“Hey,” Rob said as he struggled to keep up with Maggie as they marched from the Shoemaker’s shop toward the city gates. “Could you slow down a little?”

The stone-paved boulevard was thick with shoppers, merchants and the occasional horse cart, but Maggie threaded a path so deftly she never so much as broke stride. Rob, on the other hand, seemed to bump into every other person Maggie left in her wake.

“If you want to see your patients,” she snapped, “we need to move at my pace, not yours.”

Rob took off his glasses to wipe the dust from the lenses, then stuck them back on his sweaty face. “Look, maybe you can keep this up all day, but I can’t. Even if we get back after dark, I don’t think I have much to worry about, given how you handled those guards.”

Maggie halted her march. “I will strangle her. If I see her again, I won’t hesitate to strangle the life out of her.”

“I’m not sure that’s wise.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll wait until after the ball so you can be seen with your damned princess.”

“For crying out loud, I don’t want anything to do with Cynda. She’s totally not my type.”

Maggie snorted in disbelief. “What, you don’t like wealthy and beautiful?”

“I don’t like spoiled and bossy. Besides, I’m—”

“Doctor?” a woman’s voice said from behind them. “Doctor, is that you?”

“Greta?” Rob said, as she joined them. “And Hans. What are you guys doing here?”

“My sister and I are out shopping,” Hans answered, warily eyeing Maggie. “Your cousin eats an astonishing amount of food.”

“That he does. But we can afford it.”

“Perhaps. But food is scarce this time of year, before the first harvest. Even those that can afford good food cannot always find it.”

Rob knew Hans was speaking the truth, but on a gorgeous day like this, with the trees and meadows bursting with greenery, it seemed crazy that food stores should be tight and poorer townsfolk might be going hungry. “Hans, just do your best. I’m confident you’ll get what we need. And, ah . . . you guys know Maggie, of course.”

“Magda. You’re looking well,” Greta said, to which Maggie replied with a grunt. Hans kept silent.

“Now, doctor,” Greta continued.

Rob had met Greta a dozen times, but like most people in town, she used his title instead of his name. “Please, call me Robert. Or Rob, even.”

“Robert,” she said, blushing slightly. “I’ve heard talk that you’re preparing to take a wife. Can this be true?”

“No! Where did you hear that?”

“It’s everywhere,” Greta said, a giggle slipping from between her lips. “All the ladies are hoping you might notice them at the Harvest Grand Ball. The dressmakers in town are burning candles late into the night in preparation. I wonder, if I may be so bold, whether you have an partner for the ball? I thought that, if you didn’t want to attend alone, we might—”

“I’ll meet you at the gate,” Maggie snarled to Rob before stomping off.

“Such a temper,” Greta said. “No wonder she hasn’t a husband. But that’s always been her way. Now, about the ball.”

Rob watched Maggie disappear into the crowd. He felt bad for her; it seemed like she was overreacting, but he could also see the pain it was causing her. “Greta, I don’t even know if I’m going.”

Greta’s mouth opened wide in astonishment, as if Rob didn’t know whether it was night or day. “But you must!” she said. “The Harvest Grand Ball is the social event of the entire year!”

“I’m not much of a dancer.”

“The ball is far more than dancing. It’s about spectacle and romance and—”

“Business,” Hans cut in. “It would be an excellent place to mingle with well-off families who might need a doctor someday.”

Rob shook his head. “Hans, we’re busy enough as it is. I’m not going to attend a ball just to drum up new patients.”

“But the people you meet there could pay for your services in coin instead of mottled livestock and spoiled turnips,” Hans said.

Greta touched Rob’s arm. “Ignore my brother. If you truly wish to find a wife—”

“Not looking,” Rob said. “Besides, I’m with Maggie. You know that.”

“Oh, doctor, she doesn’t strike me as the ballroom type. And since you can’t go to the ball alone—it’s simply not done—you might consider attending with someone like me, who would be so disappointed if you were to miss the ball.”

Rob gazed at Greta’s youthful poise, glow, and body, and thought with some wonder, this could be mine. His ego boosted, Rob’s sense of reason brought him right back down to earth. He was with Maggie. Greta was too young for him. 

And this fawning behavior he’d noticed after talking to the Godmother, or maybe since finding the empty Red Bull can? None of it was real. He was an okay-looking guy, in a post-college/pre-dad sort of way, but he wasn’t worthy of this level of attention. Something strange was going on, and like a summer cold, Rob worried that it was going to get worse before it got better.

