“Look, Huntress! I gathered so many scales.”

  Squirt narrowed her eyes on the pile of glasslizard scales Jul dumped proudly in front of her. Lifting her gaze to his absurdly proud expression, he smirked, the picture of arrogant confidence.

  Setting aside the parchment she’d been working on, she pulled out a blade to sift through the pile, her temper growing as she did. She plucked out one and set it to the side, then pointed to the pile with her blade as she scowled. “These are useless.”

  He balked. “But I—”

  “They’re burnt, singed, half-melted, or fucking broken. I told you to not use your gods damned flames on them.”

  Two of the others badly hid snickers as he wilted.

  Glaring at the pile of waste in disgust, she muttered, “Clearly, I need to go out with you next time.”

  The redcap’s voice was so close it tickled her ear, causing her to flinch reflexively. “Oh? Going to show us how it’s done, little blade?”

  Scowling, she kept her eyes down, not trusting the fey enough to snap at him like she would Jul.

  It had been two days now since she’d exposed her wings to the pest. Her ankle had finished healing, and she’d spent more than enough time writing.

  Plus, she was supposed to have impressions of the hunters sent by the Queen, by order of Lord Everwinter, anyway. They tended to be better at gathering materials than the hunter trainees, even if their reactions to the entire concept were dubious at best.

  Prior to the absolute necessity of needing every edge out in these backwoods for basic survival, she wouldn’t have thought twice of it—the feystones were useful components for most mages and thus could be exchanged in town halls for coin by any hunter, member of the Guard or not. Since fey judged based on magic levels, they never used things to support their magic use like Squirt was forced to, as it was considered beneath them.

  Meaning not even the Queen-sent hunters had ever done as Squirt had. In fact, she would bet her sword that they had considered the collection of feystones as a secondary thing, a way to get paid for their work and not a requirement for the balance.

  Pissants.

  The redcap took an eager seat next to her at the unofficial lecture table, dropping a bunch of bloodied feybeast parts on the table. “Do me, do me next.”

  Based on the gleam in his eyes, he absolutely meant the double entendre.

  Glaring at his bloodied pile all over her desk, she first carefully closed up the ink pot and put it and the parchment into her pouch for safekeeping. Then she used her dagger to sort through his stuff.

  The silver feathers he’d gotten were ruined with tacky blood, the scales were broken or partial, though the poison glands he’d gotten were perfectly salvageable. She split his piles up as well, pointing to the ruined pile. “Those are useless. You got too stab-happy with the glasslizards. The feathers need to be clean and dry. Coated in tacky blood, they lose the properties they have.” She pointed to the salvageable glands. “These are passable.”

  The redcap hummed a little too closely to her as he said in a sultry tone, “Well, what are we going to do with all this extra blood, then?”

  Her expression flattened. He wasn’t touching her, so realistically, she couldn’t defend herself against his teasing. Standing from the table, she stalked off and muttered, “Deal with it yourself. And wash the damn table when you’re done.”

  The lunatic cackled.

  Others began trickling back in from their hunts. Of the Queen-sent hunters, two kept their distance from her, their eyes wary and distrustful.

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  She ignored them.

  Instead, she set up a bowl in a flat spot, pulling out some of the ingredients she’d gathered during her trip to the deep Wylds, and tied the handkerchief over her face. The bowl was a modified stove with a self-stirring wing in the middle of it. Pulling out a mortar and pestle, she began mashing up the laughing mushrooms, adding water to minimize the amount of their spores in the air.

  As always, others crowded around her, making her twitch in discomfort, but she couldn’t do this inside. The little girl, whom she now knew as Paloka, got a little too close, and Squirt stopped to glare and snap, “Keep back, damnit.”

  Guilty, the little girl’s face fell as she moved backwards, her eyes big and pleading.

  Squirt growled to herself, annoyed and crowded by everyone who wouldn’t leave her the fuck alone—

  Jul, apparently curious enough to disregard her warning to Paloka, leaned in closer. “So, what is…” he blinked a few times, his eyes going unfocused.

  The redcap leaned uncomfortably close to her other side. “Oo, drugs?”

