I swayed on my feet, assailed by the sudden sun-imposed weakness. A single extra step and I nearly sunk to my knees. Near starvation, and overloaded with gear, I had trouble simply staying on my feet.

Using one hand to lean against the door I had just closed behind me I took stock. The sole positive I could find in my situation was that I had managed to flee the building. Only now I was stuck here in the middle of town with only the faintest idea of where here was. I was still every bit as blind in the sun as I had always been. And the vague blobs I could see were not going to be much help navigating.

While I could rely on my nose to figure out which vague shadows were people I really didn’t want to right now. No, I had to fall back to what I remembered from the town. So I tried to recall what I had seen of it over the past two nights. Luckily this place was tiny. With only seven dwellings in the center and a number of smaller farms littered around that, it was barely even a settlement. Navigating it shouldn’t be all too hard, as long as I didn’t get it wrong.

Anyone about to come after me?

The door behind me hadn’t opened yet, so hopefully not. Gambling that my horse would be stabled in an outbuilding near or connected to the bunkhouse I began tracing the wall of the place I had just exited. I tried to do it as inconspicuous as possible. The fewer people who suspected that I was basically blind the better. Meanwhile, I hoped that I would not stumble on something that I could not see and no one hostile to me secretly had a bow trained on me.

Two right turns later I discovered that the stable was indeed adjacent. Fern was stabled there. It even had a roof so I could see what I was doing while I saddled and loaded my horse. I thanked the gods for small mercies while I got everything ready to leave.

I took a little more time with it than I had when fleeing Onar’s farm two days ago. Unlike then, I had all my gear to account for this time. Setting a speed record would not help if I ended up forgetting half of my stuff. Yes, I had the niggling feeling that I was forgetting something, only I couldn’t place what it was.

I was almost ready to take Fern out when I heard someone rush towards the barn. The footfalls were followed by a misty Cedarwood fragrance. Grunting in annoyance I turned to the door, just in time to see Gery slide to a stop.

“Haa… Vale…” he panted. “You’re still here.”

He had his hands on his knees and was gasping for breath. Wherever he had come from, he had clearly needed to hurry to intercept me before I left.

Right.

Of course they’d sent someone I already know to chase after me.

Neither the Chicken-broth woman nor the Firebird man from the bunkhouse had run after me. I did not know them, didn’t even know their names, so I had no reason to listen to them. It was so much more effective to send someone after me that I actually knew. This town really, really had issues with letting me leave.

Yes, It wasn’t difficult to figure out what this was, yet another attempt to keep me here a little longer. If it were anyone else but Gery holding me up I would begin to suspect this was all just a massive, misguided attempt to delay me long enough until the Inquisition could get here. Gery was way too nice and simple for that though.

Someone else could be manipulating him into keeping me here?

I suppressed that thought before I could begin seeing this entire town as a giant Inquisition conspiracy.

Someone trying to get me to eat someone?

I suppressed that thought as well. I did not need extra reminders of my hunger. Not to mention the disturbing implications the thought entailed.

“I am in fact, leaving,” I told the carpenter in clipped tones. I was so, so tired of all the stalling. I wanted to leave and to be left alone.

How hard is that for these people to understand?

“Yeah, Shae told me you’d try to slip away,” he replied, having somewhat regained his breath.

Just… how?

I should have guessed that Shae was involved in this latest attempt somehow. First stealing Fern and rooming me in the bunkhouse. Now this. The amount of meddling she did was staggering.

Does she secretly run this town?

From what little I had seen of her attitude I was beginning to assume she at least did a stellar job of running everyone in this place ragged. I felt a momentary pang of pity for Onar, dismissed it just as fast as it had come up.

I led Fern out the barn and pretend-blinked against the sharp sunlight. Keeping up the pretense in front of Gery might not be all that useful as he had seen me at my worst. Really, I did it mostly to distract myself from staring at his neck.

I stepped past the carpenter, inconspicuously leaning on Fern for support as I walked into the sun. Hopefully, by continuing to leave he’d be forced to voice his unspoken question. If he hesitated as much as he did last night, I would be gone.

A part of me wanted to go much further than this subtle manipulation, a part of me wanted to lie and manipulate till the sun came up. I was simply that done with it all. Yet even though I sort of wanted to, I didn’t. I’d only done it with Onar so far. Putting the same kind of pressure on someone like Gery felt wrong, no matter how fast I wanted to get away from here.

Finally realizing I was about to walk out on him, the carpenter tailed after me. “We’d like to compensate you.”

Again with the compensation?

Don’t want your compensation.

Just leave me alone!

“Sure. Compensate away,” I droned, quirked an eyebrow, and kept walking.

With his long legs, he casually strolled past me and pointed in a completely different direction than where I was going, dangling his deliciously snackable bare arm right in front of my face in the process. “I’ve got some coin at my place and I’m sure Meg can fix you some clean clothes.”

Did my sarcasm really just pass him by like that? I had told him only yesterday that I didn’t need or want his compensation. The prospect of clean clothes, or even simply money for clean clothes was tempting though. I still looked every bit like a deranged toddler.

Could so use those clean clothes.

But this hunger…

I smacked my tongue, chewed my lip.

Managed so far.

I‘ll manage five more minutes.

Reluctantly I gave in and followed him to his place. I paid very close attention to my surroundings as I did so. Following someone by day meant going by scent more than by sight. Right now that meant…

Tasty!

I needed my distractions. If that meant studying the slight discolorations in the blurry outline of the ground I walked, then I would do so, no matter how ridiculous it looked. Over the course of a single evening, Meg and Gery had gotten fairly close to the top of my not-snacks list, and I preferred to keep it that way.