The creation of a better product.

  That’s ultimately what I figured my goal was. Madeleine’s job was to find new contacts, and Jasmine’s was to launder and convert the entire thing over. Ophelia was my protector at this point—and, I imagined, my first real minion. Rattlejack and Mirchie notwithstanding.

  I had initially planned to spend the entire day just working this out after Ophelia pushed me to go back to being a [Farm Girl].

  It was nice returning to my roots, since none of the active powers of a class would work while performing another role. While my death-enhanced sight was passive, I didn’t need to worry about skeleton management, focusing to see souls, or the amount of anima and animus in an object.

  As a [Farm Girl], all I had to focus on was the dirt. Everything I unlocked was passive, so there was no need to stay as a [Farm Girl]. I could possibly figure out what being a [Cryotheurge] was, or how to advance [Necromancer] or my first role.

  But none of that appealed to me. My hand scooped up dirt and let the soil fall back into the grass. I readjusted my sunhat and chewed on straw, doing my best to ignore the three women chatting noisily in my hovel.

  Madeleine and Jasmine had come over at a reasonable time and weren’t remotely surprised to see Ophelia already here. Both of them told me Hawthorne Manor had burned, and Jasmine—who still had contacts with the maids there—was quick to say it was Lord Skye who dealt with Elias, of all people.

  That news was welcome, and I couldn’t help but feel… proud? Of Addy. I mean, of what he did. I knew Elias was beautiful, and some part of me wanted to be beside him, but my small foray into vampire politics disgusted me.

  I wanted to be free, the arbiter of my own destiny—not some collared wench serving another master.

  But Addy? Killing a [Vampire Lord]?

  SLAP!

  My hands smacked my cheeks, and I stared at the dirt in front of me. The three girls were gossiping about the raid, what to do, how Madeleine’s main buyer was gone, and that it really meant we’d have to go toward Flowers-by-the-River.

  But my mind wasn’t on that. I was too focused on the news that my Addy was the reason this was happening. I felt relieved he was alright, and the only way I knew how to handle all of this was work.

  I stood up, and my bones cracked. My muscles felt heavy, and I looked up toward the sun.

  The moment of silence was all it took for my thoughts to drift back and visualize steel and claws. Was he injured? Do I need to visit? Does he want me to visit?

  I shook that thought off again and looked to the dirt. Crops. Crops. Crops.

  Okay, so I had been working with carrots, the simplest of things. But I finally was allowed to work with all the springtime crops.

  I opened my grimoire and began to do what was natural for me.

  V. On the Harvest

  CROPS. Note: Each season is 90 days. There are four seasons.

  I snickered to myself at that dumb subtitle. It was an old joke from childhood whenever we’d begin planting. Of course, I was a student back then and preferred it… and I never really got a chance to plant carrots. It was always corn. Always corn.

  My quill began to move.

  Spring

  Summer

  FALL

  CROSS-SEASON

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  I wrote a secondary note:

  Just because one thing is most efficient doesn’t mean it’s wise to flood the market with it. And crop rotation is still important to remember.

  I kept writing till my hands hurt. Every number was meticulously placed, and the calculations were done in the ledgers. I even calculated the cost of corn, and I hated corn.

  It didn’t stop me from being numb inside, however. I finally got up and looked over my fields. New weeds, twigs, and stones had found themselves over the dirty edges, away from the 81 crops I’d been meticulously working.

  I had a plan for constant creation, constant movement. And my head kept racing. I looked at Oakheart again and shook off the strain in my hand.

  I glanced to the cabin where the three girls were talking and lowered my head. I walked inside to immediately smell something… meaty cooking in my cauldron.

  “Would you like some stew, chérie?” Madeleine asked, looking at me. “You look paler than usual.”

  “I’m alright, thank you,” I responded.

  “You should have some! It’s really good, Ashy!” Jasmine said, eating at my table. “Well, I mean, most of it is. We tried that wooden bowl in your pantry and I think it’s cursed. It just rots anything that’s put inside.”

  “I am well aware,” I said, finally snapping out of my reverie and joining the girls at my own table. Compared to Ophelia’s place, this hovel was… well, a hovel. I bet comparing it to Madeleine’s or Jasmine’s had the same effect.

  Ophelia turned to me. “Are you done moping about your… boy-toy? There is actual work to be done.”

  I frowned and opened my book. “I have been doing work! Look—I wrote down all my thoughts about crops.”

  Jasmine took the book from me and looked over the tables. “These are really good, Ashy! But… no one buys things at vendor price. Most of the time it’s bought on the open market.”

  I tilted my head. “I’m aware. Pa used to sell corn. The issue is that it’s still a linear change that shifts at masterwork, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, about 20 silver more on the open, and masterwork is 50 more. Shouldn’t change your calculations overall. Besides, you wouldn’t be able to [Vendor] all of these either—very few people want to use their vendor charges on low-value goods. Outside of food grocers, but you’re directly competing with them at The Hart Stop.”

  “Is [Vendor] based on charges or amount?”