  Scowling, she bit out, “Yes.” Technically, plenty of fey did take the dried mushroom heads as a drug in these parts, so he wasn’t wrong.

  The pest leaned in on the redcap’s other side. “Seriously?”

  Tobias, bless his soul, strode over, “Alright everyone, back up, give the woman some space.”

  The redcap didn’t budge, his eyes manically gleaming on her face. “Why aren’t you affected like the fata was?”

  The fata that was currently being tugged away while giggling and leaning a little too heavily on the female Queen-sent shifter with a peppy attitude.

  Squirt didn’t remove her eyes from her work. “My face covering is enchanted.”

  The redcap leaned closer, almost pressing his nose into the fabric as he hummed. “Mm, by yo—” he grunted as Tobias grabbed the collar of his shirt and forcibly dragged him back.

  “You. Here. Stay. Gods damnit, Qzi, stop pushing her boundaries just to get her to stab you.”

  Squirt’s eyebrows twitched. Was that all he wanted? Could she stab him and get away with it? She’d do so happily if she could. Normally the risk wasn’t worth the reward.

  Tobias continued to run interference as the bowl heated, and Squirt moved the mixture from where she had been grinding it up to the bowl, leaving it to run. It would take several hours to finish this step, drying out the liquid on low heat with a constant stir to prevent it from burning. Still, the bowl was small, and she had several she’d made over the years and a lot of mushrooms she’d gathered.

  Squirt continued. Occasionally pulling out more feystones to keep the enchanted machines going as she went down the line until she had three of them going at once. Standing, every eye on her to an uncomfortable degree, she hunched her shoulders and scowled before pulling out a stick from her trap kit and drawing a circle around the little machines.

  Completed, Squirt pointed to it, her eyes down as she declared, “Stay out of the circle.”

  Then she stepped out of the circle, pulling down the handkerchief as she headed to the creek to wash her hands off.

  One of the more reserved hunters, a water fata, asked her, “Isn’t it inefficient with such small pots?”

  “Yep.”

  The beautiful, otherwise reserved woman had the smallest crease between her brows of consternation. “Then why not get larger pots?”

  Squirt washed off the handkerchief, wringing it out in the water and scowling as she answered, “That’s the largest I can make.”

  “You are an enchanter?”

  She bared her teeth, her shoulders tense. “Yes.”

  “Prove it.”

  The clearing stilled as Squirt considered the woman, ignoring the way that Tobias bristled. Her tone had not been condescending or challenging but calmly declarative. For someone who had been eyeing her suspiciously, she was now clearly giving Squirt a chance. If Tobias stepped in because he was offended for some gods damned reason, it was possible she’d never get another from the reserved water fata.

  Someone was actually giving her a gods damned chance. There was no laughter or taunting in the water fata’s expression, only the glint of challenge. For once, taking her seriously as an enchanter.

  Squirt’s resolve to not waste this opportunity solidified, and she nodded. “Then give me a problem.”

  The woman blinked, clearly not expecting that answer.

  Squirt’s hands clenched into fists. “I said, give me a problem. Give me something to solve. If I just make another pot, you’ll say I copied the recipe from someone else. I don’t have enough magic to waste on something frivolous just to prove a point, but I’m not wasting the chance to prove myself, either.

  “So, give me a problem, and I’ll do the whole song and dance from beginning to end. Something small and annoying or frustrating.” Squirt scowled, dropping her gaze to the grass beneath her feet. “In case you didn’t notice, I don’t exactly have a wealth of magic to pull from, so it can’t be a big problem.” She gestured vaguely in the direction of the stirring pots. “Something like that, that needed a constant heat and constant stir.”

  The woman, Ala’ole, considered Squirt for a long time before she said quietly, “The glasslizard scales.” She nodded to Jul, who grimaced and blushed. “He is not the only one having difficulty collecting viable scales.” She returned her eyes to Squirt. “Is this a problem you can work with?”

  The others held their breath, expecting a snap of Squirt’s temper.

  Instead, Squirt nodded slowly. “Yeah. I can work with that.”

  She would prove herself, here and now, to every one of these fuckers.