Chapter 70: Blonde Was Supposed to Be Less Trouble

Dove reached the bottom stair before Thorne caught up with her. Through the rear window, Edrik stood between the prisoner and the alley’s only exit, asking the same question the man had refused to answer inside.

He didn’t shout. That made it worse. The prisoner tried to bargain, Edrik moved closer, and the bargaining ended with a frightened answer that Dove couldn’t quite hear.

Thorne stopped beside her. "He’s checking the road. Stay where it’s warm."

"I can see that. Is checking the road usually this threatening?"

Thorne kept his voice low enough for the prisoner not to hear. "Depends who’s giving directions, and how many reasons he’s given us to doubt him."

Edrik returned with a rough drawing and a man who suddenly had no objections to spending the night downstairs. The route avoided the highway bridge, but Edrik called it a claim, not a promise. He checked its turns against the map before putting the drawing away.

Then he held the stair door for Dove and asked if she had eaten. The change was so complete that she looked back once, wondering whether the prisoner had met an entirely different bear.

They slept upstairs. At dawn, the trader left with both couriers, all three caretakers, and the bound prisoner. The stag carried the confiscated crossbow. Copies of their evidence went with the caretakers; Dove kept the originals. The medicine box and identified depot belongings left with their owners.

Dove waved from the doorway with her white hair still in its high ponytail. Edrik watched the group reach the east road and disappear behind the stores. Only then did he lock the back door and tell her they were alone.

Day Thirty-One began with a bottle of pond water, retrieved while Thorne guarded her seated body. She washed with it in the basin afterward. Sprout’s new merchant batch held three ponchos. Sell two for twelve normal coins, earn five fresh Favor to unlock a sixteen-coin pack cover, and store three newly acquired items while traveling.

Dove eyed the snow outside. "If those are bikinis under a different name, we’re having a problem."

"Waterproof outerwear," Sprout said. A melting gutter dripped against the window, making its point for it.

She went to the washroom with Thorne and the dye. After following the box’s testing instructions, she protected her ears with cloth and let him help work the color through her hair. They used ordinary heated water, not the pond, and kept the dirty rinse out of their drinking supplies.

"My old hair routine took five minutes," she complained, bent over the basin. "Now I apparently require staff."

"Your staff is enjoying the view," he told her, catching the towel before it slid into the rinse bucket.

She flicked water at him. His laugh warmed the cramped room, and the hand supporting her neck stayed gentle even when she threatened to leave a bad review.

When her hair dried, she left it loose instead of pulling it back into its usual high ponytail. Warm blonde waves fell around her cheeks and over her shoulders. The different color helped, but changing that familiar shape made the greater difference when she turned toward the mirror.

Her tail stayed white beneath a tan fabric sleeve made from a curtain. Edrik had sewn a soft tie that held the cover without pulling the fur. Her cap could hide her ears on busy roads, although nothing here would hide her scent from someone who knew it. Sprout reminded her that daily pool washing kept the effect going: each person smelled what they loved most. The water kept her skin clear and her fur glossy, too. Blonde apparently meant disguised, not less distracting.

Thorne stared when she shook the loose waves out of her collar. Sprout collected the fresh Favor and mate extra, bringing her to one thousand ninety-six. Then the completed disguise task opened a menu wide enough to make her forget the cold.

The Personal Shop had Everyday, Martial Aid, and After Hours sections. Favor Coins paid for these purchases; normal coins still bought her merchant upgrades. Goods bought here belonged to her and could be used, kept, or traded without daily leftover fees.

There were jackets, giant plush animals, soda, candy, cigarettes, hot meals, tools, weapons, ammunition, jewelry, gold, and jade. The larger purchases cost enough to make her stop imagining herself buying the whole world. She could browse freely, but she still had to afford and carry what she chose.

"You kept a mall in there while I was rationing toothpaste?"

"The task unlocked it," Sprout replied. "Would you like to inspect marital aids?"

"I asked for martial aids. Weapons. Things for hitting people."

"There is some overlap," Sprout replied, keeping the wrong category open until she deliberately looked away from its suggestions.

She shut the toy category with more force than a thought should have needed. The lingerie deserved a second glance, though. So did the rope, which would be useful in an emergency or if Thorne kept being too pleased with himself.

She bought a thermal outfit for ninety Favor, a large soft fox plush for forty-five, coffee for twelve, a slingshot with clay pellets for twenty-eight, and a coil of ordinary utility rope for twenty. That left nine hundred one Favor, plus her twelve normal coins.

The plush earned a defensive hug before she stored it. The slingshot stayed within reach. She couldn’t outfight a beastman, but she could learn to make aiming at her inconvenient.

Edrik watched her tuck it into her pocket. "I’ll show you somewhere safe to practice."

"Good. I’d rather embarrass myself in front of you than a kidnapper."

Thorne packed chicken sandwiches for all three of them, using the canned meat and bread they already carried. Dove checked that hers had an unreasonable amount of filling before closing the bag. Edrik gave her a few practice tries against an empty box before they left. She missed twice and refused to discuss it.

Outside, Thorne undressed behind the shop’s delivery van and packed his clothes into the bag Edrik held. Clothes didn’t shift with a body. Keeping them on would tear them, and coming back to human form meant needing them again.

His huge black panther body settled beside the step. Dove climbed onto his back, loose blonde hair tucked into her hood, while Edrik changed and took the travel bags in bear form.

They headed south past frozen parking lots and a shuttered gas station. The three of them could move quietly now, without a prisoner arguing at every turn. For a little while, Dove let herself enjoy the ride.

Then the road narrowed beside a drainage ditch. A loaded cart stood crooked across a small concrete bridge, one wheel sunk through the ice, while four men waited beside it.

One of them looked past both predators at the woman riding between them and smiled far too slowly.