Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 7 Pt. 1

 Notes: Let's get cracking to the market, shall we?

Title: Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 7 Pt. 1

***

 

Chapter Seven

 

 

Photo by Viktor Forgacs 

Nest Feathering

 

Over the next several weeks, Hiram’s home went from ramshackle to resplendent. Or, well, perhaps not resplendent in the way he’d once been used to. He’d spent the majority of his adult life that wasn’t on the battlefield living in a palace, after all—not just a palace, the palace.

Vordure Palace, the home of the emperor of Galenish, once the home of the kings of Galenish before the last few generations got imperial ambitions. It was the largest royal palace on the continent, with five levels stretching across a mile of land in the middle of the city, over five hundred rooms and more than a thousand servants to maintain them and their occupants. It was a study in luxury, some chambers made entirely of blue marble contrasting with red lanterns in the ceiling and walls, white gold fixtures and roc-down stuffed cushions. And somehow, despite all its excess, it had managed to be elegant. Beautiful. Home, to Hiram.

Now he was in Lollop, in the former home of Mistress Shore, and he was finally starting to feel like the place truly belonged to him. The few items he’d brought with him were no more than a hint of flavor; no, Hiram was a pack rat through and through. Comfort for him meant coziness, the feeling of being ensconced in reminders of the good—and occasionally bad—things in his life, a warm fire and warmer company. It was more than a few show pieces and clean corners; this house wouldn’t feel right until he’d associated a memory with every cup, every fork, every piece of furniture.

It really wouldn’t feel right until he began to ply his trade, but that was going to take a bit longer to pull off. After all, he couldn’t “assist” his plants in their growth until his time with Letty ran out.

At least she’d stopped bringing her brothers once the heaviest work was done. Jem, for all that he was a snarly teenager, was good at building, and he’d done such a good job on the rabbit hutch that Mercury, the troll Hiram had hired to fix his chicken coop and Mule’s enclosure, asked the boy if he was interested in an apprenticeship.

“Good hands,” Mercury had said in a rare moment of Trollish ebullience. “Good eyes.”

Jem, after a “talk” with his father about how much money he’d be saving the family once they didn’t have to feed him anymore, accepted the offer, and by all accounts seemed much happier living with the trolls. Rickie kept coming, but after a brief chat about responsible child-watching with Esmerelda, she’d agreed to covertly keep the child close to the house while they played their games of cat and mouse. It made Letty happy, since she could keep an eye on her brother, and Rickie was thrilled to spent more time with his “Esme.”

That left Letty, who Hiram was more sure than ever now had a frustrated desire concerning her spark of magic. It was all the more frustrating since she refused to confide in him, instead putting herself to work every morning with a vengeance and going home in the afternoon after discussions that were limited to which plants to put where, for the most part. She’d written off Hiram as unable to help her, and therefore she wouldn’t tell him anything at all. Which—seven gods, what a teenager thing to do. Had he ever been this unreasonable? Surely not.

Well, he still had a month of her labor left. That should be enough time to get some idea of what bent her touch of magic took and whether it really was worth training up. In the meantime, he had plenty to do getting ready for his first Market Day. Just because Hiram’s own herb garden wasn’t up and running didn’t mean there wasn’t plenty of opportunity to make concoctions for selling.

The tinctures came first, because those had to steep in alcohol for a while to make the most of their properties. He collected dandelion and burdock root, black walnut husk and echinacea, feverfew and valerian root and half a dozen others and combined them in various measures to get liquid remedies for everything from headaches to parasites to menstrual discomfort.

Next were the salves: salves for dry skin, for infection, for inflammation and pain. Salves for spots and for stress, for hair removal and hair growth, for bunions and boils and bruises.

Finally, he whipped up a few exotic combinations for common household items, just in case people were looking for something different: lavender and ginger shampoos, drops to soothe the eyes before sleep and upon waking, and a batch of soaps with a goat milk base mixed with candied violet and nasturtium petals. They lathered up so fast the bars probably wouldn’t last more than a few weeks, but they smelled divine and left the skin feeling exquisite.

