Mia sank to the floor, her legs trembling.

  They stopped for the day.

  Setting up camp was a well-choreographed dance. Mox’s table always went out first. When a long enough line formed, he’d come out of the central tent.

  Tents went up from the middle out: two, three, six.

  The central tent went up first, right behind Mox’s table. That was the command. No one stayed there, but two guards were always at the entrance. Mox, his guard, a woman in black with her hood up, and a hulking man with a shield were the only people who entered. Other than eating meals, she wasn’t sure what they did there.

  Between the central tent and the living quarters, a tent went up for supplies. Mia hadn’t seen any carts laden with crates, which meant someone else had a storage space, likely more than one.

  Next were the living quarters for the big four. Mox and his guard shared a tent. It was large and most likely multi-roomed. She’d seen the emperor use something similar when he went hunting. She’d been thrilled to be invited, staying in the young…Lady Adeline’s tent.

  Stop it.

  Comparing this place to her time by Lady Adeline’s side would lead to nothing good. That life was over.

  The shield wielder and the lady in black had similar tents.

  In the next ring, the redhead and five others had their own smaller tents. They also got meals delivered to them.

  The size of their dents and the distance from danger were all decided by status. She shouldn’t compare, but at their core, people were the same.

  Last were giant tents that housed ten to fifteen people. They went around the inner camp in a square, protecting the center.

  At the outer section, another tent was used to prepare and distribute food and water. There was a fire in front of it, and that’s where Mia and the other four in her group spent the night. It was also where everyone gathered to eat and relax in the afternoons.

  Three days passed in a flash, the brutal pace leaving her little time to do anything other than walk and rest. If nothing else, one thing was clear: they didn’t care if they died, but they wanted us to live.

  Mia wasn’t a stranger to hard work, but her life as a maid had been privileged, especially when she started serving the young…by Lady Adeline’s side. She wasn’t Mia’s young lady. That was an image she had to discard. She had to cut it out of her heart, so the pain of betrayal and humiliation didn’t break her.

  Not now, maybe never, but it wasn’t the time to grieve.

  That’s why she hated downtime…hated when her body wasn’t moving. She had too much time to think about what happened, about the things she’d lost.

  The slow, relentless march left her with little time to breathe, much less think.

  But she was getting used to it. At the end of each day, she was less tired.

  The first night was the worst. She passed out the moment she lay on the ground. In the morning, she panicked, wondering if someone had stolen her bag. Thankful, the others were either just as tired as her or afraid of the consequences of bad behavior.

  That would pass. Fear never lasted, not really. People would get comfortable and push the limits.

  Tonight, despite the aches in her body and a bone-weariness that clung to her, she didn’t need to sleep.

  Mia sipped water, softening the bread in her mouth.

  “Excuse me?” The voice was soft. “Can I talk to you?” Hands covered in dirt, twisted the material of a threadbare shirt.

  Mia swallowed the last bite. “Sure,” she said, her voice softening along with her heart. The girl looked better. The three-day march seemed easier on her than whatever she’d been doing before. She’d been the first to adapt, wandering into the forest on the first day of the march.

  “I’m Nessa.” The girl wiped her hands on her shirt, adding more dirt than removing it. She stuck her hand out.

  Mia shook. “I’m Ben,” she said. The lie tasted bitter. She could hear the duchess’s voice, and it filled her with shame and anger. Lying is a sign of poor character. You can never trust a liar.

  The duchess had told the truth. She couldn’t be trusted.

  The lie was necessary, she told herself. She repeated it until the duchess's voice faded. Lies, violence, they were tools; tools she used to know and use.

  “Do you need something?” Mia asked.

  Nessa nodded. “I’d like some water, please.” She held out a bowl.

  “Sure,” Mia said with a smile.

  Nessa frowned, pulling back the bowl.

  “Wha?”

  “One point for each bowl, three bowls a day.”

  Mia opened her mouth to object, to reassure this little girl that it was just water, but stayed silent. Charity was a luxury she couldn’t afford. It was also suspicious. Out here, something for nothing was too good to be true. Mia would disguise kindness as a deal. She resolved to do what little she could to protect Nessa.

  Nessa was the first to adapt. The first day, she disappeared into the forest. She’d taken several trips, returning with full arms.

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  During that time, Mia could only lie still, praying for it to end.

  Prayer. Lady Adeline was making a believer out of her. Prayer had never saved her before, but she said them dutifully now, hoping someone would hear.

  Prayer wouldn’t help.

  Protect yourself. No one else will.

  It had never crossed her mind once to venture into the forest. She was fine with eating just enough to survive. She was fine waiting for the week to pass to see where she’d end up and what she’d be doing.

  Mia looked around. The boy was tending the fire. He weaved between warriors, getting drinks, and taking bowls. The drug addict was attached to the arm of a man even skinnier than her. She was eating meat.

  “What do you find in the forest?” She asked. Her grip on the canteen was tight.

  “Lots of things. They’ll take anything.” She tilted her head, thinking. “I’m not sure what they want. I found a bird skull that gave me twenty whole points.”

  Nessa wasn’t lying, but she wasn’t telling the truth. That didn’t bother Mia as much as it should. It was better to be an honest schemer than a foolish saint.

  “I’ll trade water for your knowledge. You show me what to collect, and I’ll give you water.”

  She didn’t think, shaking her head. “That’s worth more than water.” Nessa eyed Mia with something close to suspicion.

