The sun shone brightly over a quiet orchard. Sunlight streamed down through lush apple trees. It was still too early in the season to see any ripe fruits, but in their place were hundreds of flowers, adorning every branch and a good amount of the ground, too. A more scenic environment, all the money in the world could not have bought. Reynald hated it. It made his eyes itchy and nose runny.

  A branch cracked under Reynald’s foot. He winced. Lucien whipped around in front of him. “Watch your step,” he hissed. “Do you want to get caught?” Reynald absolutely did not want to get caught. He was meant to be having lute practice at the moment. His father might use his organs to restring the instrument if he was discovered. “Well so-rry I haven’t been trained in the Shadowalker arts since birth, Mr. High-and-Mighty Magic Man.” “It’s not magic, it’s- Y’know what, never mind. It’s fine. We can go back if you’re gonna be like that.” “NO!” Reynald clapped his hands over his mouth and glanced around fearfully. In a lower voice, he whispered, “You can’t! Dad’ll kill me!” Lucien looked down at him with a chilly gaze. After a minute, he broke eye contact and took the lead once more. “Fine,” he said, “I get it, I get it. Come on.” Reynald followed quietly behind.

  This little escapade had been his idea. It was an old habit at this point, giving Lucien unreasonable orders and watching in exhausting despair as he achieved success to degrees of which Reynald could only dream. It was growing stale, and it left a bad taste in Reynald’s mouth, but at this point he didn’t know of any other way to interact with Lucien. His relationship to his Hand, his pseudo-brother, was built of exactly such a dynamic, and any time he ventured away from it in his mind, he suddenly felt as though he was walking on parchment, thousands of leagues in the air, and his footing trembled beneath him. He didn’t know what would happen in real life if he stepped away from this dynamic, but his mental image made implications of the worst possible result.

  Today’s escapade was centered around trespassing on their neighbor’s orchard. Reynald hadn’t particularly cared where exactly they ended up. All he’d asked of Lucien was that they get off the manor property, as fast as possible. So Lucien, after mere seconds of thinking, had tossed Reynald over his shoulder and hopped the boundary fence between the manor property and the neighbor’s orchard. It was comically easy for him. In hindsight it made perfect sense, but Reynald felt a bitter taste of defeat. This plan would never have even occurred to him.

  A bug droned somewhere in the distance. A bird chirped. The dirt under his boots ground together like sand, making a sliding noise with each step. Wait… only my steps are making that noise. Are you serious? He can ERASE HIS FOOTFALLS? This is unfair. Regardless, they trudged on. Once they were on the far side of their neighbor’s property, Lucien stopped. They were on the edge of a much thicker forest, and Lucien was looking at the treeline with a hunger that made Reynald a little uncomfortable. Lucien snapped back to reality and said “We should be in the clear now.” He looked at Reynald expectantly. A beat passed. Then another. Reynald was confused. “Well?” Lucien asked. “Well? What do you mean well?” “I mean, what’s your plan now? We’re clear. Did you plan for us to just sit on our collective ass once we were out, or was there something you wanted to do?” “I… Uh… I… totally had a plan… and that plan was…” He started panicking, wracking his brain for literally anything he could throw at the older boy. He looked over Lucien’s shoulder and into the deep woods behind him. “...Exploring! We’re going exploring!” “No.” “What do you mean no, Lucien?” “I mean no, I’m not walking you into the most dangerous situation either of us could feasibly conceive of at this moment. I, for the most part, like living, and I don’t enjoy the concept of the lord Mayor ripping my limbs off and finding a demon to feed my limbless body to. So no, we’re not ‘exploring’.”

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “Well fine. What do YOU want to do, then? Don’t see YOU coming up with any genius ideas.” “I want to go back home and grab some lunch. Have a nice, relaxed meal. I didn’t want to be out here in the first place. YOU’RE the one who wanted out of the manor by any means necessary. If we get back soon, I bet they don’t even notice. We say we lost track of time and catch the last half of the lesson you were trying to ditch by coming out here- what was it, lute? Not important- whatever it was, not my problem. MY problem is that Mom is going to CANE me if you’re not back safe.”

  Reynald thought for a second. The woods didn’t look that scary. What, was he going to be attacked by a fox? A squirrel? A particularly angry deer? Laughable. He made eye contact with Lucien and confidently walked towards the treeline. Only to walk into an iron bar. Or a tree branch. No, that was Lucien’s arm. The older boy was glowering down at him. “Did you actually think that would work?” He asked in a condescending tone. “No… I knew it would.” And Reynald slipped under Lucien’s arm and sprinted into the woods as fast as his scrawny little legs would carry him. He ran and ran and ran. He was hopeless in a fight, his sword lessons had taught him that, but his instructor had made DAMN sure that he could run from one side of town to the other and back, at the very least. He laughed maniacally. He’d beaten Lucien! How’d HE like it? But after what felt like an eternity had passed, and he’d heard no sound of pursuit, he slowed to a stop. Looking around, he suddenly, abruptly realized that he was utterly lost.

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Lucien was seething. Absolutely seething. He’d had, at best, minimal patience for Reynald’s antics. Every word out of his scrawny little mouth had already put Lucien on the verge of throwing the child right back over his shoulder and hauling him back to the manor. And now this. This. When Spitface Himself had gone and made a break for it, it had surprised him so much that he hadn’t even bothered to try to chase after him. He just stood at the edge of the woods and watched his liege-lord disappear into the dark like the forest was swallowing him whole. And, honestly, Spitface would fucking DESERVE it. So WHAT if Lucien was his Hand. Lucien was absolutely sick of his antics. He didn’t even know why he had stayed out here with Roast-for-Brains in the first place. “...Artificer damn it all.” Those helpless blue puppy eyes. If he could go back 5 minutes and kick himself, he’d swing so hard he’d break his own shin. But now he had a problem. Spitface had forced his hand. He couldn’t go back alone. They’d been gone for too long. If he’d gone back immediately, he could’ve feigned ignorance, but by now it would be clear that Lucien had been in it together with the little bootwaste. If he showed up without him, he might actually end up in jail. He could hear the maidstaff whispering about it now. “I hear the young lord used to abuse him all the time. I bet he just snapped one day. Stabbed him 26 times and left him to be eaten by coyotes on the forest floor.” And he wouldn’t even be able to refute it. He couldn’t exactly just produce the twit to prove them wrong. And if Spitface actually did end up dead, it would absolutely be Lucien’s problem. So he couldn’t go back without him. As much as he really, really wanted to. So badly. The image of Reynald’s dead body, lying on the forest floor, came to Lucien’s mind unbidden. His fist curled white-knuckle tight. He slammed it into an apple trunk. “...Fuck!...Fine.” And so he started following Reynald’s trail into the woods.