I woke up in a bed, and that was new.
For two days, I’d been sleeping with horses. Now I was in a room with clean sheets, a lit candle on the nightstand, and a window overlooking a garden with neat rows of herbs. The mattress was soft, but my ribs hated it.
Everything hurt.
My ribs hurt when I breathed, my wrist hurt when I moved it, and my shoulder hurt when I tried to sit up. Even my face hurt when I touched it. I caught my reflection in the window and noticed that the bruise on my cheekbone had bloomed overnight into something colorful. I looked like a painting nobody would buy.
I sat up anyway, slowly, like an old man getting out of a chair. One inch at a time, breathing shallowly because deep breaths made it feel like someone was tightening a belt around my chest.
The room was small. A bed, a window, a washbasin on a stand, and a wooden chair. Clean floors, cedar walls, and the faint smell of soap. If I had to guess, I’d say I was in the magistrate’s guest room, and I was here because I’d taken a beating for his daughter and somehow survived.
I guessed that was the standard for hospitality in Millhaven. Get beaten nearly to death protecting the magistrate’s daughter, earn yourself a bed and breakfast.
Honestly, it was a fair trade.
I stood up, and my legs held. That was a good sign. I walked to the window and looked out at the garden. The herb beds were neat, arranged in rows of sage, rosemary, and something I didn’t recognize.
Beyond the garden, the hill road wound down toward the market square. I could still see the remnants of the festival: broken stalls, lantern poles standing abandoned, and a few people moving through the square to clean up. The platform was still there, too.
A knock sounded at the door. Then it opened before I could answer, which told me this wasn’t the kind of knock that expected a response.
A woman I’d never seen before stood in the doorway. She was middle-aged, dressed plainly, with graying hair pulled tightly back. She looked at me the way someone might look at a stray animal they’d discovered inside the house. Curious, not hostile, but keeping her distance.
"Breakfast is in the dining hall," she said. "Down the stairs, first door on the left. Make it quick."
Then she left.
I counted to ten before following her.
The dining hall was bigger than my apartment back home. A long table stood in the middle of the room, surrounded by eight chairs, six of which were empty. Magistrate Dale sat at the head of the table, with Clara to his right. A place setting waited in the chair across from her.
Mine, apparently.
The magistrate looked better in daylight than he had at the festival. He was still sharp, but the urgency of the previous night had faded. He wore a simple dark green tunic, and his cane leaned against the table beside him. His beard was trimmed close, more white than gray, and his eyes followed me as I entered.
"Sit," he said.
He used the same voice he’d used the night before. Not unfriendly, but not warm either. Just direct.
I sat.
Clara looked at me. The tiredness from yesterday was still there, visible in the shadows beneath her eyes, but she’d combed her hair and changed into a pale blue dress. She looked like she’d at least managed to get some sleep.
"Eat," the magistrate said. "You look like you need it more than conversation."
He wasn’t wrong. There was bread, hard cheese, dried fruit, and tea. I ate carefully, chewing on the left side because the right side of my face was swollen.
The bread was good, though the cheese was better.
We ate in silence for a few minutes. The magistrate took his time, while Clara barely touched her food. She picked at the bread and sipped her tea, watching me in a subtle manner.
She seemed good at that.
The magistrate set down his cup.
"Joseph."
"Sir."
"Last night, you told me you’d heard rumors. The number of attackers, their entry points, the timing, the letters. You claimed it all came from rumors."
He picked up a piece of cheese and examined it as though deciding whether it was worth eating. Apparently, it was, because he ate it.
"I’ve been a magistrate for nineteen years. I’ve heard rumors. Rumors are vague. Rumors get the details wrong. What you told me was specific. Specific information comes from sources, and sources mean you’re not simply a traveler who happened to hear the right things in the right places. You’re either someone with a network or someone with knowledge."
I set down my bread.
"I told you what I know."
"We both know you told me what you decided to tell me." He looked at Clara, but she gave him nothing. "And I’d be a fool to believe you know nothing else."
He turned back to me.
"But I’m not going to press you this morning. You saved my daughter’s life, or you happened to get in the way at the right moment. Either way, I’m grateful. But gratitude has a shelf life, Joseph. It doesn’t last forever. Eventually, I’ll need real answers, and I’d prefer to get them while you’re still being treated as a guest rather than an intruder."
I nodded.
That was fair. More than fair, actually. He was giving me time while making it clear he could take that time away. I could respect that.
"Thank you," I said. "For the room and the breakfast."
"Don’t thank me. Eat your bread."
No need to tell me twice. I ate my bread.
Clara waited until her father had returned his attention to his tea before speaking.
"The letters," she said quietly. Her voice was low enough that her father could hear if he wanted to, but soft enough that he’d have to make the effort. "You said you’d tell me more when you could."
