After the incident with the three men, Achillea suggests that they move away from the beaten path. As much as she wants to move things along quickly, uneven terrain won’t slow them down nearly as much as getting caught by anyone else that may come after them. There’s no guarantee that the men won’t spread word of a boneman headed north through the woods, and the last thing either of them wants is to have to fight another mob wielding silverware. Or worse, one with actual silver weapons.

They make up the time by keeping on until the half-moon is high overhead. Achillea digs some dried rations out of her pack, tears into it like she hasn’t eaten in weeks, then plops down on the ground and goes to sleep. Mordecai stands watch, his only other instructions being to wake her up at dawn’s first light. They don’t even build a fire. Too noticeable, Achillea says, and there’s no point besides. It’s late summer and the weather is forgiving.

They build a fire anyway three days later, when Achillea digs through her pack for more food and says, “Fuck, I’m out.”

Mordecai expects her to pick up her spear, tell him to stay put, and wander off into the woods to go hunt something down. She can be such a contrarian, though, that he’s still mildly stunned when she does exactly that, returning a few hours later with a dead deer slung over her shoulders.

Once the deer’s cooked up, Achillea offers him a leg that he almost accepts before they both realize what they’re doing. Achillea eats almost all the venison and only packs about a third of it away for later. She doesn’t once look Mordecai in the eyes, too embarrassed by her mental lapse.

Honestly, Mordecai’s embarrassed too. Achillea is comfortable enough having him around that she momentarily forgot that he was dead. It’s a weird thing to be happy about, and he doubts she’d appreciate it if he told her.

That night, Achillea decides that they need to make up the time spent hunting and cooking by not stopping to rest at all. When Mordecai voices concern, she waves him off.

“It’s just one night,” she says. “It’s not gonna kill me. Besides, I’ll have plenty of time to rest after I drop you off at the border.”

“Are you ever planning on telling me why we’re in such a hurry?”

“Nope.”

Mordecai can’t even find it in himself to be upset anymore. She must have her reasons for keeping it secret.

Or, hell, maybe she’s just stubborn.

He definitely knows the latter is true. Despite her assurances, it’s not “just one night.” Not when she’s getting four, five hours of sleep every other night. Not when she picks at the leftover venison in order to ration it out as long as possible when clearly she’d been hungry enough to eat two-thirds of a whole deer in one go a couple nights ago. Not when he can see by the light of the slowly waxing moon, in those few hours of sleep she gets, how dark the circles under her eyes are becoming.

Which is why, about a week after leaving the apothecary, when Achillea decides that they’re not making progress fast enough and declares that she’ll stay up all night again to make up lost time, Mordecai puts his foot down.

“We’re stopping.” He sits down cross-legged and cross-armed, willing himself to become immovable.

Achillea looks at him like he’s gone loopy. The sun has just barely set, the last embers of daylight fading away. In Achillea’s opinion, it’s nowhere near time when they should be stopping to rest. “What do you – we can’t stop!”

He cocks his head. “Why not?”

“We have to get to Redburn before—” It seems she still has the presence of mind to cut herself off before she actually reveals anything to him. How disappointing. She straightens up with a glare. “Why do you want to stop? You’re not tired; you can’t get tired.”

“You can, though,” he points out.

Achillea snorts. “I am not tired. I’ve been sleeping plenty.”

He gives her as dry a look as he can. “Yes, and eating plenty too. You’re the portrait of peak physical condition.”

Her glare turns dark, and Mordecai realizes that he momentarily forgot she was an orc. He raises his hands in surrender. “Sorry. But there’s a better way to do this, you know.”

She crosses her arms. “Pray tell,” she grunts.

“Here’s what I propose. We spend the night at an inn. Just one night,” he quickly interjects before the protest he can see on Achillea’s lips can be voiced. “Then we hire a carriage to take us north. I’ll keep my hood on, you do the talking, and if anyone asks what we’re doing in Redburn, just say it’s none of their business. Because it isn’t.”

“Hm. And what inn do we plan to stay at then?”

Mordecai points just to their left. “That one.”

A short distance away, atop a small cliff, sits a boxy wooden structure with a thatch roof, smoke rising from a chimney. An attached stable holds a couple horses and an old wooden carriage stands nearby, waiting for a horse, driver, and passengers. Faint music drifts from the building to where they stand.

Achillea must be really out of it not to have noticed it. She knows it, too, because she rubs her eyes tiredly and sighs, acquiescing.