  Mia laughed. It wasn’t a boy's laugh, but she couldn’t bring herself to care. “There are another two days before we get to where we’re going…”

  “You’re not a beggar, are you?” Nessa, no older than ten, looked like she saw through everything and understood the world.

  “I used to be…” She’d gone soft in those six years. “I found a steady job, and I forgot what this was like. Begging, starving, waiting.” Mia wanted to sleep in a bed. She wanted to wear pretty dresses on her days off. She didn’t want to have to worry if she was eating enough.

  “You’ll get used to it again.” Nessa looked at her with pity. “Stick with me, I’ll show you how it’s done.” She puffed out her chest, patting it firmly. “It’ll be a month and a half before we reach our destination. Three days from now, we're meeting up with the other groups, and Lady T will hand us over to Troy.”

  Troy, she remembered that name. “Other groups?” Mia asked.

  “Don’t know a lot about that. Can’t really ask questions, I just put together what I hear.” Her hands gripped her shirt, the indecisiveness from earlier creeping in. Mia saw herself in Nessa. Her behavior was bravado. That was the only way to live on the streets as a child. To be smarter, swifter, and more confident.

  She was Nessa’s age when the duchess saved her.

  Saved.

  The duchess saved Mia. Her motives weren’t altruistic, but still. It wasn’t hard to imagine what would have happened if she’d continued living in the back alleys of the capital. The feelings she had about the duchess and Lady Adeline didn’t change the fact that she’d lived six good and easy years.

  Mia grabbed all those thoughts and put them in a box.

  “New people show up all the time, but they only send out parties to find them at the end of the month. They also go into the forest to get other stuff.” Nessa tore apart a piece of jerky with her teeth. “That’s the boundary, lots of things fall in, and it’s safer than out here. Monsters can’t get into that forest. I think…” She hesitated. “Maybe…other groups have access to the forest at other times of the month, but they don’t want us to know. They’ve made it clear we can’t go anywhere.” Nessa hadn’t given up.

  When compared, Mia came up short. The emotions inside her churned: shame, guilt, and relief. Mia didn’t think that’s what she’d done, given up, but she wasn’t thinking of the future either. It was enough to get through one hour, then the next.

  She wasn’t sure how proactive she wanted to be in this strange place, but her passive attitude had to stop.

  “I won’t take advantage of you. A portion of my points will go to you until I’ve paid the amount owed. Plus, you’re young. I think you approached me because you wanted to pair up.” It was easier to help…to find the parts of herself that stayed the same despite her situation.

  Nessa held out her bowl again.

  Mia filled it.

  “We can do this two ways. We decided on the number you’ll pay, or Mox uses his artifact to weigh the information given and decide what you owe.” Nessa sat beside her, softening her bread in water.

  “Artifact?” She tilted her head, forcing her hand to still. She couldn’t keep touching her throat. The storage space was an artifact.

  Nessa nodded. “That was what they were looking for when they put your hand on the book. Some people who survive get artifacts or unique magic when they come here.”

  “And Mox has one? What does it do?” Mia glanced at the central tent. That explained it...he reason he was at the center, why he had power.

  “Yep. It’s a ledger. Not sure what it does exactly. It can tell you what a thing is, like age, name, stuff like that, then it assigns a value to it.” She leaned in close, looking around. “Doesn’t seem useful to me. Not accurate. A girl brought a platinum coin, and it was only worth eleven points. My bird skull was worth more than that. But Mox is important. They listen to him. They draw lots to see which group he’ll travel with.”

  Mox was protected at the center, his table set up with the same man at his side.

  “Who’s beside him?”

  “That’s Luther. Nobody talks about Luther other than to say he’s strong and is Mox’s guard.”

  Mia nodded. “What’s the difference between Mox and us deciding?”

  “I just told you. Mox’s artifact is weird. How can platinum be worth less than a bird skull?” Nessa threw her hands up, looking at Mia like she was a little slow or silly.

  “I might point you to a leaf that’s worth a lot, and bam, you owe me more than you can pay.”

  Mia mulled it over. Both were risky. Mia remembered how she was as a child: stealing, shortening the candles so the customers stayed less time than they paid for, tricking visitors to the capital out of their money. Nessa, despite her age, had survived until now in what appeared to be unfavorable circumstances. She couldn’t do that if she weren’t cunning.

  “We’ll write down what I want to know, and then find out what that’s worth. We’ll subtract your water from it, and then have half my points go to you until the debt is paid.”

  Nessa’s gaze was assessing, her eyes scanning Mia up and down. “Ben, you can write.”

  Mia froze, cursing herself for the mistake. She didn’t panic. Her face stayed neutral; all that training as a maid was useful now.”Yep..” She grinned. “I can read better than I write, cause I had to stop learning. I can even do a little arithmetic.”

  Nessa's expression eased, turning curious.

  Mia didn’t think she’d gotten rid of her suspicion, but it was enough as long as she didn’t slip up again.

  A part of her wanted to befriend Nessa, take the young girl under her wing, be open with her care and protection, but a wall was between them.

  “Your family must have been well off.”

  Mia thought back to her father. She remembered the shape of him, but not his face. “I don’t know. We had a decent house, I had my own room, but when my father died, there was nothing left. My mom started working to support us, and I stayed out of the way.”

  Nessa nodded. “I ended up like this when my dad died, too, except my mom remarried.” She didn’t say more, and Mia didn’t ask.

  “Let’s ask for paper.”

  “I’ll have to pay for it. You’ll owe me the cost of that too.”

  Mia smiled. The first real one since this mess started. “By the way, where are we?”

  “We’re in Cinderwild.”