I didn’t.

I couldn’t come up with a single workable plan, not even the barest, vaguest hint of one to rescue the miller’s daughter.

And after having only had a few hours of fitful sleep on a hard wood floor, I ended up passing out at one of the tables after less than an hour of fruitless thinking.

I woke with a jolt by somebody shaking me vigorously by the shoulder.

“Wha? What is it? Who’s there?” I slurred groggily, wiping drool from my cheek and looking around with blurry eyes, momentarily confused as to where I was.

“Who do you think?” came the exasperated reply, and I was nearly knocked right off my chair as Erik threw my backpack at me. “Come on, it’s past noon. We’ll be lucky to reach Kingsbury by nightfall at this rate.”

Erik and Jack were bright eyed and bushy tailed, their own rucksacks slung over their shoulder, ready to go. I, on the other hand, was still struggling to wake up, and in my dazed state, I smacked my hip painfully into the corner of the table as I hastily staggered to my feet.

Erik just rolled his eyes and headed towards the door of the inn, while Jack offered me a helping hand as I wincingly prodded at the spot on my hip that will no doubt develop a nasty bruise within the hour.

We hurried after Erik, half running to catch up with him as he left the inn and started down the forest path.

In the light of a lovely, warm late summer’s afternoon, the forest was actually rather pretty. The dense foliage overhead gave the light filtering down through the branches a greenish hue, and colorful wildflowers grew in patches all along the dirt path. The occasional butterfly lazily bobbed past us, and I could hear the sweet trill of bind song in the air all around us. If I hadn’t known that some of those birds and butterflies were getting caught in the webs of giant, man-eating spiders, I might actually be tempted to linger here and enjoy the view.

But we had an unlucky girl to rescue, and so we hurried along without stopping to appreciate the scenery except in brief passing.

To my immense relief, we made it through the rest of the forest without a single incident, apart from me stubbing my toe and snapping a swear that made both Jack and Erik’s heads swivel around to face me, shock plastered across their faces.

And then the cool shade of the forest was behind us, and we were back in the carefully tended farmlands, which were nothing but beige expanses of flat fields, stretching on into the horizon as far as the eye could see, only broken by the occasionally cow that watched our progress curiously with large, soft eyes.

Erik had been wrong about not making it before nightfall—but just barely. The sun was just beginning to dip below the horizon when the countryside became dotted with houses and mills, which gradually turned into more densely packed cottages, and the dirt path turned into a cobbled road.

The first real clue that we had arrived properly in the town of Kingsbury was the sign stuck in a grassy hill on the side of the road, slightly crooked, which read: “Welcome to Kingsbury. Have a lovely day, or else.”

“That’s… weird,” I remarked, frowning at the sign as we passed it. But then again, the king was the type of guy who was willing to execute a girl because her father lied about her having magical abilities, so perhaps it wasn’t all that unexpected.

People were evident now, hurrying around the outskirts of town on various errands like scattered ants. The further we progressed, the more I noticed we weren't the only ones on the road.

For that matter, this wasn't the only road anymore. We were fast approaching the heart of the kingdom, and there was a steady stream of traffic bustling on the intersecting streets. Fancy carriages rattled past, their wealthy occupants bouncing along invisibly inside. More common than the carriages were the merchant's caravans and carts.

But even as we walked deeper into the bustling town, the streets began to empty of people as darkness grew, forcing shoppers and merchants alike back into their homes, and out of the swiftly darkening streets.

I was distracted by everything I saw, every little shop, every passing pedestrian, every greasy looking man trying to sell questionable looking pies at dingy stands on street corners. Everywhere I turned was a bizarre mix of middle ages, medieval, and renaissance, about three centuries of fashion and architecture and technological development all combined into one giant anachronistic city scene, like the setting of a badly researched B movie.

It wasn’t until Erik stopped abruptly in the middle of the street to allow a trundling horse cart to pass in front of us, making me run into his back, that I was able to pull myself back to reality.

“Wait a minute, where are we going, exactly?” I asked him.

He turned to look disparagingly at me. “This is your quest. Shouldn’t you be the one telling me where to go?”

I flushed, since I was all too aware that I had absolutely no idea where to go or what to do now that we had arrived in Kingsbury. “Get to Kingsbury” was where all of my plans so far began, and ended.

“Uh—yes. Of course. Now we go… to the… castle,” I told him.

“And what then?” he pressed.

I could feel the color in my cheeks darkening even more. “Okay, fine. I don’t know. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” he replied without even a flicker of emotion. “I’ll tell you where we’re going. We’re going to a pub where everyone else will be too drunk to be suspicious of us, where we will try to think of a plan late into the night. Then, when it’s good and dark, we take action; inevitably fail; probably get caught; and be executed alongside the miller’s daughter tomorrow morning. How does that sound?”

“Look, you don’t have to help; I’m not forcing you to be a part of this,” I shot back heatedly at him, my hands clenching into fists at my sides. “You agreed to get me to Kingsbury, and you have. You can leave now if you want, go back to your house in the middle of the woods, and be all alone for the rest of your life, just the way you like it.”

“I can’t go back; my house still has a giant hole in the roof, remember?” he retorted with a glare. “I’m not done with you until you finish fixing it. And you still owe me money for the inn the day before yesterday. Don’t think I’m going to let your out of your debts that easily.” He hitched up the rucksack slung over his shoulder, turned on his heel, and began marching down the road again.

“What the—how does that make any sense at all?” I shouted after him, but he pretended not to hear me. I looked over at Jack, hoping that maybe he’ll back me up.

“You’re fixing Erik’s roof for him?” he asked questioningly.

“I… I fell through it, okay?” I snapped at him, and then I too marched away, following after Erik in a huff.

                                                           *   *   *

The pub was greasy, grimy, and gritty. It was half full of half drunk patrons, who were equally greasy, grimy, and gritty, and who all turned as one to cast us a collective suspicious glare as we came through the door. A tiny sliver of light from the oil lamps that had just been light out on the street cut into the room as we stood in the open doorway, and the room’s occupants all seemed to hiss and withdraw from it. Erik stepped breezily inside, and after exchanging a doubtful look, Jack and I followed him, letting the door swing shut heavily behind us once more.

Near darkness immediately enveloped the small room again, and even though it was nearly nightfall outside, it still took a few moments for my eyes to adjust. Erik crossed the pub, Jack and I so close on his heels that we nearly tripped him up more than once. A dozen pairs of eyes followed us as we went, not one of them friendly.

Well, one of them seemed a little friendly at first glance, but upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a glass eye, and its sighted neighbor was decidedly threatening.

“Three pints,” Erik said to the barman, leaning with his elbows on the bartop. The barman glowered, and for a moment I thought he was going to throw us out, but then he dropped the dirty mug and the even dirtier rag he was wiping it with onto the counter, and busied himself with pouring suspicious looking liquid into suspicious looking mugs.

I almost wanted to ask “pints of what?”, but then I figured if Erik hadn’t felt the need to specify, the answer couldn’t be all that great.

The barman turned back to us a few seconds later, dropping all three mugs on the counter in front of Erik. Erik reached out for them, but the barman held up a ham-like hand and grunted.

“Coin first. That’ll be six coppers.”

Erik fished around in his rucksack until he pulled out a small leather coin purse, and slid a handful of dirty coins across the counter. The barman snatched them up, inspected them intently, bit one of them, and then grunted again, this time apparently in satisfaction. He waved at Erik to take the mugs, which he did, handing one to me, and the other to Jack. Keeping the third for himself, he crossed the room again, this time leading the way to a small table in a far corner of the room, dimly lit and far from any listening ears.