Inside the Cut Nose, drinking good Ship’s Spit, and trying not to see the many strange taxidermized swordfish, Bodi got forced to stand. He no longer trusted the wooden chairs to be stable for his person. It’d been embarrassing enough to fall once.

  Their food came out next, the sailor waiter down cast and exhausted. Clearly having a person in the area around him made little if any difference on how he got treated. The food itself didn’t have any issues. Clearly, he’d put time into making it. The “manager” a froggish six limbed species glowered at his only worker. They tromped back to the kitchen where they could hear more yelling in the back about how horrible the food looked.

  Everyone ate fast to get out of there. They even left an excessive tip to avoid asking for change. All of them practically ran from the experience, preferring the road and random attacks to the outright hostility of a micromanager.

  Barely thirty minutes down the road, Laural caved first. “I can’t stop thinking an about that poor sailor. A fate worse I can hardly imagine than being stuck in a room with his boss all day.”

  Nettle gave them all firm instructions. “He is not coming with us. We’ve already taken on too many new people and while everyone claims to pay their way, it’s simply not safe to have too large of a party and further if he got the mermaids’ rot he’ll probably pick up other magical curses exceedingly easily. Having someone like that with us can make the rest of us likely to pick up illness and curses as you all should know.”

  “But his sweating is just an average curse, even if it was mermaid rot doesn’t automatically mean he’s inclined to other situations like that!” Laural tried to argue.

  “No,” Nettle insisted and Spoon agreed with him.

  Bodi, to everyone’s surprise, disagreed. “I’m sure we could look after him well enough. He’s an excellent cook.”

  “Hey, that’s my job!” Kriti stood up from her spot sitting beside Day on the cart glaring. “Are you saying something about my skills?”

  Bodi froze. “No, just that having two cooks is always good. Not that we need one, just that it can’t really hurt, you know?”

  “Absolutely, we cannot put him in this party. But that doesn’t mean it’s our only way of helping him. There are a lot of things we could try that have nothing to do with what we’re currently talking about.” Day phrased it carefully.

  “Like what?” Nettle shook his head at the necromancer. “We cannot kill him to puppet the body if that’s your plan.”

  Day put her mouth in a hard line. She thought a little longer before suggesting, “We could set him up with his own restaurant? Maybe near Mooning Castle?”

  Nettle sniffed derisively. “We cannot. That’s extremely expensive and I don’t have that kind of funds on me and maybe not at home. Besides, do you know how often restaurants fail? It’s like ninety-five percent failure rate in the first year. The food business is way more brutal than shoes and there are lots of different players there that will open up your neck for nothing more than a good location like this one on the road.”

  The Kriti nodded at this one. “He’s not wrong. Eateries are a place where they enjoy getting rid of their own. Setting him up with a place without staff or protection or customers is the same as making sure he has no way to live in the future.”

  “But then what do you think we should do?”

  For awhile they went on, slowly though Laural began to smile.

  “Yes?”

  “How do you think he feels about necromancers?”

  They all stared at her.

  “Well think about it. They’re both unhappy by themselves. He doesn’t have to go and learn necromancy he could just work for the necromancer, making sure he gets good meals. Did you see how thin he looked? And I’ll be people will trade better with the larger sailor than with the necromancer anyway. A sailor who can’t sail probably has some connections too.”

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  “Great,” Nettle shook his head, “so we need to give him a job offer and sus out if he’s ok with necromancy. How are we supposed to do that?”

  “Let me do this.” Day cracked all of her knuckles individually. “I’m very experienced at handling this kind of negotiation and I know how to get the conversation started and to readjust if things go wrong during the conversation itself. Besides, I’m more approachable than the majority of you and better at handling people.”

  “It’s true that it’s one of your better skills.”

  “Her only talent,” countered Bodi darkly, still against chiroquackery on a fundamental level if nothing else.

