It was nightfall by the time the caravan stopped again, as the group had had a rather late start to the day.

  While Paulav hummed his usual trumpeting tune and worked on setting out the folding chairs and table to set up a fine dinner, Ben made his way into the back to retrieve Spidena from the floor.

  “How’s your day been?” he asked conversationally upon opening the secret door and seeing Spidena’s weary, dirty face.

  She glared at him.

  He smiled smugly and offered his hand to help her out.

  Surprisingly, she accepted his help, which must have meant she was feeling particularly stiff and sore from her cramped journey.

  As she rose, a rustling movement in Ben’s sack made both of them pause to watch just what on earth was happening, when lo and behold, Filif popped out, his hands thrown in the air as though to say a very jubilant ‘Here I am!’.

  “Were you in there the whole time?” Spidena spluttered.

  Filif nodded.

  Ben cleared his throat, then crouched to offer his hand to the sprite. It was hard to see Filif as the same harmless, cute being after learning and seeing what sprites were capable of when it came to nymphs like Daffy.

  Filif accepted Ben’s hand and sprung out of the hidden space nimbly, then stared up at Ben and Spidena… Who hadn’t let go of each other’s hands.

  Realizing this at the same time, the pair recoiled from each other.

  Clearing his throat and brushing away invisible dirt from his coat, Ben then asked, “So why does this Pesch person have an issue with you? Also, what is his problem with baths?”

  Spidena had opened her mouth to seriously answer Ben’s first question, but at the second one she closed it with a frown and a tilt of her head, sending the tower of messy black curls and waves still piled atop her head wobbling dangerously.

  “Bathing?”

  “I said I was planning on having a bath in our room and it seemed to bother him. Then when I said I’d use the pump at the front of the inn, that apparently was also a problem.”

  Spidena’s look of confusion morphed to one of horror. “Oh Gods. Why are you so… Ugh.” She dropped her face helplessly into her hands.

  Ben arched an eyebrow. “Who is this person, exactly?”

  “He’s… I used to do work for him,” Spidena explained with a grimace. “He’s a con artist and only after his own self interests, and he didn’t take it well when I wanted to go off on my own.”

  “Alright, so he didn’t handle you quitting all that well. Why is he hunting you down with goons?”

  “Those goons are really decent people. It isn’t their employer Pesch is so… ick.”

  “Ick?”

  “Slimy.”

  “Oh. I s’pose he would be if he doesn’t like baths.”

  “That’s not what I mean! Jeez! Didn’t anyone in the army say someone was slimy? Like their personality was gross?”

  Ben thought about this. “No. And maybe it’s because I don’t really know anyone well enough to say they’re slimy. People I do know I don’t think they are slimy.” He shrugged at the end of his assessment, then proceeded to exit the caravan.

  Spidena followed him, groaning as she leapt off the back.

  She cradled her lower back in her hands, arching her torso to stretch out the remaining stiffness. “Paulav?” she called out just as the merchant was flapping out a red checkered tablecloth for the round wooden table he had folded out.

  “Yes, my dear?”

  “Do you have a comb I could buy?”

  Paulav eyed the hurricane of hair atop her head and chuckled. “Of course. I’ll retrieve it for yout.”

  “Thanks.”

  As Spidena rummaged around her bag, Ben sidled over to the food crates and sacks to see what might be on the menu for the evening.

  Once Spidena had dug out a couple of her remaining coppers and handed them to Paulav, he decided to try asking his question again. “What is it that Pesch is so angry with you about?”

  Spidena winced as she attempted to let her hair back down “Well I… I may have taken some of my back pay that he would’ve refused to give me if I’d asked with the intent of leaving his gambling house.”

  “You stole from him?” Ben grinned.

  It was great fun seeing Spidena’s high horse drop and roll on the ground in order to scratch its back.

  It put them right down on the ground next to each other.

  “I earned the money and he was withholding it!” Spidena snapped peevishly.

  “Then you should’ve reported him to the authorities,” Paulav contributed gravely.

  “You don’t think he has the authorities in his pocket? He runs multiple gambling houses! Along with having a fair amount of shares in other businesses. The Fey Way included!”

  “Is he why you didn’t want to travel alone?” Ben ventured on.

  Spidena fidgeted. “I had a few reasons. But that was one. Yes. I knew I couldn’t stay at many inns, and if I was traveling with someone, that wouldn’t alert the people that were looking for me, as they’d expect me to travel by myself.”