The night before his first Market Day, Tilda came over with a bottle of Jonn’s best cider and a basket full of odds and ends of fabric to help him spruce up his wares. “It’s the least I can do,” she said as she settled in next to him at his new table. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am to see Raileene’s home look so warm and welcoming again. This was a place I cherished for many years, and you’re a good fit for it, Hiram.”

“Am I?” he asked with a little smile, hands already wrist-deep in the basket as he searched for the right texture to wrap around the square-cut bars of soap. His labels were adequate for the jars and bottles, but the soap needed a special touch. “I don’t think many people would agree with you.”

She frowned. “Has someone been giving you trouble?”

“Not…exactly.” He pulled out a length of lilac ribbon and nodded to himself, then reached for the scissors. “I enjoy having guests, and the deliveries have gone quite well for the most part, but everyone who steps foot in this room seems to react the same—wide eyes, dropped jaws, and mumbling. I fear I’m not doing a very good job of making it homey.”

Tilda shook her head. “On the contrary. You’ve made a beautiful home, it’s just not one that a native of Lollop would make for themselves. I daresay you’ve had a sight more visitors than you expected, hmm?”

“I have.” He’d had deliveries he hadn’t ordered—milk and cheese, raw wool in case he wanted to spin and dye it himself (which of course he did) and half a dozen other little things from town that various shopkeepers wanted him to sample. Not to mention the visitors who had no proper business with him but came with food to “welcome him to town” and left with hands over their mouths and glassy eyes.

“Mm, well, you’re the first person to come to this town with a sense of style in ages. Word of your rather unique furnishings has spread, and everyone wants a chance to see it for themselves.”

Hiram frowned. “There’s not much of furnishings here, really. Just the rug and chair.”

“And the rather colorful table. And the tapestries on the wall.”

“Oh, those are hardly noteworthy,” he protested. “Just a few old battle scenes.”

“And the map over the fireplace.”

“A map of the continent! It’s educational!”

“It lists kingdoms that don’t exist anymore,” Tilda pointed out. “In a language very few people in Lollop could speak.”

“It’s a mountain language,” he defended himself. “I grew up speaking it.”

“Yes, in a land so far away most Oribellians have never heard of it.” She shook her head. “Just accept that you’re going to be exciting for a while, and that you didn’t help your cause any by handing out flowers to all your admirers. I’m sure your stall will be absolutely packed tomorrow.”

“Perhaps,” Hiram allowed. “But perhaps not. I’m not entirely sure that the mayor will allow me to set up shop, to be honest.”

Tilda’s gaze sharpened. “Has Uriel threatened you again?”

“Not in so many words, but I’ve received several notices about city taxes that seem to contradict each other,” Hiram said. “I think I’m being set up for problems by not charging the right amount to cover my costs and the taxes that are to be assessed.”

“There’s no city tax levied in such a manner,” Tilda said. “A portion of all proceeds from market sales is collected at the end of the day, but it’s the same ten percent for everyone. Simply keep track of your orders and set aside enough to cover it.”

“That’s not what I was told,” Hiram replied, pausing in his wrapping to fish the notices out and hand them over to Tilda. She took them and began to read, her calm slowly giving way to a scowl. Hiram took a moment to dangle the end of the lilac thread over Knight’s face, tickling his long ear with it. The enormous rabbit, who had apparently decided that being more than a foot from Hiram whenever he was in the house was unacceptable, batted at it lazily with a paw before settling between his legs with a little sigh. “Lazy thing,” he chided the rabbit without heat.

His efforts to get the rabbit to play were forestalled by Tilda’s affronted huff. “This is ridiculous. You’re not representing yourself as a healer, simply an herbalist.”

