Chapter 31

Thirty-One

Two months later

Honest-to-god,it felt like I was playing real life Minecraft some days, but the fantasy version. That said, I was past the “survive!” phase of the game and could now really focus on the other things that needed to be done.

We were solidly in fall weather now, the air turning cold in the mornings and evenings—enough that I had to bundle up against it. If this was what fall was like, I did not look forward to winter. I felt the chill this morning as I left the house (castle, whatever), clipboard in one hand, an agenda in my head. Theon and I had divided up duties. As I’d pointed out to him, I could only do so much work on the miasma without actually going past the Wall, which meant day to day I didn’t have a ton to do. So we each took on a responsibility we were comfortable with—I took over the crops and the business side of things, Theon the rebuilding. We played to our strengths, but also it was me finding a footing in this relationship. If I really married Theon (and with every passing day I wanted that more and more), then I, too, would be lord of this place.

I was determined to be a good one.

Walking down the street was now a completely different experience from the first day I’d arrived. Then, it had looked a step above a shanty town, people slowly starving and wasting away. Now, it thrived. Building sounds surrounded me as I walked—people up on roofs repairing or replacing, a new drainage system going into the roads to handle the runoff that normally turned this dirt road into a muddy swamp. Hopefully, we’d get a proper road completely laid in before winter hit. It was started, but roads took a while. Everyone was determined to get it finished, but I wasn’t holding my breath. That was a lot of work, even if people were determined to get it done. We were so busy rebuilding, I didn’t have Luk or Thigad with me anymore. After two months of nothing happening, I didn’t feel the need for a bodyguard. Besides, I was just bumbling around town, no danger here.

I spied Ara flexing her magical muscles, lifting a ton of supplies off a wagon and up onto a roof. Gotta love magic. Who needed heavy machinery when we had an Ara?

I gave her a wave as I passed her, which she returned, but her focus stayed on the work.

With all the cash influx from the potions and tonics, we had a lot of money to work with. Ara and I had put our heads together and learned how to speed-grow not only the flowers, but the potatoes, so they were something we could harvest every two weeks. Which seemed insane to my Earthian brain, but I wasn’t complaining. It meant a good, healthy supply of ingredients, and even then we were barely keeping up with demand. Grandma Olive now had two more employees to help with all the heavy lifting, speeding the process along. Still, I envisioned we’d need to build a larger building next to hers to handle the influx of workers and orders, which was next year’s project. We didn’t have time to build something from scratch before winter hit.

“Gren!” I called as I sped up to catch the Orc. Gren had longer legs than me and when he moved, he moved.

The hunter paused and turned, lifting a hand. “Heya, Jake.”

“Hey, quick question for you. I know you’re on the outskirts more than we are; any sign of miasma escaping past the flowers?”

“Not a one.” He patted the dire wolf standing next to him, which got him a tail wag. “This one’s been with me every trip and never alerted me. We were far west yesterday, and nothing.”

“Super reassuring, thank you for that.” I noted that down on my clipboard, as that was one of the things on my list for today. I tried to check the Wall every three or four days.

Gren gave me that knowing look he sometimes did. “You’re worried the flowers will fail?”

“The thing is,” I explained on a long sigh, “is that the flowers are unknown. Do these things bloom year-round? Do they go dormant in the winter? If we pick a blossom, does it still ward off the miasma just as effectively or does it have a shelf life? We immediately process the flowers into a tonic, so we have no way of knowing for sure. I don’t want to rely on the flowers blindly.”

“Smart. I did wonder the same, whether they’d still be vibrant in the winter.”

I glanced toward the Wall, not that I could see the flowers from here. “We really need another foray past the Wall. This time, to find the source of the miasma. If we can’t end it, the least we can do is try to contain it somehow. I don’t want problems in the dead of winter.”

Gren gave me a fist to bump. “Same.”

Yes, I’d taught them to bump fists—sue me. I bumped.

“When you go in, let me know. I want to join you.”

“I appreciate it. We’re actually due to go in after lunch.”

Gren’s head reared back in shock. “So soon?”

“I’d prefer to do it before instead of after Theon’s parents arrive. Besides, we’re running out of time. It’s at most three weeks before winter really hits, and I don’t even know what I’m supposed to fix.”