  “That still doesn’t explain why you weren’t prepared at all for the trip.” Ben drew closer to Spidena as a pleasantly cool evening breeze brushed between them.

  The witch continued sorting her hair out; she was struggling against the wind to stop it from blowing in her face.

  Seeing this and growing impatient over her slow answers, Ben snatched the comb out of her hand.

  “Hey wh–”

  He rounded her, gently gathered her hair in his hand, and started working carefully on the ends.

  “Stop that!” But while she sounded appalled and her shoulders turned as rigid as steel, she didn’t jerk out of his hands.

  “You are going to rip half of your hair out if you try and do it alone—Paulav stop smiling like that. I just want her to give a straight answer,” Ben added when he noticed the gleeful pink in the merchant’s cheeks as the merchant discretely started setting out some lovely wrought iron candle sticks that he had never bothered bringing out for any of their previous dinners.

  “I don’t owe you answers, and you don’t owe me answers! Remember?” Spidena bristled, drawing Ben’s full attention back to her.”

  It was Ben’s turn to take his time responding as he took in the actual amount of work combing out her hair would need. He kind of regretted having planned on stealing the comb in the first place… Wait.

  “You said that the cost of the moving spell changed. Does that happen often?”

  “I expected it to change somewhat,” Spidena explained, evidently eager to move onto more comfortable topics. “The last time I had used the spell was in the gambling house. It was a building I knew better than The Fey Way, and I was moving Pesch around to avoid a disgruntled nobleman. I thought because I was only moving you once, and into a room I was already in, it’d be easy and cheaper.”

  “If I had interacted with your comb—even just thought about doing something with it later—would that change its value, and therefore its worth for the spell?” Ben was amazed he sounded like he knew what he was asking.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  “Yes. But why would you have thought about my comb or needed it? You’re hair’s short.”

  “Was just curious.” Ben cleared his throat and quickly thought of another question to stop her from dwelling on the matter. “Why is it you can only cast spells and incantations related to memory?”

  “Now, Ben, you surprise me! Witches can’t know every spell or recipe for things. Similar to how nobles pick specialized areas of study as they age, witches and warlocks do the same,” Paulav contributed knowledgeably.

  Ben halted his work. “I know that, but it still doesn’t answer the question.” Ben tilted his head, his eyes fixed on the back of Spidena’s head. “So… Spidena you specialized in magic deals that helped the gambling house? Memory incantations to… To help people forget?” Suspicion rose in Ben’s voice, and he could Spidena her ears burning red. “You wiped people’s memories so they wouldn’t mind or remember getting ripped off?”

  “I-I didn’t have a lot of options when my mother was taken. I needed to make money and learn any kind of magic! And Pesch was a benefactor that was willing to pay tutors from different covens. H-he even wrote it off as a business expense to get some of his money back.”

  Ben’s eyebrows climbed closer to his hairline.

  Paulav straightened from setting the table, looking equally perturbed by the implications of this.

  “Are there other strange incantations and spells you can do?” Ben was realizing just how fateful it was that he happened to stumble into Spidena’s shop… Asking for a memory incantation of all things…

  “Memory alteration is the hardest one. Spells? I can move people around confined spaces. Transporting them from one room to another, or improve a building, fix broken furniture. I can also create lovely long lasting enchantments. Like a full moon and starry sky to look at outside the windows anytime it’s night time.”

  “But potions are different,” Ben guessed, his fingertips grazing the back of Spidena’s neck, which had the disturbing result of a shot of tingling flooding through him all the way down to a lovely foaming feeling in his toes. Even Spidena had visible goosebumps emerge.

  She swallowed before answering. “Y-yes. Potions are different. I learned potion making from a friend and she taught me a lot more practical stuff. I stayed with her for a couple years before I could get my backpay and open my shop in Gabel. I couldn’t leave or do anything that would alert Pesch to where I was, so I had nothing to do but study potion making.”

  A potent mixture of pity and sympathy filled the air as Paulav clasped his hands in front of himself and regarded Spidena sadly with a new fire already started just behind him for cooking.

  Ben didn’t know how to feel or react to her story. It sounded like an uncomfortable upbringing, and it probably was scary given that she probably had nowhere to go after her mother was taken.

  “Is your friend who you’re looking for in Kintel?” Ben decided that it probably was for the best he didn’t attempt any awkward platitudes of comfort.

  “No. Though I am staying with her while I’m there though.”

  “Ms. Spidena, where is your father when all of this is going on?” Paulav implored heartfully.

