I could swim. Without aid, without support, without oversight – I could swim. The water gifted me back the energy that the movement was taking, and so I swam for hours, and hours, and hours. There was a little creek some distance away from the field, and I glided through the water under the hot sun, feeling all of nature converge around me: the wind, the plants, the water, the animals. Once the initial shock of our location faded – this took the better part of an hour – Wolfgang also settled. He was sat on the edge of the stream, having rolled up the legs of his trousers so he could softly kick at the water. Neither of us had spoken in hours. Despite his animosity, he seemed to trust that I would guide us back. Despite my lack of knowledge, I trusted that Nature would show me how. I don’t think I’d ever seen him this calm before, even with the insanity of the situation. The open sunlight, the quiet creek, the cold water: for a boy so permanently angry, he clearly suited quiet environments.

The sun was beginning its descent when one of us finally spoke. I was floating peacefully, a frog on my chest. He was lain back on the grass, eyes closed, lazy and content.

“Avari.”

I was tempted to ignore him, but I sighed and responded, “Wolfgang.”

“I’m going to ask you something.” I heard rustling from where he was lain. I don’t think he was sitting up, but repositioning himself, possibly, so that I was within eyesight. “Do you ever feel scared? Do you understand fear?”

It was a strange question. Ominous, even. I took a while before I could understand how to answer it. “Not fear. Sometimes I feel panic, but fear isn’t the right word.”

“Why not?”

Because I had been taken before. I had been taken and moved to the Alchemist Academy. I had been taken and moved to the Military. What more could they do but take and move me somewhere else? I hated being helpless. I hated that I didn’t have the authority to save myself, but ‘fear’ implied more than I felt. I just wanted to be left alone. I just wanted to know why I could do things that the others couldn’t, how they all seemed to assume that I would be able to do things that others couldn’t. I just wanted to not have to constantly question everything I said, everything I asked, everybody I might want to trust.

“Do you ‘understand’ fear?”

More rustling. Now he was sitting up, and I glanced at him from where I was idly floating. There were strands of grass in the white of his hair, fragments of leaves in the red. “I’m a Roqueforte. I’m a Cilliac. It’s what I understand most.”

And I had to finally ask, “What is a Roqueforte?”

He laughed. “You never asked? You never checked? You’re more pig-headed than I thought. Roquefortes – they were one of the first families to leave France. They were one of the first to return here, to gain the favour of the King, to be given land. They’re a political family. A strong rock, literally: roque, forte.”

“And the Cilliacs?”

“God, you don’t know that either? You are impossible.”

“Tell me.”

“The Cilliacs were the first elves to draw power from fire.”

I was beyond response.

“Otherwise, had I just been a Roqueforte, I might have much more alarm and fear for whatever you’ve done to bring us here, for whatever that makes you. I would be setting up a pyre to have you burnt at the stake for ‘witchcraft’ or ‘heathenry’ or whatever, only…” he sighed, “…I’m a Cilliac. I should be more connected to nature than even you are. But.”

“But?”

“But. But I’m as useless as I can be. I’m ‘too angry’ for politics and all I can do with fire is be burned by it. I have no control of it. I have no relation to it at all. Sol, she’s the crescendo of the family line. No one has ever seen a deeper mastery than what she already has. My younger brother, he can play with fire too. I can’t. It’s not within me. I can’t.”

I pulled myself out of the water. I had to ring my hair out before I could tie it up. At some point, he had lain back down. He didn’t sit up when I sat next to him.

“I hate that you’re so interesting.” I admitted.

He smiled. He had a deep dimple in his left cheek. “I’m not the thing of interest. It’s the ‘Roqueforte-Cilliac’ name. That’s what everyone cares about.”

“That is why you speak Elven so well? Because you’re Elven yourself?”

“My Mother insisted we all learn it. It’s useful to know, obviously.”

“And the ‘de Montaigne’?”

He scoffed. “My father is the Duc de Montaigne. It’s just the name of the land we own. A third of all the South District, including some mountains.”

“You own a mountain?”

“Somehow. Some way. Don’t ask me – I don’t care for land management either.” His smile deepened. “See what happens when you actually ask questions? You could have learnt all this at the start. But you’re stubborn.”

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“As are you.”

“On me it’s charming. On you it’s a result of bad manners.”

Infuriatingly, that made me smile. He chuckled. “A laugh and a smile in the same day? I should report this to the church.”

Night fell. My clothes dried in the heat and crinkled in the cool. I told him of the opera night, of Fox, Cat 1 and Cat 2, of the letter I’d written to Romilio to ask of this new power. His only response, “You wrote a letter? I’m surprised you’re even literate.” Some more fighting for that comment, and then we lapsed into silence to give the stage to the stars. The first elves to draw power from fire. It was an incredulous claim, so incredulous that I knew it must be true. I thought of Romilio and the monks before him, monks who must have somehow adapted this power from the Cilliacs. What had happened? The Cilliac family must be so deeply tied to Nature and the elements, and so what happened? What caused their marriage to the Roqueforte family? To French aristocrats who had overhauled so much of the natural system?

Wolfgang didn’t know and he claimed he’d never cared to ask. I was unsure whether or not I believed him.

“We should go.” I said to him. “An overnight stay will create too much suspicion.”

He was reluctant. He was too relaxed, too content, too close to dozing off.

“Wolfgang.”

He sighed deeply. “Avari.” He finally opened his eyes again. “We’ll return?”

“If you help.”