“Look, no promises,” Rob said as Greta clapped her hands. “Maybe I will go. Right now, I’ve got errands to run and a pissed-off Maggie to catch up with.”

“Why is she so angry today?” Greta asked.

“Not that she needs an excuse,” Hans added.

Rob described the events at the Elven Shoemaker to Hans and Greta, who were equal parts shocked and amused.

“Between Magda and your cousin, I don’t see how you maintain your respectability,” Greta said.

“If you’re seeking an ointment for the Shoemaker’s father,” Hans offered. “You might try visiting our step-mother.”

“Former step-mother,” Greta corrected.

“She’s an herbalist of some reputation, and her cottage is convenient to today’s rounds,” Hans went on. “Though I wouldn’t touch anything that comes from that witch, your patient doesn’t seem to be in any condition to care. You may even get a family discount if her daughter is with you.”

“Daughter?” Rob said.

“Yes,” Hans said. “Magda’s mother is also our step-mother.”

“Former step-mother,” Greta repeated.

“Why didn’t anyone tell me,” Rob huffed and puffed to Maggie once he’d caught up with her by the city walls, “that you, Hans and Greta were all related?”

“Because we’re not,” Maggie said, who resumed her fast-paced stride without giving Rob a chance to catch his breath. “Their widowed father married my mother long after I’d escaped that house. They didn’t stay long, either; Hans and Greta were terrors, according to my mother, but then she never did take well to other people living in her space.”

“Hans said she’d threaten to lock them in an oven.”

“I can see that happening. She’s very particular about her bottles and bits of toadstools, or whatever it is she uses to make medicines.”

“So you never really had a relationship with them.”

“Not a good one, anyway. I did get on with their father. He taught me a little of the woodcutting trade, and even left me one of his axes when he died,” she said, patting its metal head.

“Okay. That clears some things up, I guess, but it’s weird nobody thought to tell me this.”

“Now you know.”

They marched in silence through the hodgepodge of cramped houses, dirty industry and animal pens Rob had come to think of as the town’s suburbs.

“I’m sorry,” Maggie said.

“For what?”

“Don’t play dumb. For the Shoemaker’s.”

Rob wiped his glasses, realized he’d smudged them with sweat, then took them off again to clean the lenses. Not for the first time since he’d arrived here, Rob wished he’d gotten Lasik surgery when he’d had the chance. “Yeah, there was probably a better way for you to handle things back there. But how did you do that? Take on three armed men, I mean?”

Maggie’s chin thrust forward. “They underestimated me. Because I’m a woman.”

“They won’t do that again.”

“Pah. Don’t be so sure. Right now they’re probably convincing themselves that I fought dirty, or congratulating themselves for how they held back against a ‘lady.’ Or both.”

“In their defense,” Rob said, “you did kind of take them by surprise.”

Maggie shook her head, whipping her braided ponytail from shoulder to shoulder. “I don’t care what they think. I don’t care what anyone thinks.”

“Even Cynda?” Rob said.

“Especially that slut-whore,” she spat back, though she smirked as if surprised by the vehemence of her own reply. Her smirk made Rob smile, and his smile made Maggie grin, and soon they were both laughing until Maggie punched Rob in the shoulder.

“Ow!” he said, still chuckling. “That hurt! No hitting.”

“It’s your fault for making me laugh.” Maggie’s laughter had died away, and along with it her fury. “I’m trying to be upset, if you don’t mind.”

“You do you,” Rob said. “Speaking of your mother. I need something for the old man back at the Shoemaker’s—a cream or lotion to help with his sores. Hans said our rounds would put us in her neighborhood. Do you mind if we stop by and see if she has anything for him?”

“Oh, God,” Maggie said. “I haven’t told her about us. If she asks about grandchildren, don’t say a fucking word. It’s bad enough your crazed cousin knows.”

“Understood.”

“And I can’t guarantee she’ll have any medicines prepared. It’s going to lengthen our day, regardless.”

Rob’s stomach grumbled, having skipped lunch, and he found himself craving a burrito and diet Coke with ice. “Any chance she’ll feed us?”

“You’re brave to even ask, given what goes on in that kitchen. Yes, I doubt we’ll escape without some sort of meal.”