“Ah. True. Then I’ll prepare quickly and meet you at the gate.” Gren paused, and his expression turned sympathetic. “You nervous about meeting them?”

“A little. Yeah.” More like a lot. Meeting the parents was scary no matter how old you were. I said what I said.

From farther down the road, a call went up of “Jake!”

“And that’s my cue. I’ll catch up with you later, Gren.”

I jogged down to whoever hailed me, quickly spotting Valerie, who was my master gardener. Valerie had a good twenty years on me and was a stout woman who likely had Giant in her ancestry, as she towered over me by a good head. She was also the sweetest woman I’d ever met.

Unless she saw an ermine. Then all bets were off.

She waved me in closer before pointing at the greenhouse in midconstruction. “Take a look at this and make sure it’s all right.”

I obliged, even though all I knew about greenhouses was a. all glass, and b. make sure it was irrigated somehow. I mean, I had the book from Coin with all the specs and stuff, but I wasn’t a builder or master gardener. But this was something new to Valerie, and she was nervous, so giving my stamp of approval wouldn’t hurt anything.

This greenhouse was a communal one, set right beside the temple, as it had the only vacant lot in town. About two thousand square feet, it wasn’t small by any means, with raised beds lining the walls and a row right down the middle as well. Along the bottom of the beds was a pipe system with little holes all in it, meant to keep the soil nice and moist for the plants. I figured keeping the pipes under the soil would give it more insulation and it wouldn’t freeze that way.

Hopefully.

“I mean, it all looks good to me.” I meant it. Looked identical to the illustrations in the book. “What are you nervous about, Valerie?”

She scratched her hair, sending a bright red lock tumbling free, not that she seemed to notice.

“It’s just…this is a lot of money, Jake.”

“Ah, the glass, you mean?”

“Yeah. I saw the bill for this, and it just about stopped my heart.”

I had to remember these people had survived poverty conditions for decades. Spending money likely gave them anxiety attacks. I put a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly to reassure her.

“Hey, don’t look at it that way. This is an investment for our future. This will pay itself off by spring of next year.”

Valerie blinked at me like she couldn’t wrap her head around that. “It will?”

“Sure. We bought all the seed we needed in bulk. With the amount we can grow in here, year-round, we won’t have to buy food elsewhere. Plus, if my calculations are right, we’ll have enough to sell as a cash crop.”

Valerie brightened. “Oh! I didn’t realize it would make that much. This whole thing is new to me. It’ll really stay that warm year-round?”

“It should. On the really bitterly cold nights, we might need to bring in a furnace or something, but it should work just fine. Ara said she’d put heating sigils in here when she had a spare minute.”

“Is that why you had everyone build a smaller version of this for their houses?”

“Yup. Guaranteed food for the families even in winter.” Thank you, survival shows I watched while bored. You were instructive and I appreciated it very much.

“Do we have enough glass for that?”

“So long as the roof is glass, it’ll work. Just got to make sure it gets enough sun.”

“Oh, okay. I’ll remember that.”

The greenhouse door opened, and I turned automatically to see who it was, only to find my boyfriend looking at me with this cross between an “I knew it” and satisfaction. “Jake, we’re running late.”

“It can’t be past noon already!” Or was it? I’d kinda lost track looking at everything in here and reassuring Valerie.

“It is, yes.”

Dammit, I had to get a watch. This not-having-a-watch thing screwed with me. “Sorry, Valerie. I’ll be available for questions again when we come back.”

“Sure. Good luck and stay safe, okay?”

“Will do.”

I hurried to meet Theon, not sure what I was going to do about lunch now. I’d planned to eat before we left, but that window of opportunity was long gone. Dammit, I didn’t want to go hiking in thick miasma on an empty stomach. Seemed like a bad idea.

Theon handed me a cloth-wrapped cylindrical-shaped object, then a spoon, and oh my god had he brought me lunch?

I opened the cloth promptly, feeling the heat in my hand that turned out to be a glass jar full of potato soup. He must have snitched some from the kitchens, as they were stocking up on potato soup in preparation for winter.

“You do like me.” I popped up to kiss him soundly on the mouth.