“I owe you that recurring sixth of a favour, remember?” With a grunt, he got to his feet. “We’ll return.”

*

“We’re not friends.”

“Never. Now leave.”

“If you tell the others the things I’ve told you, I’ll kill you.”

“What ‘things’?”

“Fear. Talk of emotions. Tell them and I’ll find the sword of your precious Laclan to finish you off.”

Sometimes, most times, I would consider Wolfgang and struggle to understand how Nature had allowed the existence of an elf as annoying and pathetic as he was. Times like right now, like this conversation. “I don’t care enough about you to have you be my focal gossiping point. Go away.”

“Fine. Okay. Don’t forget this threat.”

“And I didn’t avoid you. Whatever terror you were going through to think that you sitting next to a pianist could trigger my anger, again – I don’t care enough about some imaginary crime you think you’ve committed.”

He was quiet for a long while after that. Like before, my words must be holding more weight than I was aware of. Eventually, all he could do was nod. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

*

The lack of satisfaction was mutual. Whatever Ivra had hoped to find in me, whatever I’d hoped to find in her – neither of us had found it in the other.

“I’ll pass your letter on.” She said to me. “You’re growing up well. Manon will be pleased to hear about it. Have you written to her? No? Well, maybe you should. She’s untrustworthy and irritating, but you two had a nice relationship.”

I would hope for her return when she left, but as I stood here with the Baron and his officers to send them off, I wasn’t dreading her departure. “Next time, you’ll bring Fox?”

“If he’s willing. And if you haven’t reconsidered. It might not be the best idea to entrust an animal to your care while you’re here. You already have much to deal with. You and that fox, you and those cats – they softened you, which was nice to see at my Academy, but not something that would benefit you here.”

“You wrote that you’d bring him.”

“At Manon’s insistence.” Her expression made it clear she didn’t appreciate me not dropping the subject. “And I agreed. Initially. I’ve given it more thought.”

“You said he didn’t come because he wasn’t ‘suitable for travel’.”

“Yes. I said that. Your point?”

I looked away, scowling, but I didn’t pursue the topic further. At dinner last night, she’d noted that I hadn’t once asked if I could return with her. She hadn’t said it with disdain or with surprise, but as a fact, something that she accompanied with a ‘hmm’. When I’d portaled to the forest outside the Alchemist Academy, I had noted the same thing. I hadn’t tried to stay there. I’d always known I would have to return here.

I watched her horse and carriage carry her and her team away. The Baron, who had silently observed our goodbye, turned to me. I glowered at him, then I frowned. He was holding a letter. An unopened letter, its seal still intact, the same seal I’d stamped onto my letter to Romilio. He handed it over and I immediately snatched it, examining the paper, seeing it untampered with, unopened, and unsent. But in Ivra’s hand, and on her desk, had been this same letter.

“We took one of your assignments to mirror your handwriting.” He explained. “And forged a letter on your behalf.”

Blood was pounding in my ears. I couldn’t find any words to say.

“As Ivra Vonglo said, it was done for ‘your sake’. Partially. It was also done for our own observation. I don’t know what you’ve written in this original letter, but do you know what we wrote in the fake?”

I did.

Eagles.

The Baron held his hand out, giving me the chance to give it back to him. “I’ll have the letter sent off for you. Unread.”

“And I should believe you?”

“You believed Madame Vonglo. Yet she read our fiction on the eagles, while the letter in your hand is still unopened. Find a way to send it off yourself, if you wish. Either way, it was an interesting observation, wouldn’t you say?”

I kept the letter in my hand, squeezing the paper so tightly that I was crumpling it. I was staring at the bend of my thumb on the paper, suddenly unable to raise my head to look at him. When I next spoke, my voice was hoarse. “I’m bringing a fox.”

“You are?” His shoes were dark blue and shone in the sunlight. When he turned to walk away, the light hit my eyes. “Be sure to introduce me when it arrives.”

*

Laclan pouted for some minutes before immediately forgiving me for my 5-day avoidance. “You’ll make up for it in the summer, when we’re together every single day.” He wiggled his eyebrows at me from his position on the ground, where he was once again playing the damsel in distress. It was a role he clearly loved for reasons none of us could understand, but he had the theatrics necessary to pull it off. Cat 1 was climbing over him, settling near his head, while Cat 2 was licking herself in the background of the scene. “Someone save me! From the cats! From the cats! Someone big and strong! Someone who will save me from the cats and from Gaspard, lest I be one of the many damsels who are hopelessly and endlessly charmed by him…”

Gaspard flushed, holding his sword pathetically. “Don’t be improper.”

Laclan cackled.

Later, I took a walk with Wolfgang.

“I found a way to get you back to the forest. With a horse.”

“Okay. Then we leave tonight.”

“We…You idiot, you don’t even want to know how? Do you know the bureaucracy and secrecy that was necessary in manoeuvring this deal? Gaspard is involved and he doesn’t even know it! All for a sixth of a favour! And you don’t even ask for details?”

Something about a bribe to an officer, something about the bribe and negotiation passing through the lips and minds of a few other students so as to confuse the true root of the deception, so as to not link any possible misdemeanour back to Wolfgang in any way. No, I didn’t really care about how. That was his business. “We leave tonight.” I told him. “I’m going to retrieve a fox at my old Academy. You’ll come with me.”

He was exasperated. “You are mindless. I truly despise you.”

“And I you. You’ll come with me?”

“Of course. Of course.”