“And yet I’m said to be selling concoctions that will ‘affect body and mind,’ hence delving into the healing arts,” Hiram said. “And to be fair, he’s not wrong.”

“You’re not associated with a temple!” she protested. “Temples are taxed differently than individual proprietors!”

Hiram shrugged. “I don’t know what to make of it, myself. I was going to ask you about it earlier, but time got away from me.” That and the fact that he really didn’t want to think about it. Numbers irritated Hiram; he was far less interested in the quantitative aspect of running a business than the qualitative.

Tilda glared at the papers like they’d insulted her. “I’ll take this up with the city council,” she said firmly. “If you’ll let me hold onto these, that is.”

“I would appreciate any assistance you can give me,” Hiram assured her as he finished tying a knot around the bar of soap. “What do you think?”

She smiled. “It’s quite lovely. I told you, your shop will be quite popular. Do you already have a ledger for keeping track of sales?”

“Um. Ah.”

“Hiram.” Tilda rolled her eyes. “How did you ever make a living from this before?”

I’ve never had to earn a living like this in my life. I’ve never counted pennies or slips, never had a tax levied on me, never prettied up my wares to give them allure. The things I did for my living changed the fates of nations, and it’s all I can do to look myself in the mirror at times because of that. Yet part of me wishes I’d never left. “I had help before,” was all he said. “But now it’s just me.”

Tilda’s demeanor softened. “Well, then. I’ll assist you tomorrow, if you like. Just this once.”

“I’d appreciate that,” Hiram said softly.

Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 Notes: Oooh, fire in the sky! So pretty!

Title: Hadrian's Colony: Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

***

Chapter Twenty-Three, Part Two

 

 Photo by Mohamed Fsili

“You…” Kieron’s voice died off as he lost his ability to articulate exactly what he was feeling. He could hear the others arguing, Catie squawking and Elanus shouting and Lizzie replying defensively, but he couldn’t say anything because he could see a light in the sky. It was growing larger, and soon enough he could make out individual fireballs splitting off from it, some of them fizzling out but most of them staying close. He felt Carlisle shiver, and lifted her into a more comfortable position in his arms as he watched the fire get closer and closer.

“Kieron, you’ve got to get farther back!”

“It’s all right,” he said as he watched the door to the compound suddenly flare open. He could see the silhouette of people inside of it, saw them taking their first steps outside. The falling fire dimmed that light, and then as the first person stepped through the door, shouting, gun lifted—

The fire struck.

Kieron had never worked as a mercenary. He hadn’t participated in aerial bombardments, he hadn’t been part of strike teams taking out orbital stations, he hadn’t seen a lot of combat. But he was absolutely sure that, without a doubt, this was the most precisely targeted assault that had ever been levied against a stationary facility from space. It hit the center of the base, a few splashes of fuel erupting up and out, but none traveling more than fifty yards before sputtering out.

The fireball dug its way into the weapons cache, which of course Lizzie knew the location of since Bobby had done all that recon work, and consumed the explosives there, incorporating them into its sound and fury without allowing them to randomize the damage. The fire and heat coruscated outward in shades of orange, yellow, and white, coming to a pinnacle just beyond the edge of the compound itself. A second later the fire contracted, burning itself out and focusing the last of its energy on the center once more.

Everyone who came into contact with it died. Everyone, every single person in the base who’d been watching and tormenting and taunting them, was dead now. Tactically dead, strategically nuked from space, to use an ancient Earth term.

And Kieron and Carlisle were fine. He could barely even feel the heat of the fire through the storm that still raged around them.

“Impressive,” Carlisle said, her voice like smoke. “You have—” she coughed. “Good friends.”

“That was my daughter’s doing,” Kieron said, his voice distant even to himself. That was Lizzie, all Lizzie. She must have run the numbers on his survival and found the odds she liked the best, and then—

She’d acted. Without hesitation, without a second thought, and it had saved his life.

And if she’d calculated wrong, she would have killed him.