  “Both,” Madeleine and Jasmine said at once. They looked at each other, and Madeleine went back to cooking.

  “Daily maximum, and only a certain number of charges a day,” Jasmine explained.

  “Why are there no blood crops on this, Lady Hart?” Ophelia asked.

  “Because I don’t know their prices or what they even go for. And you aren’t supposed to sell them through a [Vendor].”

  “At the moment, chérie, it might be our best bet. The late Lord Hawthorne was our main client in Oakheart, and we’d need to begin selling in Flowers-by-the-River if we want new clients,” Madeleine added.

  “Okay…” I said, leaning onto my wooden table. “Isn’t this your job? I’m just here to make produce. You two are supposed to get it sold, and she’s supposed to help you make sure it works.”

  Jasmine and Madeleine looked at each other, and for once, Jasmine let Madeleine speak.

  “We’ve already told you about the Silent Path, chérie. You are asking us to build you an underworld to move goods. Pipelette, as much as I’ve grown to adore her, is not a fighter. It is between us three. It was just us two—until you made souris over there an [Ancient],” she said, an edge to her voice. Ophelia continued to look at Madeleine, unblinking.

  I bit my tongue. I didn’t need to swap back to [Necromancer] to analyze either of them. I could tell just through the tension in the air.

  “...Well, do either of you have a plan, then?” I asked, trying to kill the awkwardness. Jasmine let out a breath, watching as well.

  “I am not going to say we murder them all,” Ophelia stated, continuing her staredown of Madeleine. “I see two ways of approaching this.”

  “Do tell, souris, do tell,” Madeleine teased.

  “I will, pute,” Ophelia shot back, causing Madeleine to actually stop smiling. “Ultimately, you mortals aren’t the ones with money. It’s my kin who are. As an [Ancient], I am in a position to lead the [Night-Things], and you, as a [Necromancer]—not a [Vampyre]—are more than capable of controlling the dead and dead-adjacent.”

  “I am?” I replied… questioned… something like that.

  “Yes, Lady Hart. I see a way that instead of dealing with the Silent Path, you deal with my kin. We create a secondary underworld and starve the Silent Path out.”

  “Till they realize what you’re doing and kill Ashley,” Madeleine spat back.

  “That is why we organize around it and kill off their low-level dealers first.”

  “I thought you just said we aren’t going to murder everyone.”

  “Correct, I said ‘them all.’ This is just some—the more hot-headed ones, Lady Hart.”

  “Okay. Let’s call that Option ‘I’m not interested in having assassins paint a target on my back.’ What’s the less insane option?”

  Ophelia took an unneeded breath for show, opened her mouth, then closed it. She looked at Madeleine.

  “I suspect your second option is also my second option, souris,” Madeleine said. “You will not like it, chérie.”

  “What is it?”

  “Well, if my second option is your second option too, why don’t you tell her both of your thoughts?”

  Madeleine shrugged and looked at the group. “Why fight when we can win with honey? Bribe, socialize, and convince the dealers to join us. Ashley has a unique advantage—she is a producer. The Silent Path doesn’t even have one of those; they import from the Fallen Lands. With a local source, dealers are more likely to find—”

  “HEY! I want to remain in the business—don’t cut me out, Madsy!” Jasmine interjected.

  “I… what? She’s not selling them the legal tender, pipelette; she’s selling them the illegal goods that need to be processed through you,” Madeleine said slowly.

  “No can do, Madsy. I need to sell to clients too now if I want to rank up!”

  “...Okay, but you aren’t planning to move… Ashley, you said 8,912 crops at maximum efficiency? That many crops?”

  “...No, I just needed like… nine,” Jasmine admitted.

  Madeleine chuckled and went back to stirring the cauldron. “So, we give the dealers better rates than the Silent Path does since we don’t pay the costs from the [Fallen Kingdoms].”

  “Hold on one sec,” I added. “How do I even get to masterwork? I need more lan—”

  “Actually, you should just buy masterwork compost, Ashley,” Jasmine said.

  “Sorry, what?”

  “I think what you have here is good, and just having the forest blighted is a good safety net. If you maximize it, it becomes obvious… and think of it from the other end. If no one ever sees you buy compost, how are you making masterwork crops? Sure, seeds are good and all, but…”

  “...If the soil quality doesn’t match the crop requirement, I can’t make them into seeds,” I finished for her.

  “Yeah. You either keep buying masterwork seeds to keep the public face, or just buy compost. And compost, from what Addy told me, is a lot easier than buying seeds, isn’t it?”

  “I reckon’. How much is a field’s worth of masterwork compost?”

  “Low-tier compost is 10-silver bags. Masterwork is 1 gold.”

  “...So I need 8,000 gold worth of compost every few weeks?”

  “Yeah? But that’s a future problem—you don’t need that much right now. Did you think farming has no costs?” Jasmine added.

  “Excuse me, dears—interesting and all—but back to what I was saying,” Madeleine stepped in. “I highly recommend we just bribe them and work that way.”

