a pillar and wrapped the rest of the rope around her ankles so she couldn’t scurry away to boil seaweed. After that he left her alone.

  Her eyes trailed up to the ceiling. “Don’t screw the pooch on this one, doggo. Please.”