Kieron shivered, not out of fear for himself but from fear for Lizzie. If things hadn’t gone this way…if she’d ended up being the reason he died instead of the reason he was saved…she would never have forgiven herself. Lizzie was quiet, far quieter than her sister, but she was no less intense in her emotions.

“Kee?” Lizzie’s voice, tentative and soft, cut through the fog in his mind.

“Baby,” he said immediately. “I’m here. I’m all right. You did it.”

“I saw your life sign, but you weren’t saying anything for a while.”

“I was just…” Stunned. Impressed. Afraid. “Surprised, sweetheart.”

“As long as you’re surprised and communicating,” Elanus snapped over the com. “Catie’s on the way around to you, we’ll pick you up in two-point-three minutes. Any damage?”

“No. Not to me,” Kieron amended as he looked at his mother. “But Carlisle is pretty worse for wear.”

“Catie will fix her up in no time.”

The rest of the crew on Lizzie’s line were being awfully silent. “Status report, Ryu,” Kieron said.

“Nothing to report,” he said, sounding just the slightest bit spooked. “We had the payload ready, but I didn’t even know Lizzie had released it until she told you about it. Lizzie…we agreed we’d talk about it before you deployed.”

“I’m sorry! You would have told me not to do it, though, and I didn’t have time to explain my math to you!”

“Your math had a fifty-seven perrrcent chance of being wrrrong!” Catie snapped. “You could have killlled Kieron!”

“I would never kill Kieron! My math was perfect, look at how it all worked out!”

“I’m talking about your varrriables, not your primes!”

“I’ll show you variables!” There was sudden silence on the coms, and Kieron put a hand over his mouth to silence his sudden snort as he realized that his girls were having a math fight. A math fight over the odds of his surviving Lizzie’s intervention. God, he wished he could get Elanus alone right now to talk about this, and preferably share a drink or ten about it.

“Kieron.”

“Mm?” he said to Carlisle.

“I think you’re going into shock.”

“Mm.” He probably was, slumping back onto the ground and maneuvering Carlisle so she was on top of him instead of soaking up the cold directly. Not that the rain wasn’t freezing, but it was better than lying in a puddle.

“Don’t get comfortable,” she said, irritation warring with something else he couldn’t put a name to in her voice. “You don’t have time for this.”

“It’s shock,” he slurred, “not really…controllable.”

“Everything is controllable to a certain extent. Look at what your kid just pulled off.” Her tone of voice made it clear that she was more impressed than judgmental.

“Mm. Kids are hard.”

Carlisle was quiet for a moment, then surprised him with a laugh. “They are,” she agreed. “They’re the hardest thing in the world. Small wonder I did so little when it came to raising you, when you intimidated me so badly.”

“Mm.”

“Kieron, stay awake.”

“I’m awake,” he said.

“Don’t close your eyes.”

“They’re…open. S’just dark out here.” He was tired. More tired than he should be, after such a clean extraction. Carlisle was in far worse shape than he was; there was no reason for him to be this tired while she was wide awake.

“One minute to you,” Elanus said. “Stay awake, Kieron.”

God damn it, he was awake! It was just hard to stay that way, but he’d do it. If Lizzie could predict how to save his life before setting a base on fire, he could do this much.

She could have killed him, but she hadn’t. They were so lucky. Or she was just that good, just that intelligent. It was frightening, to have a kid so intelligent—a kid who was optimized for combat scenarios. How many people would want her, if they knew what she could do? War-based AIs were incredibly expensive tech, notoriously unreliable despite all their models and training, and here was Lizzie predicting payload, survival rates, and compensating for human reactions.

So smart, his girl. Almost too smart for her own good.

“Stay awake, Kieron.”

He hummed.

“I mean it!” Pain erupted in his left arm, but it was a small discomfort when he was already so cold and wet.

“Kee?”

That was Lizzie. He needed to talk to her, to let her know he was all right. He tried to speak, but couldn’t do it. He was too…too…

“Kee?”