  “And your way will just get everyone killed, Ms. La Croix,” Ophelia said. “Lady Bazerie is not going to let you make her dealers turncoat on her. She is a [Vampyre], not a [Necromancer].”

  Madeleine bit her lip. “So, same problem. Either make that one the queenpin of the underworld, or make me it, chérie.”

  “Where am I in this?” Jasmine asked, wanting to be included. Madeleine and Ophelia both looked at her; Madeleine gave her a teasing smile, and Ophelia dead-eyed her.

  “What’s the third option?”

  Again, Ophelia and Madeleine looked at each other.

  “It’s obvious you get Addy involved, Ashy,” Jasmine said, not caring for those two’s fight. “He’s an inferno, and if anyone was going to get this done cleanly, it’s your boy— you know, that’s actually gross, I like Addy. He’s our friend.”

  “And he’ll murder us both if we tell him we need to kill Bazerie so we can start our own underworld, Jazzy.”

  “Maybe? But we can always say she’s demanding protection money from us?”

  “Wouldn’t he check our ledgers?”

  “I can hide our ledgers very easily, and I don’t think he suspects us.”

  “He doesn’t suspect us,” I confirmed.

  “Then yeah, that might be the less disastrous one of these three options,” Jasmine began.

  “It is the most cataclysmic,” Ophelia corrected.

  “She is correct. An inquisitor destroying an underworld will lead you back to this problem. No one will buy goods from Flowers-by-the-River for months, and I do not think you have that time.”

  “...Right,” I said. “Maddy, would you loan me 100 gold for the next debt repayment?”

  All three of them stared at me. “You’re asking for a handout, Ashley?” Jasmine broke the silence.

  “...No? We’re in this together, right? Madeleine has a vested interest in making sure I keep the farm, and I don’t know where to sell the—”

  Jasmine launched herself at me. “OUR ASHLEY IS GROWING UP! SHE’S ASKING FOR HELP!”

  Madeleine chuckled. “Careful now, Pipelette. You’re going to make her retreat into her shell.”

  I pushed Jasmine off. “I just mean that… you know… if we lost our main buyer, I ain’ gettin’ paid soon, and Maddy was the one payin’ us, and she knows I’m good for it?”

  “Uh-huh, Ashy! I am so proud of you!” Jasmine said again.

  I rolled my eyes and leaned into the table. “Look, I’ll do whatever you wanna do with this. I just want to grow crops. I don’t really know nothin’ ’bout this Bazerie business—that’s like… you two talk.”

  “Lady Hart.”

  “Yes, Ophelia?”

  “Grow up. Stop— MFF—” I glanced up, and again, Ophelia’s lips were sealed shut.

  “What souris means to say is that if you want to go check on your bo… friend, you should do that first and then return to business. It is unlike you to be so ill-composed. I had thought you weren’t a fan of him?”

  “I ain’t! Jus’ had a scare, that’s all.”

  “I did too! Wanna go together? He’d love to see us. Truth be told, Ashy, I think I’m too country for these gals.”

  “Yeah, I am too. I don’t even know why Flowers-in-the-River is the only place we can sell to.”

  “Well, the other is the Emerence, and I don’t think you want to deal with Duke Birchigold, do you?” Madeleine offered.

  Both Jasmine and I shot up. “The Duke? He’s involved in this?”

  “...Yes? I’m not entirely sure how, but the Silent Path pays a ‘look-away’ fee to guards. Doing business in the Big City would be inviting his gaze.”

  I looked between Madeleine and Ophelia, then. “Can I come back to you with an answer later? I don’t know which one—and you’re completely right, dealing with the Duke is a bad idea.”

  Ophelia looked at Madeleine. “You should go with them.”

  “Absolutely not,” all three of us said—causing Jasmine and me to look at Maddy, who looked between us both.

  “I am pretty sure Adrian does not like you,” I told Madeleine.

  “I am aware he does not,” Madeleine replied.

  “Then go back to the store, Ms. La Croix, and let me manage the farm in her absence,” Ophelia said.

  Mirchie squeaked, joining the conversation, and then hissed at me.

  “OH! Right—if you’re doing that, can you make Mirchie a little house outside, and her own place? She’s tired of sleeping here and listening to me— to us—quote-unquote ‘squeak like mice over nothing.’”

  “Your rabbit can talk?”

  “Yeah? She’s my familiar.”

  “She’s alive, Lady Hart.”

  “I am aware.”

  “Did Addy do that for you?”

  “...” I did not respond.

  “You are going to get us all killed,” Ophelia muttered, but picked up the rabbit by the scruff of her neck. “Let us go, accomplice. I will build you a house so that when your ‘father’ comes by, he can burn you in it.”

  I turned to Jasmine. “To Adrian’s then?”

  “Yes!” she clapped.

  Madeleine shook her head. “I’ll begin my preparations and see if one of my sisters can join us soon. We might need her expertise in poisons—and less-than-legal medications.”

  We nodded and departed.