"If you tell me that we are stopping at yet another windswept ruin to admire the local architecture, Alistair, I am going to let the horses run away and leave you here to be eaten by very confused sheep," Zinnia muttered, her voice raspy and exhausted as she hauled back on the heavy leather reins with arms that felt like lead. The wagon groaned, its springs protesting with a sound like snapping dry bones as the heavy vehicle crested the ridge. Below them, the landscape shifted dramatically from the gray-brown mud of the borderlands into a vast, rolling expanse of dry cornfields that stretched out beneath a pale, cloud-streaked sky. Rising starkly against the horizon were the massive, whitewashed stone windmills of Red-Hill, their giant wooden sails turning slowly and rhythmically in the crisp afternoon breeze, slicing through the air with a deep, hypnotic thrum, thrum, thrum. Alistair didn't look up from the damp, crumpled map

 Zinnia’s hand froze halfway to her wooden spoon, her knuckles whitening against the grain as her gaze flicked from the thick, steaming bowl of lentil soup to the dark shadows near the tavern’s flour-dusted pantry. "Don't look now," Zinnia muttered, her lips barely moving, her eyes locked on the reflection in the polished pewter rim of her cup. "The man in the grease-stained coat by the flour sacks has looked at our table four times in thirty seconds. And he isn't admiring your waistcoat, Alistair." Alistair paused, a wooden spoon hovering an inch from his open mouth, his spectacles sliding slightly down his damp nose. "Are you entirely certain? It could simply be an appreciative nod to my sartorial resilience. After all, surviving the salt flats in a three-piece suit is a minor miracle." "He just slipped a copper coin to the tavern keeper and pointed directly at your left ear," Aetherion drawled

 "Well, if that isn't an enthusiastic local welcome committee, I don't know what is," Aetherion muttered, his hand already closing around the iron-shod spoke of a spare wheel lashed to the wagon bed. "Hold your horses, literally," Zinnia snapped, her boots slamming against the floorboards as she threw her weight against the front bench of the wagon. The beasts leaped forward with a startled whinny, the heavy wheels screaming against the dry stone of the tavern yard as they kicked up a blinding storm of yellow dust. Behind them, muffled shouts and the dull thud of heavy clubs striking empty air faded into the howling wind of the open road. They did not slow down for four miles, driving the team until the horses were lathered in white foam and Zinnia’s arms trembled from the relentless strain of holding the reins steady against the rutted grade. The landscape flattened rapidly, the rolling hills and dusty cornfields giving w

 "I don't fancy anything involving water, Alistair," Zinnia muttered, wiping a streak of yellow road dust from her forehead with the back of a calloused, aching hand. "Especially not floating timber held together by provincial optimism and a prayer." "It’s a ferry, Zinnia. Not a death trap," Alistair insisted, though his eyes darted to the dark, swirling currents of the River Crow. He straightened his coat, which had once been a fine, deep navy but was now the color of a drought-stricken hillside. "Besides, there are no other options. The bridge was dismantled weeks ago to prevent 'unauthorized agricultural movement,' which is magistrate-speak for 'we want to strangle the local economy'." Aetherion hopped down from the wagon box, his boots landing silently in the thick, pungent mud of the riverbank. He tapped the side of the ferry with the toe of his boot, listening to the hollow, splintering sound of rotting wood. "It&rsq

 "They won't kick if you stop hyperventilating into your maps, Alistair," Zinnia snapped, stepping down onto the wet timber deck of the ferry with a sharp thud. She wrapped the horse reins securely around a rusted iron cleat, her eyes darting across the muddy bank they had just abandoned and the dense, fog-choked reed beds looming on the opposite shore. "Aetherion, untie the mooring line before the current takes us broadside." "Already on it, Captain," Aetherion drawled, though there was no humor in his voice. He yanked hard on the water-swollen knot of the hemp rope, his shoulder muscles straining beneath his worn linen shirt until the fibers snapped with a wet pop. He vaulted back onto the wooden deck as the flat-bottomed boat drifted free into the cold, gray flow of the river. "We're moving. And by the look of that upstream wake, we aren't the only ones in a hurry." Alistair dropped his satchel onto the carriage seat and spun