 

Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 6 Pt. 2

 Notes: Time for a bit of adventure! But just a bit...

Title:  Quaint Escapes for Traitorous Bastards Ch. 6 Pt. 2

***

Chapter Six, Part Two

Picture by Zuzana Kacerova
 

Playtime

 

Hiram couldn’t help but be impressed with the work ethic of the siblings. He knew that such diligent attention to their chores was almost certainly the result of a belt and harsh words, because it was positively unnatural for children to go for hours at a time without swerving from the task at hand, but under the circumstances he rather appreciated it. Once Letty had lunch readying on the stove, she headed outside to take a closer look at the garden. Hiram, once he was sure that Knight was well and truly asleep, joined her for the inspection.

“You can see where Mistress Shore had it divided up before,” she said with an expert eye as she gazed out at the garden. “Herbs over there where there’s more shade from the apple tree, vegetables here—she had two plots for vegetables and just the one for the herbs.”

“We’ll want to reverse that,” Hiram remarked as he followed the weed-strewn lines of what did, in fact, seem to be rectangular patches of slightly richer dirt. “One for shade herbs, one for sun herbs. Hmm, I’d best do a raised bed for moonlight herbs as well, with a removable cover.” And a special plot for the truly exceptional herbs that would require more…attentiveness. Hmm, it might be best to do those in pots up in his room—he could finagle a small balcony of some kind for the climbing ones and—

“Moonlight herbs are real?”

Hiram looked at her in surprise. “Of course. You’ve plenty of flowers around here that bloom at night. I can smell the jasmine from the marketplace.”

“But that’s just jasmine! It’s not a special magical herb.”

Ooh, better to cut that line of thought off while he could. “Herbology isn’t magic, Letty.”

She put her hands on her hips. “But it can be, can’t it?”

“Not the way I do it.” Liar liar, boots afire.

“But you seem so…” She gestured at his mismatched clothes, unlaced boots, and general state of unkemptness. “So…”

“Slovenly?” he suggested with a grin.

“No! Different, special! No one handles Da as well as you did, not even Ma.”

Hiram shook his head. “That was the power of gold speaking.”

“No, it wasn’t. You knew how to talk to him to make him wait, to make him patient.”

“And that’s just the result of many years of dealing with difficult people,” Hiram said, and watched Letty’s face fall. “You…are you looking to learn magic?” he asked tentatively. “Because every temple has a program for the gifted, if you haven’t already been tested for—”

“I have,” Letty said briskly, not looking at him. “And I’m not magical enough for it.”

Not magical enough… “But you have your moments, don’t you?” She didn’t say anything. “Come now, my dear, I’m trying to help you. All I want to know is—”

“You can’t help me.” Letty shook her head stubbornly. “I thought maybe you could, but if you’re not magical, then…and you’re not a warrior, you don’t look like a warrior, there’s no way that you can teach me what I want to know. No. It’s fine.” She rolled up her sleeves. “I’m going to start weeding. Do you have a compost pile yet?”

Hiram regarded her in silence for a moment, then let it go. There would be plenty of time to get the truth out of her later. “No, not yet. Feel free to pick a good spot for it—far away from the house, mind. I don’t fancy dealing with mice if I don’t have to.”

“Obviously,” she huffed, then knelt down and began ripping out dandelions and thistles like they’d personally offended her.

“Would you care for a trowel?” Hiram asked. “Perhaps a pair of gloves? I have—”

“No, thank you.”

All right then. “I’ll leave them by the back door just in case,” he said, then headed for the lean-to where Mule was dozing. The beast perked up as Hiram joined him, whuffling a greeting as he reached for the curry comb he’d stored in a basket on the ground and began to brush him out.

“Gods save me from teenagers,” Hiram told his old companion. “I thought I was done with that when Misha grew out of her moods.” The thought of his little princess put him in a melancholic mood, but for once he didn’t back away from the memories.

