Cassidy Fernwillow wanted to sell wishes to travelers, and today a traveler had finally come. The old man leaned on his walking stick at the edge of the road, watching her spread her wares across the grass. Cassidy knelt among them, her red-and-white hair falling over her face. She had painted trinkets, glass beads, and small canvases that shimmered when the light hit them. Each one held a wish, if a buyer only stood still long enough to choose. But her shop had no walls, no roof, no counter. It was just a mess of things laid on the ground. The old man frowned. "Where is your shop, girl? I see no shop." Cassidy looked at her scattered wares and felt her face grow hot. A gust of wind lifted a small canvas and flipped it into the dirt. She grabbed for it with her black-nailed fingers. "It's here," she said. "All of it. Just give me a moment." The old man shook his head. "I need a real seller, not a picnic." He turned and walked on. Cassidy watched her first customer shrink down the road. Her stomach twisted. Without a place to house her wares, no one would ever stop and stay. Then wheels creaked behind her. "That looked like it hurt." Cassidy turned. Finn Snow leaned against a wooden wagon, his blue arms crossed, his white hair catching the sun. He was the wandering bard she had hired weeks ago to guard her and drive her road. He held his staff loosely, the way he always did, like it was part of his hand. Behind him stood the wagon he'd found abandoned in a ditch and hauled here by mule. "He was my first customer," Cassidy said. "And I had nothing to show him." Finn thumped the wagon's side. "Then stop selling from the dirt." The wagon was a wreck. Gray boards, a broken step, one warped door. But it had big wheels and a wide flat side, and it rolled. Cassidy stood slowly. She walked to the wagon and pressed her palm to its dull wood. She looked at her cup of paintbrushes tucked in her belt. "It's ugly," she said. "So fix it," Finn said. "You paint wishes onto beads. Paint one onto this." Cassidy worked until dark. She scrubbed the boards, mended the step, and hung her canvases inside. Then she painted. Flowers curled up the sides in green and gold. Vines wound around the door. On one panel she painted a spray of white bell-shaped blossoms, arched like tiny lanterns. When she finished, the wagon glowed under the moon. She had a shop now. A shop with wheels, that could roll down any road. But as Cassidy stepped back, she saw the truth. The wagon was old, and its axle groaned when Finn moved it. One more hard road might break it. She had a home for her wares at last. Now she had to keep it from falling apart.

By morning Cassidy had parked her painted wagon beside a tavern with a bright blue roof. Travelers came and went through its door all day. She had a shop now, painted with flowers and vines. But not one traveler stopped to look. They passed her wagon like it was empty, and walked straight inside for a warm meal. Cassidy stood in the road and watched a family walk right by. "They don't even see me," she said. Finn leaned on his staff nearby. He was the blue-skinned bard she had hired to drive and guard her. He nodded toward the tavern's front. "Look at their sign," he said. A wooden board hung from an iron arm, painted with the tavern's name. "Everyone knows what that place is before they reach the door. Your wagon has no name." Cassidy looked up at her flowers and beads. He was right. A pretty wagon was just a wagon. A shop needed a name to call people in. "Then I'll give it one," she said. She pulled her magic brush from her belt. Its bright bristles shimmered as she gripped the handle. She thought about what she truly sold. Not beads. Not paint. Wishes. She grabbed a wide blank canvas and set it on an easel by the wagon's step. Finn watched her work. "What are you painting?" "A menu," she said. "Not for food. For wishes." Her brush moved fast. She painted a banner across the top in curling letters: WISH MENU. Below it she listed the wishes a traveler could buy. A wish for safe roads. A wish for a lost love. A wish for luck at market. She drew a tiny moon, a frog, a wagon rolling free. The colors glowed the way her beads did, soft and dreamy. When the paint dried, she carried the easel to the edge of the road. She turned the wish menu to face the passing crowd. The next traveler slowed. A young woman with a heavy pack stopped and read the board. Her eyes moved down the list of wishes. "You sell these?" she asked. "A real wish?" "Every one," Cassidy said. "Painted by hand." The woman stepped closer to the wagon. She picked up a glass bead that held a wish for a safe journey home. She paid three coins and pressed the bead to her chest. "I've been looking for something like this all my life," she said, and walked on smiling. Cassidy held the coins in her black-nailed hand. Her first sale. The menu had done it. By dusk, four more travelers had stopped to read the board and buy. But as the crowd grew, so did the noise. A man near the tavern watched her coins pile up. He frowned at her wagon, then at her menu. "This is my spot," he said. "I've sold here for years. You're taking my trade." He was not smiling.

