Page 12 of The Spy

The wagon rocked as they went over a rough patch of roots, tilting slightly to the left.The movement was normal for a wagon on a dirt road in the middle of a forest; nothing extreme or dangerous for Karl to notice or care about.But, as the wagon settled back down Ama’s body shifted with the motion and his head came to rest on Karl’s shoulder.His breaths puffed against Karl’s neck, warm and somehow soothing.Karl froze in place for a long moment, his attention completely focused on the top of that head of blond hair, filling his vision and somehow sending curling waves of contentment through Karl’s body.

He barely knew Ama.Karl would absolutely be the first to say so, and yet, he still really, really liked having Ama using him for a pillow.Some inner part of himself was figuratively purring in contentment.Unfortunately, this wasn’t the time or place to be having such feelings.Trying to move quickly through a dangerous situation was not the right moment to be developing a crush, so Karl stuffed those feelings back down.

Still, he couldn’t leave Ama with his cheek pressed to the boniest part of Karl’s shoulder.Trying not to blush, and definitely hoping Ralph or Emily weren’t close enough to notice, Karl shifted slightly so Ama’s head fit better into the crook of his shoulder.Maybe once they were back in Toval, he could let his feelings loose again, and see whether Ama was interested, in return, but for now Karl let out a breath and turned to look at where the horses he was supposed to be driving were headed.

They continued on, heading south and following the river, as the sun slowly began to dip in the western horizon.And Ama’s closeness kept Karl warm the entire way.

Chapter Eight

“I KNOW WEsaid we hired you to cook, but Char outfitted us with more than enough supplies before we left,” Ralph explained to Karl as they all worked to set up camp for the night.They had pulled the caravan to the side of a man-made clearing, no doubt created exactly for the purpose they were using it for since the center of the clearing already had a stone-lined firepit waiting for them.

“More than just his jerky?”Karl asked, holding a box Marc had handed him while Marc rifled through its contents.

“He gave us a ton of these!”Marc said, triumphantly holding up a bag with a secure tie at the top.Karl immediately recognized it, and a nostalgic smile lifted his lips slightly.He had spent far too much time in the kitchen chopping and mixing, then watching while Char used his magic to dry the ingredients, before they packed everything away in those food-safe bags.Char’s travel soups and stews lasted for months in their dried form and just required boiling water and ten to twenty minutes of simmering to be edible again.The magically dried ingredients would reconstitute in the boiling water and then the flavors melded into something delicious.

“Do you have bread or yeast or something I can use to make a side dish?”Karl asked.Ralph took the bag from Marc, and Marc took the box from Karl, who followed Ralph to where Tilly was feeding sticks to the lit kindling in the fire pit.They had a while before the fire was hot enough to boil water.

Unfortunately, Ralph shook his head.“We didn’t get word you would be landing in Yaroi rather than your original plan of sailing through the Strait and landing in Toval until just before we crossed the border into Yaroi and we had to cut off communication.If I had known when we were packing we were extracting you too, I promise our wagon would have been stuffed to the brim with flour and yeast and everything you might need to make bread out here.I’ve been on a couple tours where Char was able to bake, so I definitely know what I’m missing out on,” Ralph added, whining, even though he was grinning to show he was teasing too.

Karl let out a heavy sigh and shook his head, trying to look disappointed.“That’s too bad.I guess you’ll have to wait until we’re back home to see how much better my baking has gotten in the last two years.”

“Ugh!That’s forever from now!”Ralph joked back.They both started laughing, only calming down when Emily dropped some logs next to the fire for Tilly to use once the kindling was going, then gave them a look that said: “Why am I working so hard when you’re just standing around?”Karl swallowed down another snicker and went to find the tripod to hang a pot from over the fire, so they would be ready to start cooking as soon as Emily’s logs were burning.

Dinner ended up being Char’s corn chowder, heavy on the potato and celery, with red bell peppers for color and nutrients.Scents of rich onion and thyme bathed Karl’s face as he buried his nose in the billowing steam.The dining hall at Timmonsville was run by culinary students, sometimes with mixed results in what they had on offer each meal.Needless to say, Karl had greatly missed Char’s cooking, which was consistently delicious every day.Even this slightly watery version of Char’s chowder—powdered milk and cream never reconstituted perfectly no matter how well Char’s magic dried it—made a lump form in Karl’s throat.He forced that lump away, swallowing hard and trying to think of things other than being homesick, then took his first sip.

Slightly watery, exactly as he had feared—the best way to reconstitute this particular soup was probably in boiled milk rather than water, which they weren’t going to get out here—but the abundance of corn kernels and the bite-sized cubes of potato were perfectly soft and helped soothe the rumbling gremlins in his stomach.

“Needs bread,” Karl grumbled in between mouthfuls.A crusty roll, hard on the outside, but soft on the inside, would be perfect for sopping up broth and filling the holes in his stomach the potato just couldn’t fill.