As he brushed out Mule, Hiram deliberately thought of Misha—of the raven-black hair she’d had as a baby, full of curls that had gradually fallen out over time as her hair lightened to her father’s brown. Her mouth, wide and full, smiling so much more often than it scowled but fearsome with a scowl. She had all of her father’s intelligence, his skills at planning, but her temperament had come almost solely from her mother. Misha’s mother had been happy woman, for all that she and Andy hadn’t cared much for each other outside of fulfilling a treaty; a woman with a face more lively than beautiful, eager to set aside the constraints of her station in exchange for laughter and song.

Her death had been a tragedy, one that only Andy hadn’t seemed to regret. At the time, Hiram had attributed that to Andy’s love for him, and the fact that despite the sadness of the occasion, now they could dedicate themselves to each other as they once had.

That…hadn’t happened.

Mule swayed, nudging Hiram out of the sadness spiral he’d fallen into. “Oh darling, do I smell?” he asked her. Creatures like Mule were particularly sensitive to the emotional states of the people around them, especially the rare ones they’d chosen as part of their herd. “I’m sorry. We should get out and about, hmm? Stretch our legs a bit, do some grazing?” Mule whickered, and so Hiram put the brush away and, with a little grunt that he would never admit to if anyone else heard it, got up onto Mule’s back. She didn’t wait for him to cluck or tap his heels to her sides before she headed for the road in front of the house and began to amble away from town.

Jem poked his head up from the edge of the rabbit hutch when he heard the hoofbeats and stared at Hiram. “Where’s your bridle?” he called out in confusion. “Your saddle?”

“Oh, I don’t need them,” Hiram assured him with a smile.

“But how will you make her go where you want her to go?”

“Mule is perfectly capable of taking us for a little walk.”

Jem looked at him like he thought Hiram was crazy, but shrugged after a moment and ducked down behind the hutch again. From the sound of things, he was reinforcing the earthen walls with stone—spare slate from the junk pile, perhaps, or maybe it had already been in there, just covered with too much dirt to see. Good. Whatever kept the lad busy.

Hiram let his mind wander to more enjoyable things as they walked. The air was warm but not stifling, the sunlight felt delicious on his skin, and all around him was the hum of life, insects and birds, scuffling mice and rabbits and green, growing things. When Mule decided to stop and graze, he got down and sat next to a patch of wild echinacea and black-eyed susans, eyes closed as he leaned his weight back on his hands and tilted his chin toward the sun.

“Summer is a coming in,” he sang, “And loudly calls the crow. Seeds are growing, flowers blooming, the trees out-leafing now. The ewe is bleating, cow is lowing, lamb and calf they prance…stag cavorting, squirrel contorting, forest joins the dance…the—”

Mule screamed. Hiram’s eyes snapped open, and he was on his feet in a flash, looking all around to see what had disturbed her even as he went to soothe her. “Phlox,” he whispered, and felt the fire spirit flicker into awareness. “Try to find out what—Mule, no!” But she was already charging into the forest, head lowered dangerously. Hiram swore and took off after her, but she was too fast for him to keep up. All he could do was listen as the sound of impact reverberated through the forest, and then—

“Oh, darling,” he said once he found her. Mule had all four hooves planted firmly as she tried to pull herself out of the pickle she’d gotten into. “How many times do we have to run through an innocent tree before you realize they’re not your enemies?” Her horn, usually safely invisible, cast rainbows wherever the sun struck it. It didn’t strike very much of it, given that most of it was buried in an ash tree’s trunk, but still. It was beautiful, and far too visible. “Come on, stop this and let me help you.”

It took the faintest whisper of power for him to ease the grip the tree had on her horn and help her out. Mule immediately trotted around the tree, head down like she was scenting something. After a moment, though, she shook her head and whickered angrily.