  But she ignored them, just because they knew the truth about her didn’t mean anything about her had changed. This would help prove that and help her get away from their accusing gazes for awhile. Of which she wanted nothing more than that. Anyway, this town didn’t have enough space for a jail. Still though, she made sure to point out a series of complicated turns up ahead and then throw the map back into the caravan.

  #

  She knocked on the back door of the kitchen, having already guessed he would be in back cleaning. The manger she hoped would be somewhere in front stewing or inventing new ways to harass his staff member.

  The sailor pushed the door open, “Sorry. No leftovers. Oh, it’s you.”

  He frowned at her. “Did, did you have a complaint? Those should go to the owner.”

  “Actually, I wanted to say you did an excellent job. Do you have a commendation option?”

  He stared down at her open mouthed.

  “Nobody has ever done that. Ever.” He looked so shaken then relieved.

  She added, “Your boss, though, he’s not very impressive.”

  He suddenly blurted out “I have a glass constitution, sweat a lot. Once my ships skills became irrelevant because I kept catching toothrot from mermaids, I went inland hoping to find a job. Anyone who would take me. He’s my only shot. They only one that takes on someone who can’t stop sweating. I’m stuck with him.”

  This would not do. They were beating around the campfire smores, mushing it into the ground, and she got fed up.

  “So, how do you feel about necromancy?”

  He froze his brain whistling out through his nose as it tried to run itself up to the answer. It was a strange noise and altogether unpleasant, but Day gave a faultless and flawless smile. She’d practiced it upon many complaining vampires. The general nature of which annoyed most and killed a few. Her various remedies against angry vampires would probably fill an entire book on its own. Ignoring her family generational knowledge on this particular subject.

  He hesitated and squinted. “You want to kill my boss and then puppet him around for the bills?”

  “Uh, no, but it’s understandable why you might consider that an option. But none of us can do that kind of thing anyway. We’re more wondering about having one for a boss.”

  The sailor paled. “Are you asking to kill me?”

  “No, not at all.” She laughed and shifted from foot to foot before saying, “We know someone who exclusively works with bone bodies, he’s got an excellent set up but he’d having issues with getting people to negotiate with him for products as well as eating well and frankly he seems quite lonely on his own rattling around- “ the word rattling around made her put on a brilliant calming expression, “Truly if you don’t try to harm him he’ll be excellent to you. We wouldn’t have brought it up, but you’re an excellent chef and this job seemed rather poorly suited to your skillset, so we were just thinking-“

  “You’re offering me a new job?”

  “It’s more like an interview-“

  “I’ll do it. Where do I go. So long as I don’t have to kill anyone. I’m a pacifist. Have been my whole life. You’d best not be sending me to my death or to someone else’s?”

  “Neither,” she reassured him. “We just saw a need and solution.”

  His face said I don’t think I can trust you, but the man mopped sweat off his brow and instead asked, “How will he recognize me? Maybe he’ll think I’m not the one he’s looking for after all.”

  “Just open with being interested in apprenticeship and happy to cook. You can say the Chiropractor sent you.”

  His face paled further and he pulled back slightly then took a deep breath. “It can’t be worse than now. I’d rather be dead.”

  “I think you should leave now,” Day declared firmly, glancing behind him back at the main door out.

  The man hastily grabbed his things, which was quite meager a single sack and he muttered, “Kept making me pay room and board out of my pay.”

  “Let me give you detailed instructions.”

  Day described the entire route carefully and even gave him her buckskin horse. She hoped nobody would get mad at her about that, but that they would trust her more. She might be a chiropractor, but she was a good person just like everyone else in the group. She considered leaving, just going off, but they had all their supplies in her caravan and it was safer to travel with group. Plus, she’d saved Bodi’s life and suspected they might need her to heal a few others. Besides, she’d grown tired of traveling on her own, and now that she knew a treasure got involved, she wanted that too. For now, they would have to do, until they didn’t. If it came to it, she’d be able to handle them all. Just like she’d always done as a chiropractic necromancer. Nettle barely knew of her capabilities and the others could be fooled. If she had to neutralize them all, she would. Never underestimate the capabilities of a human with tools.