The merchant planted himself in the middle of the road. His cart sat crosswise, blocking the way. Two travelers slowed, saw the standoff, and turned back toward the inn down the path. Cassidy's coins felt light in her hand. If he stayed there, no one would reach her wagon. Her shop would die before it grew. "Move your cart," she said. "People can't get through." "That's the idea," the merchant said. He crossed his arms. "This was my road first." Cassidy looked past him. A whole family had stopped on the mossy stones, unsure whether to come closer. She saw her morning's trade about to walk away. Shouting wouldn't move him. Threats wouldn't either. She had no coins to spare and no strength to shove his cart. But she had her brush. She pulled the moonbrush from her belt. Its bright bristles caught the light. The merchant snorted. "Going to paint me out of the way?" "No," Cassidy said. "I'm going to paint you a customer." She set a fresh canvas on the easel. Her hand moved fast. She painted his cart, but fuller than it was, its shelves stacked high with goods. Beside it she painted travelers reaching for his wares. She painted coins in his palm. The colors glowed the way her wishes did. The merchant stepped closer despite himself. "What is that?" "A wish," she said. "For a busy trade. Yours, if you want it." She kept painting. "You block the road and we both starve. But two shops draw twice the crowd. They stop for me. Then they see you." He stared at the glowing picture of himself grown rich. His arms uncrossed. Just then the tavern door opened. The skull-headed owner stepped out, red flames flickering above his bone. He wiped his hands on his black apron and watched the road with hollow eyes. Cassidy had bought bread from him at dawn; he knew a lost sale when he saw one. "You two frighten off my customers too," he said. His voice was dry as ash. "Settle it, or settle it somewhere else." The merchant looked at the tavern owner. He looked at the family still waiting. Then he looked at Cassidy's painting one last time. He gripped his cart's handle and dragged it to the roadside, clearing the way. "Fine," he grumbled. "But if your wagon steals one coin that's mine, I'll block this road for good." Cassidy handed him the wet canvas. "Hang it where they can see it." The family came through the gap and drifted toward her menu. Behind them, more travelers followed. The merchant leaned his new painting against his cart, and a woman stopped to read it. The road was open. But now the merchant stood right beside her, watching every customer, counting every coin. She hadn't beaten a rival. She had made a neighbor.

By afternoon the road stayed open, and travelers filed past the merchant's cart to Cassidy's wagon. She sold three beads before a hooded man stepped up. He set a coin on her table and pointed at the wish menu. "One wish," he said. "For a safe road home." Cassidy plucked a bead from her rack and dropped it in his palm. He didn't leave. "Prove it works," he said. "Show me the magic. Or take back your bead and give me my coin." Cassidy stared at the bead in his hand. The wish was real, but its magic only bloomed later, on his journey. She had no way to make it glow here, now. Other travelers slowed to watch. If she failed this test in front of them, her wagon's trade would die. She reached for her moonbrush, then stopped. A painting wouldn't answer him. He wanted the bead itself to speak. Beth Litwick came up the path just then. The old inn owner walked slow, her white hair dragging the moss behind her. Cassidy had bought a room from her that first night; Beth had watched her paint till dawn and said nothing. Now Beth stopped beside the hooded man. She looked at the bead, not at Cassidy. "Sixty-one years my lantern stone burned," Beth said. "I lit it the night I was born. You couldn't see the magic in the stone. You saw what it did. Light, every night, without fail." She turned her flat eyes on the man. "A wish is the same. It works on the road, not on this table." The man frowned. "Then I've bought nothing I can see." Beth didn't soften it. "You bought a promise. Carry the bead. If your road stays safe, you'll know. If it doesn't, come back and shame her in front of the town." She said it plainly and stopped. Cassidy held her breath. The man weighed the bead. He looked at Beth's steady face, then at the travelers waiting behind him. Slowly, he closed his fingers around the bead. "Fair," he said. "I'll carry it." He pulled his hood lower and walked off toward the edge of town. Cassidy let out her breath. "Thank you," she said. Beth didn't smile. "He'll come back," she said. "Safe or not, he'll come back. And he'll tell others what he found." She turned to go, then paused. "You sell promises, girl. Word travels faster than any bead. Make sure the road stays safe for him." Beth walked back down the path. Cassidy looked at the coin on her table. She had kept the sale. But now her whole trade rested on a wish she couldn't watch. If that hooded man met trouble on the road, he'd return, and every traveler here would hear it.