"I did."
"So?"
I looked at her, then down at the wrist I was holding against my chest. She’d seen the bruise on my face, watched me get kicked in the ribs while I was busy grabbing a man’s ankle, and witnessed the rest of the disaster firsthand.
She owed me nothing, and I owed her something. We both knew it.
"I know the letters came from someone in Haremdale City," I said.
The magistrate’s cup stopped halfway to his mouth.
Good. That was new information for him.
"I don’t know who specifically. I know the Thorn Collective has connections in the capital, and I know they’re bigger than the group that attacked the festival. That’s all I have right now."
Clara studied me. "How do you know it’s Haremdale City?"
"Because that’s where the resources came from. You don’t fund a five-person attack from a small town. You fund it from somewhere with money and infrastructure."
The magistrate set his cup down.
"Haremdale City."
"Yes."
He fell silent, his eyes going still again. He was processing something.
"The Dale family has interests in Haremdale City," he said, though he seemed to be speaking more to himself than to us. "My family has held a seat on the regional council for three generations. My brother sits on it now. The political landscape in the capital is... complicated."
He paused before continuing.
"If someone in Haremdale City is funding attacks on my daughter, then this isn’t random. It’s a message."
He looked at me.
"You understand what I’m saying."
I understood perfectly well. Someone in the capital wanted to send a message to the Dale family, and Clara was the delivery method.
"I understand," I said.
"Good."
He picked up his cane and stood. His limp was more pronounced that morning, before he’d had a chance to move around and loosen up.
"I have work to do. Clara, show Joseph the house. He should know where he’s staying."
Then he looked at me again.
"Don’t leave the property without informing me. I need to know where my guests are at all times."
He walked out, his cane striking the floor with a steady, measured thock. A moment later, the front door opened and closed.
Clara and I remained at the table. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t hostile either.
"He’s giving you a chance," she said. "He doesn’t do that often."
"I noticed."
"He’ll take it back if you waste it."
"You don’t say."
She almost smiled.
The corner of her mouth moved, but she caught herself and forced the expression away. Then she stood.
"Come on. I’ll show you the house."
The house was bigger than it looked from the outside. There was a front hall, a sitting room, the dining hall, a study lined with books and maps, and a kitchen at the back. Upstairs were four bedrooms, two on either side of a hallway lined with paintings.
Landscapes and portraits. An older woman with Clara’s jawline, probably her mother. A younger man carrying a sword who might have been a soldier.
People I’d never written, given faces and histories by a story that had decided to fill in the blanks.
I stopped in front of one portrait.
It showed a girl who looked about seventeen, with dark hair and eyes lighter than Clara’s. She had Clara’s mouth, but not her expression.
"Who’s that?" I asked.
Clara looked at the portrait, and something in her expression changed. I couldn’t quite work out what it was.
"My sister," she said. "Maren."
I didn’t react.
I hadn’t written a sister. In my outline, Clara was an only child. The magistrate had no other children, either.
But apparently, the story had looked at the empty space in my outline and decided to fill it in. Just like everything else.
"She’s not here?" I asked.
"She left three years ago. Moved to Haremdale City." Clara’s voice had gone flat. "We don’t talk much."
I wanted to ask more, but the way she said we don’t talk much felt like a door closing in my face.
So I let it close.
The tour ended back at my room. Clara stood in the doorway, one hand resting against the frame.
"Lunch is at noon. Dinner is at dusk. You eat with the household, or you don’t eat. My father’s rule."
"Got it."
"And Joseph..."
She hesitated.
"Thank you. For last night. I don’t know who you are or how you knew what was going to happen, but you put yourself between me and that man. I’m grateful."
And, ladies and gentlemen, that was the part that complicated everything.
I’d engineered the whole situation. The letters, my approach, the timing. I’d put myself in a position where saving her would earn me exactly what I needed.
But when I’d grabbed that man’s ankle while he kicked me in the ribs, she’d seen something else. She thought I’d done it for her. That I was just a person trying to stop another person from getting hurt.
The truth couldn’t have been more sinister.
"Yeah," I said. "Don’t mention it."
She left.
I sat on the bed, held my wrist against my chest, and breathed carefully. Outside the window, the garden stretched toward the hill road, with the town visible beyond it.
Then I saw her.
A woman was walking up the hill road toward the house. She moved like Clara, with the same efficient stride and straight posture, but she wasn’t Clara. Clara had just left my room, and this woman was taller, with darker hair and a bag slung over one shoulder.
I watched her make her way up the hill. When she reached the gate, she stopped and looked at the house.
For a long moment, she stood there as though weighing whether to go inside or turn around and leave.
Then she opened the gate and walked through.