The Last Inn Before the Salt

The men who took Tamsin’s brother were polite about it, which was how she knew they were from the city. Country people shouted when they stole things. City people left a receipt.

It was nailed to the door of the mill when she came back from the market: one (1) apprentice, collected for service, with the city’s thanks. No name on it. Not his, not theirs. Just a seal pressed into red wax, a wheel with seven spokes, and a smear where someone’s thumb had slipped.

By evening she had a coat that belonged to her aunt, a map that belonged to nobody, and a plan that would have embarrassed her if she’d said it out loud. She didn’t say it out loud. She walked east until the fields turned white with salt, and then she kept walking.