They left Ox and Ember behind like they were sneaking out of their own party.

  The innkeeper tried to follow them to the door. Not because he wanted to stop them, but because he’d developed the habit of orbiting anything that might turn into profit.

  “Just looking,” James told him.

  “Looking turns into buying,” he said, hopeful.

  “Looking turns into you doubling the price the moment I say ‘I need this one,’” James said.

  The innkeeper laughed like James had complimented his business sense. “I’m learning from the best.”

  Outside, Min City hit them with its usual mix of smells. Bread, smoke, horse, sewage, cinnamon, and the faint metallic tang of coin changing hands.

  Marty stretched his arms over his head as they walked. “We’re really doing it. Kitchen on wheels.”

  “Two kitchens,” Mira corrected.

  “Two wagons,” Gerrard corrected.

  Vhara didn’t correct anything. She just walked a half step ahead of them like she was escorting prisoners.

  Gisabelle had finished the morning prep early, and when James said he was going to see what their hard-earned coin had bought, she’d asked if she could come. The innkeeper had grumbled, then waved her along with a warning to be back before the supper rush. Now she kept close to James’s side, hands tucked into her sleeves to hide the way her fingers fidgeted. It still felt strange to be out on the street with them instead of watching from the kitchen doorway.

  “Relax,” he murmured. “We’re just going to stare at expensive wood on wheels.”

  “That doesn’t make it better,” she said. “It just makes it sound like a bad idea with extra steps.”

  “In my experience,” he said, “those are the ones worth doing.”

  Her mouth twitched, like she couldn’t decide if she was allowed to find that funny.

  They cut through the artisan district, past smiths and leatherworkers, past a man who sold carved wooden birds that looked like they were judging you, past a glassblower who had half the street gathered around to watch molten color become something shaped.

  The wheelwright’s yard sat behind a low fence and a wide gate. The smell hit first: sawdust and pitch, wet wood and oil. Then James saw them. Two wagons stood side by side in the open yard like they’d been dropped there by a god with a sense of humor.

  For a second, he didn’t speak. Not because he didn’t have anything to say. Because his brain was too busy trying to process the fact that something he’d described with his hands in the air and a mouth full of bravado had become real.

  The first wagon was longer, its frame reinforced with iron bands. The sides were higher than a standard merchant wagon, not for show, but to protect what would be inside. The back had a set of hinged panels that could fold down into a work surface.

  The second wagon was slightly shorter but built like a stubborn animal. Thicker wheels. More bracing. A little door on the side that promised privacy and sleep.

  Marty whistled. “That’s… that’s not a wagon. That’s a moving building.”

  Gerrard walked a slow circle around the longer one, eyes narrowed. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

  Vhara lifted her chin. “I gave him the idea.”

  Mira turned to her. “You gave him the idea of having a wagon.”

  Vhara didn’t blink. “He would’ve forgotten wagons existed without me.”

  “That’s…” Marty started, then sighed. “That’s probably true.”

  Gisabelle stood with her hands clasped in front of her, staring like she’d stumbled into a shrine.

  “Is this,” she whispered, “really yours?”

  “Not yet,” James said, because saying yes out loud felt like tempting fate. “But it’s about to be.”

  The wagonmaker came out of his workshop wiping his hands on a rag, sawdust clinging to his beard and his sleeves. He had the look of a man who’d been arguing with wood for a month and had finally won.

  He stopped when he saw them staring. Then he smiled, and it wasn’t a sales smile. It was a proud one.

  “I’ve built wagons for twenty years,” he said. “I’ve built them for merchants, guilds, nobles who think the road is a hobby. I’ve never built anything like this.”

  He jerked a thumb at the longer one. “That one’s yours. Fold-down surfaces, reinforced frame, extra bracing because you asked like you expected to drive it through a battlefield. Hooks and rails inside for hanging pots. Space for storage. And I added a vent because you kept talking about cooking.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  James stepped closer, running his hand along the iron banding. Solid. Real.

  “You’re proud,” he said.

  “I am,” he admitted, chin lifting. “It took time. It took more time than I wanted. And I swear if you ever come back with another impossible idea, I’ll charge you double just to soothe my soul.”

  “Fair,” James said. “And the other one?”

  He nodded at the shorter wagon. “Sleeping wagon. Still sturdy. Still braced. Not as heavy, but if someone tries to break in, they’ll regret it.”

  Mira peered at the door. “There’s a lock.”

  “Of course there’s a lock,” the wagonmaker said like it was insulting to ask. “I’m not a savage.”

  Marty leaned into the longer wagon, craning his neck to look inside. “It even smells expensive.”

  “That’s pitch,” Gerrard said.

  “That’s what I said,” Marty replied.

  James turned back to the wagonmaker. “They look incredible. Truly. You did better than I pictured.”

  He preened for exactly half a heartbeat, then his eyes sharpened.

  “Good,” he said. “Then you’re taking them.”

  James blinked. “Taking them?”

  “Now,” he said.

  James glanced at the street outside his yard as if a team of horses might appear out of courtesy. “We… can’t exactly pull them ourselves.”

  “That sounds like a you problem,” the wagonmaker said. “Not a me problem. If you leave them here, I can’t work. If I can’t work, I don’t get paid. If I don’t get paid, my wife doesn’t let me sleep inside. So you are taking them.”

  Mira folded her arms. “We paid you.”

  “And I built,” he said. “Transaction complete. Remove your property from my yard.”

  Vhara’s eyes lit with something dangerous. “We could remove him.”

  “Vhara,” James said quickly.

