Matt traipsed through the dirt streets of the little village, feeling the eyes of onlookers following him curiously as he passed. Rachel, confident as ever, smiled at those who watched from afar, and briefly accosted a passerby carrying a basket full of… well, Matt could tell that it was full of something, but whatever it was was so translucent it was nearly invisible.

  “Hi, sorry,” Rachel said, raising the pitch of her voice a few steps. “Can you tell me what this town is called?”

  The woman frowned, holding her basket closer to her chest. “You from out of town?”

  “You have no idea,” Rachel replied. Matt decided that must be Rachel’s favorite phrase.

  The woman looked Rachel and Matt up and down. “Strange clothes they come up with in the cities these days.”

  Rachel nodded. “Can’t find much like this anywhere. Had it all specially commissioned.”

  “If you came here with money to spend, we make the best pastries around. No better way to relax after a day on the road.”

  Rachel raised her eyebrows. “Didn’t get run out of town for nothin’. We’re actually here to find a little work. Gonna take a while to pick up the pieces.”

  The woman tossed her head to her left. “Bones’ll have work for you. It ain’t easy, but you’ll get paid fairly for your time.”

  “Thanks,” Rachel said, smiling at the lady and offering her a little wave as she started towards Bones’s little storefront.

  “Town’s called Fortaim,” the woman called over your shoulder. “Just in case you still wanna know.”

  “Appreciate it,” Rachel called back, then turned to Matt. “We’re officially on our way. We’ll put in a couple days’ work, save up a few drooma and then push for Trensicourt.”

  “Why don’t we just go to Trensicourt and find work there?” Matt suggested.

  “You ever tried being broke in a big city?” Rachel countered as she stepped up to Bones’s store and rapped on the thick wooden door. “Gotta spend before you can earn. Out here, they’ll take all the help they can get.”

  Matt raised his eyebrows. “Might make more money in a city.”

  Rachel snorted. “Trensicourt would eat you alive, Colorado boy. We arrive with momentum on our side, or we stay well away.”

  Matt did not have time to answer before a hunched man with speckled gray hair and a bushy mustache swung the door open. Matt stumbled back, surprised, but Rachel stood her ground passively, taking a small step forward and nodding to the man. The man, who must have been Bones, looked them both up and down, frowning pensively.

  “What’s got you city people rankin’ on my door?” Bones rasped, wrinkling his nose at Rachel.

  “We’re no longer city people,” Rachel clarified. “We’re looking for work, and someone referred us to you.”

  Bones harrumphed dramatically. “Could always use the help. Delicate flower like you might not survive it for long, though.”

  Rachel surged at Bones, hooking a leg behind his calves and pinning him to the ground with a single fluid motion. She caught his head before it could slam against the rough wooden floor, then backed off and let him fight back to his feet. Rachel did not bother to wipe away a stray lock of hair that fell across her face, but no sweat stuck it to her brow.

  “Never underestimate a stranger,” Rachel said, stepping back once more. “We’ll do whatever you’ve got.”

  A cruel grin spread itself across Bones’s weathered face. “Whatever I’ve got, hm? Come inside.”

  Without a moment of hesitation, Rachel followed Bones into his shop. A small passage led to the actual storefront, which sold everything from woven baskets to farming implements to basic weaponry. Towards the back, the hallway opened up into a sizable smithy, comprising a huge stone-lined furnace, two weathered anvils, a bellows and a whole host of peripheral tools and tables.

  Great. He’d be hammering on metal in a white-hot smithy for chump change. Not for the first time, he wished he had had the courage to stand up to Rachel.

  “Boy,” Bones said, not bothering to ask Matt’s name. “You know anything about smithing?”

  “No,” Matt replied truthfully.

  Bones sighed. “You’re both on collection, then. Be a crying shame if the Hand of Providence would send me a decent blacksmith.”

  “I’ve had some smithing experience,” Rachel said professionally.

  “You? Bah.” Bones waved her off. “Can’t even swing a hammer, I bet.”

  If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  Rachel narrowed her eyes. “I could put you on the floor again.”

  Bones closed into a fighting stance. “Try me. You surprised me last time.”

  Rachel shrugged. “That’s a valid combat tactic. I was just guaranteeing the inevitable outcome.”

  “Can we not?” Matt sighed, drooping his shoulders. “I just wanted to find a good meal tonight.”

  “Good lad,” Bones said, straightening and stepping away from Rachel, whose eyes he did not meet. “Iron’s over there. Teon and Pax are off to get more, but right now you’ll have to work with what we’ve got.”

  “Not until we negotiate pay,” Rachel interjected.

  Bones whirled on Rachel. “You’re a chatty little finch, huh? Tell you what, I’ll pay him four drooma an hour so long as he can get all that iron melted down. I’ll either pay you two an hour to clean the place up behind him, or ten right now for you to get out of my face.”

  Rachel tightened a fist behind her back. “Twelve.”

  Matt dropped his jaw. There was no way Rachel would leave him alone with this grinch, would she? She had to be kidding.

  “Eleven,” Bones countered.

  “Deal.” Rachel held her hand out expectantly. “Work him hard.”