  Spidena’s hands clenched into fists then released. “I don’t want to talk about him.”

  The merchant’s lips pressed together in a show of growing empathetic pain.

  “Don’t look at me like that. I’m fine. I know some tricky spells and incantations that some witches haven’t been able to do in decades!”

  “Couldn’t you start bartering with magic to learn the necessary spells to make things you’d need for traveling?” Ben continued his more practical line of questions as his arms already started to ache from his work with Spidena’s hair. “Also, maybe sit down. This is going to take a long time to go through.”

  Hearing this, Paulav hastily swept aside and pulled out a chair for Spidena who he obviously was feeling all kinds of tender sorrow for.

  The witch made a subtle grumble of irritation, though there wasn’t the same ferocity as usual as she made her way to the seat with Ben following her.

  “I didn’t think I’d be traveling so soon is why. I only just got my business started. I wanted to try establishing it for a little bit longer and build some savings… Then you came along and it seemed to be the right time,” Spidena finished bluntly.

  There was a peculiar vagueness to the conclusion of her story, Ben thought. Almost as though she still wasn’t revealing everything…

  “What about you?” Spidena called out with a small measure of her usual haughtiness returning.

  “What about me? I was sold. I have a brother. I was in the military. I stole gold from the man who bought me, and I’m a dodder. You already know my history.”

  “You two really have quite the exquisitely tragic backstories,” Paulav noted from the seat across Spidena as he worked on dicing a yellow onion.

  Oddly enough Paulav’s eyes were already watering, even though he’d only made a single cut.

  “Who are you looking for? Who are you staying with in Kintel?” Spidena ignored Paulav’s emotional response to their pasts, and crossed her legs stubbornly.

  “I was going to go to a bank or jeweler and store some of the gold there, and withdraw some money to find someone that helped me when I was in the Hounds. I also have something to bring my friend who is in trouble. Something they left in Kintel.”

  Spidena was quiet as she listened.

  “Do you not have hair oil or something?” Ben asked after a minute of struggling with a particularly thick knot.

  “Get the knots out first. If I apply some after it’ll help stop this from happening in the future. I was trying not to attract more mosquitos the past few days so I haven’t been oiling it,” Spidena explained grimly.

  “It’d be easier to chop your hair off.”

  “If you chop my hair off I’m cutting off anything that dangles on you,” the witch fired back hotly.

  Ben rolled his eyes then continued his work while Paualv quietly listened and prepared their dinner.

  “Sorry that you had to get involved in all of this, Paulav,” Spidena added sincerely, her countenance gentling.

  The merchant chuckled. “Oh, that Pesch fellow didn’t seem to want to bother me much, so it isn’t a trouble. Though I do hope Obbie is alright.”

  “He’ll be fine. Pesch wouldn’t be too harsh with a fairy like Obbie. Not unless he really had a reason to hurt him, and Pesch is probably now busy with Lord Earhav being aware of the inn.”

  “What will Earhav do?” Ben finally felt like he was making good progress getting through Spidena’s hair. Only he realized as he worked he was coming in contact with her neck and head a lot more often, and it was damn annoying. Each and every time he lightly brushed her skin, he came away with a heady fluttering sensation, and she broke out in goosebumps. It was uncomfortable and weird. And it was starting to be all he could think about as heat rose up his arms to his face, and down into his belly. He was starting to feel the urge to keep touching her in these little ways…

  “Earhave will probably take Pesch to the courts like I said he might.” Spidena folded her arms as though trying to look casual. Only Ben could tell it was because she was starting to shiver any time she felt his touch.

  Ben struggled not to think about it at all… The only problem was the less he thought, the more he felt.

  *

  “Oh, dear. That all does sound troublesome,” Paulav fretted as he scraped the onion into the waiting copper pot. “Well, I certainly hope—” The merchant looked up, and noticed the state the two travel companions were in.

  There was a deepening blush on Spidena’s face, and a rather smoldering simmer emanating around Ben.

  It made Paulav have to swallow as the atmosphere felt dizzyingly intense. “I… I think we should… We should have some wine this evening, hm?”

  He rose in a hurry and darted over to his caravan.

  Neither Ben nor Spidena noticed the merchant’s reaction, nor did they fully understand what in the world had started brewing between them.

  It was not something either of them had ever quite experienced before, and so it came as no great shock to the more mature onlookers of Paulav and Filif that the two were starting to feel something… Something a little messy, and very enticing.