Ralph laughed.“Now you sound exactly like Char.Unfortunately, you’ll probably think the same thing for all the rest of our meals on this trip.It’s a different soup or stew every night.I know Char was looking for a way to equip us with fresh bread to go with each.It’s really too bad the only bread suitable for travel is that hard crap.You put one of those lumps of coal in a soup like this, and you’ll ruin the soup.”

Char would probably be able to take one of those “lumps of coal” and turn it into something spectacular, using only what was available in this camp, but Karl wasn’t that talented.Yeast spoke to him through his magic, and he had studied ratios of dry to wet ingredients and things like eggs, bananas, baking powder, and baking soda for rising alternatives, but he wasn’t a Musen by blood.Karl didn’t have that extra spark inside that made his food amazing like Char did; he only had a fanatic’s level of interest.

Thankfully, even without the bread, the chowder was delicious and filling.When he was done, Karl helped them clean up, washing the pot and bowls alongside Marc at the bank of Ri Lake, which wasn’t too far from the campsite.

“Right—” Ralph was in the middle of speaking when Karl returned to the camp, his arms full of cleaned dishes.“—Ama, Lady Ettine, I’m afraid the safest place for you tonight is back in your hidey holes, just in case someone tries to sneak into camp to investigate us.I know it’s uncomfortable, but we have to make do until we’re able to cross the border,” he added when Lady Ettine frowned.“A little discomfort now, and I promise you, as soon as we reach Toval, you’ll get the treatment you deserve for your station.”

“I understand, and I’m not ungrateful,” Lady Ettine replied, still frowning.“But…”

“We’ll be sleeping on hard wood, which means we won’t be doing much sleeping,” Ama grumbled.“I have a feeling we’ll need to get used to it, my lady.Once we leave this forest, I suspect we’ll need to be hidden for the duration of our journey across the Eiri Plains.”

Ralph grunted his agreement.“Too many opportunities to be spotted out there.You’ll be able to walk around at twilight and dawn when the light is hardest for any watchers to see us, but otherwise you’ll have to be tucked away.”

“I will endure,” Lady Ettine said, her frown turning stoic.“A few days of uncomfortable confinement is certainly better than the lifetime of torture my parents were about to subject me to.Please give me a lift up.”

Ralph hurried over and bent to one knee, letting her step onto the raised knee and use his shoulder for balance before she lifted herself up onto the wagon roof and into the opening.Ama waited by his own hatch.He looked wan in the firelight, hunched over and exhausted, despite sleeping most of the afternoon.Ralph and Marc together had to bodily lift him up into the crawl space—his arms gave out when he tried himself.

They left the doors open as the rest of the group laid out bedrolls in the shadow of the wagon, only sealing Ama and Lady Ettine in at the last minute.Karl settled into his bedroll, frowning up at where Ama was tucked away.

Ama really hadn’t looked good, sick and weak.All that fire, his flame of personality Karl remembered from when they were escaping Yari’s torture arena, was absent.Emily might have sealed the flesh wounds, but there was definitely some internal damage she didn’t have the power or training to heal.Never mind getting Lady Ettine to safety, they needed to get across the border in order to get Ama to a healer.

Karl slowly slid into sleep, his body dragging him down into oblivion mid-worry, but he kept waking up.The ground was uncomfortable.Every stray noise—the wind blowing through the leaves, the pop of wood in the banked fire, Marc snoring lightly—had him jolting awake, his eyes flying open and adrenaline pumping.When he did sleep, he dreamed of terrible things: Finding Ama dead on that whipping cross and not being able to save him.Opening the hatch to Ama’s hiding spot in the morning to find a rotting corpse.

When the barest hint of light peeked through the trees and Ralph grunted and rolled to his feet, Karl was all too glad to abandon that fitful cycle.He helped pass out more of Char’s jerky for breakfast, and they made a quick pot of tea on the fire’s embers, but they didn’t hang around for long.Marc and Ralph got Ama out of his hiding compartment and up onto the bench, Marc climbing up for his turn sitting.They put out the fire, packed up any remaining debris from the campsite, and headed out.

Karl walked next to the wagon, below where Ama sat.Ama hadn’t been able to help much, barely supporting his own weight as Marc and Ralph levered him up there, and Karl was worried he might fall.He spent the entire day paying more attention to Ama’s every movement than where he placed his own feet, which led to him tripping over protruding roots and stones in the path more than once.Marc switched with Lady Ettine after lunch, which Ama slept through.

And they walked.On and on, the sunlight dappling the ground as it filtered through the leaves overhead.Night fell as they reached another campsite along the banks of Ri Lake.Dinner that night was vegetable soup.Beef and mushroom stock that sang on Karl’s tongue, all kinds of vegetables cut into exacting cubes, and tiny little squares of pasta, and every spoonful sank like a stone in Karl’s stomach.Ama barely got down a few bites.Despite sleeping all day, he looked exhausted.

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