  Matt wanted to object, but the money exchanged hands almost too quickly for him to react. Bones turned to Matt as Rachel strode towards the front of the store, pocketing her newly- earned cash.

  “You’ve really never done this before,” Bones said, though his mood had evidently improved. He threw Matt a heavy, soot-stained apron and a pair of massive gloves, of which Matt caught none. Matt tied the apron off and pulled the gloves on, finding that they only covered half of his forearms, leaving the majority of both his arms exposed.

  “Never. You got something to cover my arms?”

  Bones shook his head. “You won’t need it. Till you do. Then you just jump around and scream real hard.”

  Matt scoffed. “You’re joking.”

  “Only a little.” Bones led him to the pile of iron, which Matt guessed would be a lot of work. “We got a water basin over there. You ever get burned, run straight there.”

  “Sounds reasonable,” Matt lied.

  “Good lad. No time to waste.”

  The rest of the afternoon went largely smoothly as Matt and Bones worked together to melt the raw iron into bricks. As they went, Bones used the relatively short lulls in workload to orient Matt to the different stages of the smithing process, using a half-finished pitchfork as an example.

  “That’s a horrid girl you’ve got on your arm,” Bones sniffed out of the blue as they each hauled a bucket of molten iron from the furnace to the molds.

  Matt bit his lip, not sure whether he felt okay talking Rachel down behind her back. Bones was definitely not the kind of man Matt would want anywhere near any of the women in his life. But, he had a job, and he was almost enjoying it. They needed money, and here it was on a silver platter.

  “She’s not usually like that,” Matt said ruefully, “but I get you. She’s a strong one.”

  “Ain’t normal for a gal to be acting like that,” Bones grumbled. “Ain’t proper. You ask me, you’re better off she lays someone else’s eggs.”

  Matt tried, and somehow succeeded, not to show that he was mildly horrified. “Heh. Don’t tell her that, she’ll knock you halfway to next month.”

  “Then we’ll knock ‘er right back.” Bones pantomimed viciously slapping an invisible opponent, then watching them fly into the distance. “Smithy ain’t no place for a girl.”

  “Hm.” Matt turned back to the pile of iron and loaded another sizable chunk into his bucket. He didn’t want to humor Bones any more than absolutely necessary, especially since he had almost chalked him up as a reasonable guy. He still had to work here, after all.

  Bones did not get the hint. “Whaddya think she’s up to? Pickin’ some berries?”

  “Careful,” Matt said, edging towards the very enticing prospect of a moral debate. “She sticks in your mind like that, you know she’s won. Gotta forget about it and move on.”

  Bones frowned pensively, then gave Matt a grin. “That’s right philosophical of you. Shop talk’s shop talk, you know what it is.”

  Matt forced himself not to let out a gargantuan sigh of relief. “Back to work we go.”

  “Good lad,” Bones said. Matt made a note of what might be Bones’s favorite phrase.

  The rest of the afternoon went by quickly. It was easier than Matt expected to divulge as little about himself as possible - Rachel had not warned him against anything of the sort, but he figured it would be unwise to reveal anything related to where he and Rachel had come from. Bones didn’t seem all that interested in who he was. They mostly just exchanged mumblings, made awful jokes and learned to work with metal.

  As the sun began to kiss the low hilltops to the west, Bones slapped Matt on the back and took his gloves and apron, leading him towards the storefront. They had just barely failed to melt down all of the metal, but Bones assured him that they were well ahead of when Teon and Pax were meant to return with their new load.

  “Left you some time before sundown,” Bones grunted, rummaging in a blackened trunk and extracting a number of metal pellets. “Go find that girl before she shows up at my door again, the little devil.”

  Matt accepted the pellets gratefully, counting three bronze and one copper. He pocketed them with a grateful smile, opting to trust Bones’s integrity rather than reveal that he had no idea what Lyrian’s money was worth, or whether this was money at all. Bones shooed him at the door, telling him to come back at sunup for a new task, then retreated into his shop and slammed the door behind him with all the respect due to a portal of such shoddy workmanship.

  It didn’t take Matt long to find Rachel. She was not picking berries; instead, she was chatting with someone who Matt assumed must have been a stablewoman. They each had a hand on the back of a small brown horse, reminding him of the day he and Jason had gone pony riding when they were kids. Rachel’s gaze turned to him long before he approached, though she didn’t take her attention away from her conversation until he made his way to her side.

  “Had a nice afternoon respecting women from all walks of life?” Rachel snarked.

  “He’s a character,” Matt said, hoping to agree without going into too much detail. “What did you end up doing?”

  Rachel shrugged. “Not getting all sweaty. You’re swimming in the pond before we grab dinner.”

  Matt laughed. “I didn’t think to bring swim shorts.”

  Rachel’s gaze suddenly intensified, then relaxed. “Just because we grew up in the weavers’ guild doesn’t mean we had to bring every single garment of clothing they ever made for us.”

  A chill ran through Matt as he realized how easily he had let that slip. He wondered if he had ever said something to Bones that could make him question his origin.

  And, he wondered how it had seemed so easy, so natural, for Rachel to lie.