He kissed back, smirking. “I do, yes. And you’re welcome. Walk and eat, we don’t have time.”

“That I can do, trust me.” I dipped spoon into soup and sighed in bliss. On a cold day like this, soup was the best remedy.

“I’ve got two wagons, a dozen knights, and the dire wolves meeting us at the Wall.”

“Gren wants to go too,” I managed between bites.

“I passed him while looking for you. Actually, he told me where you were. He said he’d meet us at the gate.”

Okay, good. Didn’t want him missing out. Gren had amazingly keen senses and lots of experience tracking and hunting, so I wanted him in my search party. Not that we knew what we were searching for, mind you, but the more eyes on this problem, the better.

Everyone else beat us there, but hey, I finished my soup, so I wasn’t eating with miasma in my face. I’d take the win.

This party had gone in with me on multiple forays. I knew everyone, and we all knew what to do. The thing was, we’d always stuck fairly close to the Wall, afraid of getting lost. That miasma made London fog look like a wannabe—it was like opaque veils swirling around you at all times. I was usually good with directions, but trying to navigate in this was just setting us all up for failure.

That said, we had two plans to overcome this. I double-checked with Theon. “Ropes?”

“Ready to go. Wolves know to track our position, too.”

We’d brought over two thousand yards of rope, all coiled up in such a way to unravel as we went. Kind of like Hansel and Gretel’s breadcrumbs, except not edible. The wolves could likely guide us back, but just in case they couldn’t, we had a rope trail.

“All right, let’s go in.”

I had to lead, singing as I went to clear the air so we had some kind of chance to breathe. I sang in short bursts, just two lines or so at a time, trying to pace myself. I wasn’t going to sing for hours on end or even try. That way lay madness.

Since we’d never gone in very far, it didn’t take any time at all to go past what I recognized, and then we were pushing through.

Did I mention the miasma was thick?

Did I mention I could totally fry up a miasma sandwich ’cause it was thick enough to slice and serve?

I grimly kept singing. Theon played along on his guitar, backing me up as best he could.

The bubble I created with the music gave us clear air to breathe, but outside of the bubble was murky purple miasma. Nox the dire wolf kept his back under my hand, guiding my footsteps, as the terrain abruptly became more uneven and rocky. Felt like the blind was leading the dumb, not going to lie. Me being the dumb one.

Grimly, I kept marching. I was determined to figure out what was causing this. The whole lore of dragon-cursing-the-land thing aside, I knew this was fixable. Why? Because Coin had brought me here specifically to fix whatever it was. Therefore, it must be something I could manage.

The ground tilted uphill. I kept trudging, feeling sweat dewing on my temples and the small of my back from the exercise.

“Coin,” I grunted. “What exactly is in here causing this?”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out~” Coin singsonged.

I’d half expected this answer, but still. “Asshole?—”

“Why am I suddenly asshole again?!”

“Because you’re not giving me a straight answer. Asshole. You can at least tell me if I’m heading in the right direction.”

Coin muttered something uncharitable about me before sullenly answering, “You are.”

There was that, at least.

I heard coughing behind me, turned to look, and realized I couldn’t see any of my party despite the fact I’d just sung before speaking to Coin. Shit on a stick, this didn’t look good at all. I didn’t even have a good sense of how long we’d been in here, how far we’d gotten. I would have said less than a quarter of a mile, though.

“Theon?”

His hand easily found my shoulder, gripping firmly. “Yes, love?”

“Uh, how’s everyone doing?”

“I think you’re the only one—” He broke off coughing.

“—who can breathe?” I finished wryly.

I felt more than saw him nod his head, still coughing like an asthmatic.

Well, fuck. I couldn’t keep walking when people were soon going to drop like flies, blue in the face.

“Turn back,” I ordered loudly, doing so myself. “Head back home.”

Theon, still coughing, tried to protest. “But?—”

“Sweetheart, no one can breathe aside from me. I’m not carting all of you home. We need a plan B.”

He coughed some more before groaning. “Yeah. Yeah, okay.”

I started singing, stronger this time, as apparently I wasn’t going to be going all day like I’d expected.

Now, if someone could tell me what plan B looked like, that’d be smashing.