Hiram wasn’t sure what she’d been chasing, but it had to be dark. Unicorns were unswervable warriors when it came to dark-touched creatures; once they had one firmly in their sites, they would pursue it even unto death. And Mule had nearly died often enough that Hiram wanted to avoid dark creatures if at all possible in their retirement. He checked the ground, but if there had been tracks here, her hooves had completely obliterated them.

“All right,” Hiram said. “Enough of that. Let’s get back home and take it easy for a bit, hmm?”

“Actually,” Phlox put in, “you might want to visit Esmerelda first.”

Hiram frowned. “I just saw her two days ago. Why?”

“I fear she might be playing with her food.”

Playing with her—oh gods. Had another Imperial messenger found them already? Hiram vaulted onto Mule’s back and urged her into a canter as they sped toward the edge of the forest. He wasn’t sure what he’d do if it was a messenger. Maybe it was a sign that Lollop wasn’t the place for him, that he’d never be safe here, that he should move on and—

They rounded the final turn to Esmerelda’s perch, and all the anxiety in Hiram’s chest gusted out as he saw the scene before him. There was Rickie, hiding behind the plinth and giggling to himself, and there was Esmerelda, crouched down low, wings flared and tail lashing as she approached the child with a growl. She leapt, claws out, grabbed the little boy in a tight hug…and rolled over onto her back to take the impact as he burst into laughter.

“You found me!”

“Yes,” Esmerelda said in a smug tone of voice. “Now you must grant me my boon and answer a riddle. What has legs but cannot walk?”

Rickie, still clasped in all of Esmerelda’s four deadly paws, squirmed against her fuzzy belly as he thought about it. “Um…chair?”

“I was looking for table, but chair is also acceptable.”

“I win!” Rickie pulled away from the sphinx and she let him go, leaping easily back up onto the plinth. “Find me again!”

“Perhaps not now,” Hiram called out, and Rickie startled as he noticed them for the first time. “I’m sure your brother and sister are wondering where you’ve gone.”

The little boy shook his head. “I stay.”

“Not right now, my dear.”

He pouted and looked at Esmerelda, who glanced at Hiram before saying, “Our games are over for now, pet. You will simply have to come back and play with me again later. But remember.” She lowered her head until she was eye to eye with Rickie. “Speak to no one of me.”

Rickie laughed and kissed her chin. “Esme.”

“Precisely, my pet. No one.”

“Okay, Esme.”

“Good.” She raised herself up and looked with typical regality at Hiram. “You may take the child for now. I’m ready for a nap.”

Hiram rolled his eyes. “Very generous of you to give him back to his own people.”

“They let him go, not I.”

Well, that was true. “Thank you for taking care of him,” he said as he got down from Mule and held out his hand to Rickie, who looked at it for a moment before shrugging and grabbing on.

“You know I like the little ones.”

“I do know that.”

“Don’t let them neglect to feed him. He’s too skinny.”

“I’ll make sure he gets lunch,” Hiram promised, and Rickie brightened up.

“Good. Begone, then.”

Hiram laughed. “As you say, your highness.” He set Rickie on Mule’s back and turned around, ignoring Phlox’s disgruntled muttering and putting the incident in the forest to the back of his mind. He was safe for now. That was what was important.

 

***

 

A mile away, in the darkest part of the forest, on the far side of a creek where the thicket was so dense even a unicorn would have a problem with it, a man exhaled with unsteady breaths, his heart still racing in the aftermath of the closest he’d come to death in half a decade.

A unicorn. He has a freaking unicorn. More than that, a glamoured unicorn. His curiosity, which had been piqued before, was all-encompassing now. There was more to Master Emblic than met the eye…and there was already a lot that met the eye. It was possible, just possible, that Master Emblic might be the key to helping him where no one else could.

But Avery wasn’t sure it was safe to dig deeper. Not after he’d narrowly escaped being skewered.

What do I do? What…what can I do now?

Well, for starters, he needed to get back to school before afternoon classes began. The rest of his mess would have to wait.