  “What?” she asked, innocent. “You said we needed a way to move them. He’s in the way.”

  Gisabelle made a small sound that might’ve been a laugh or terror.

  James looked at the wagons again. Two wagons. Two huge, beautiful, expensive wagons. And no horses. His mind tried to solve it the obvious way. Rent animals. Hire someone. Bribe the guild. His mind, unfortunately, was tired. He stood there for a second too long, and the wagonmaker’s expression shifted from pride to suspicion.

  “Don’t tell me,” he said slowly. “You didn’t think about how to move them.”

  “I thought about it,” James lied.

  “Did you think about it well?” he asked.

  “No,” James admitted.

  Mira sighed like she’d been waiting for this moment.

  “James,” she said, voice sweet in the way that meant she was about to stab him with logic. “Don’t you have an inventory?”

  He stared at her. Then he stared at the wagons. Then he stared back at her.

  “I do,” he said slowly.

  “And,” she continued, “have you tried putting a wagon in it?”

  He opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

  “…Can I do that?”

  Marty snickered. “Please tell me the answer is yes. Please tell me we’ve been walking everywhere for months because you never tried.”

  Gerrard’s smile widened by a fraction. “This is going to be good.”

  Vhara leaned in. “If you can, I’m never carrying anything again.”

  He stepped closer to the longer wagon, put a hand on the iron banding again, and focused the way he did when he pulled ingredients out.

  Inventory.

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened. Then the world gave a little lurch, like it took a breath in. The wagon vanished. Just… gone. James blinked hard, expecting it to reappear, expecting reality to correct itself. It didn’t.

  His inventory weight didn’t change. His shoulders didn’t drop like he’d taken on a burden. There was no strain, no groan of his spine. It was simply… stored.

  Marty let out a high, delighted noise. “Oh my gods.”

  Mira closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. “Of course.”

  Gerrard exhaled a laugh. “You can.”

  Vhara looked at the empty patch of yard where the wagon had been, then at James like he’d just performed a miracle. “I knew you were useful.”

  “That’s not what you’ve been saying,” Mira muttered.

  The wagonmaker stared at the empty space. His jaw worked. He looked at James, then at the remaining wagon, then at James again.

  He cleared his throat. “So,” he said slowly, like he was negotiating with his own sanity, “you’re one of those.”

  “One of which?” James asked.

  “Rich,” he said bitterly. “Or cursed.”

  “Neither,” James said. “Just… inconveniently talented.”

  His eyes narrowed. “Take the other one.”

  James nodded solemnly and walked to the sleeping wagon. He touched the wood. Focused. The second wagon vanished into his inventory like it had been born there.

  For a second, he felt stupidly triumphant. Then his brain did something else. It started connecting dots. Two wagons in inventory. A kitchen on wheels. A sleeping wagon. And a skill he’d just picked that let him open a door to places he’d marked.

  He stopped walking. Wait. He didn’t need to build a house on the road. He didn’t need to rent rooms. He didn’t need to sleep in a ditch if the road got ugly. If he could mark a place as a service point… He could open a door back to it whenever he wanted. A bed. A safe room. A stash. He could be on the road, cooking for nobles, running dungeons, and still go home at night like the world was polite enough to allow it. He felt his grin creep back, slow and dangerous.

  Marty noticed. “Why are you smiling like that?”

  “Nothing,” James said, too quickly.

  Gerrard squinted. “That’s not nothing.”

  “It’s logistics,” James said.

  Mira groaned softly. “Oh no.”

  Vhara looked pleased. “Oh yes.”

  Gisabelle looked confused. “Is that good?”

  “It’s either very good,” Marty said, “or we’re about to be dragged into something that ends with us running from the city guard.”

  James lifted a hand in surrender. “Okay. We have wagons. That’s the good part. Let’s go back before I think too hard and invent a way to ruin it.”

  The wagonmaker was still staring at the empty yard, one hand on his rag like it might anchor him to reality.

  As they passed him, James offered his most innocent smile. “Thank you again. Truly. Beautiful work.”

  He didn’t smile back. He just muttered, “Get out of my yard,” like a prayer.

  They left. And as the artisan district swallowed them again, Marty sidled up next to James with the grin of a man who loved trouble when it wasn’t his blood.

  “So,” he said. “What’s the plan for the Count’s daughter’s birthday?”

  James blinked. Then he exhaled. “Ah. Right. That.”

  Mira’s gaze sharpened. “You forgot?”

  “No,” he lied. “I was… temporarily distracted by my own genius.”

  Gerrard hummed. “Sure you were.”

  James reached into his inventory with his mind and pulled up the list of what they still had. Ingredients, spices, preserved things from the dungeon runs. Enough to impress a tavern.

  Not enough to impress a noble’s birthday party where failure came with a review and public humiliation. He felt his stomach tighten. Eight days. A Count. A system that apparently wanted to watch him sweat. And a pantry that was slowly running dry.

  He kept walking, eyes on the street ahead, but his thoughts were already somewhere else. He should visit Villen. The idea settled in his mind like a stone. Not heavy. Certain. Because if he was going to cook for a Count’s daughter and earn a five-star review…

  He needed ingredients the city didn’t sell.

  And the only dragon he knew who collected impossible things like souvenirs was currently sitting in a palace he’d been avoiding for entirely personal, very complicated reasons. He swallowed, tasting trouble like it was already on his tongue.

  Yeah.

  He should visit Villen.

  And the thought followed him all the way back to Ox and Ember.

  Hey folks!

  Support here