“It would seem that I have made you uncomfortable.” Nero said with a soft chuckle. Joe would scowl, but the scabs in her face were hurting too much. She would also scoot farther back from Nero, because he was essentially a dangerous man, with or without his dangerous magic. He was no longer the happy-go-lucky man that she’d recruited back in the Winsten manor. The more she watched him, the stranger he seemed to become.

Joe didn’t scoot back. “What about your injuries.” She asked him instead. “You never answered how you got those.”

Nero closed his eyes and leaned back to rest his head against the cliff wall. “It is never easy to manipulated something as fragile as human body. There is water in our vicinity, even if you cannot see it. There is water in the air, as dry it is. There is water in you and me. Out of all those possible sources, what I needed to target was only the blood of the bandits, spread out around us.”

Joe frowned. “You needed to pinpoint your targets.”

“It needs a great deal of concentration.” Nero agreed. “I can better sense the water around me when I am closer to the source. And I already knew where you were standing. But even then, one break in concentration, one tiny misstep, and we could have been blown way as well.”

Joe swallowed thickly. Good thing she had already run out of energy to fight by then.

“Simply put, it takes a massive strain on my body.” Nero continued. “My own blood ends up responding to the magic, much as I try to repress it. It is not wise to wield magic in such a way, and I certainly wouldn’t have thought that I’d need to use it tonight, my lady.”

‘He wouldn’t have needed it.’ Joe thought with a stab of guilt. ‘If I hadn’t been such a colossal burden on his back. He would have wiped the floor with the bandits ages ago.’

She stood up uncertainly, and brushed off her skirt. “Don’t worry about me, Nero. All things considered, I wouldn’t have been alive here, if it weren’t for you. ”

The man smiled, and she was strangely relieved to see a sliver of the goofy old Nero in that face.

“I will go get Merlin.” She turned away hastily, lest she accidentally said something that would guilt him into saving her again and again. Tonight wasn’t something she’d wish to remember, but it was undeniably a gross reminder of her own powerlessness.

Merlin, bless his heart, was quietly wandering quite a ways from their current position. Joe had almost assumed that the horse had run away ages ago, until she saw his neighing softly behind a hidden bend of the cliffs. He trotted forward gingerly when Nero let out a sharp whistle, head shaking and tail swishing in the air. Joe resisted a huff of amusement. The horse deserved all the hay of a lifetime for his loyalty.

Her face turned grim when she saw a gash near his hind legs. The first dagger had grazed by his skin when it was thrown, and there was a fine line of dried blood across his wound. He needs to be treated, Joe thought miserably, and so does Nero. But how they might get the treatment in a desolate canyon, in the darkness of the night was anybody’s guess.

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They won’t.

When she returned to the clearing with Merlin in tow, a beautiful little boy was standing in front of her.

Joe blinked. The night wasn’t over yet, she had to remind herself. Neither was the imminent danger. Oh, how she wished to crawl back into the oversized bed in that cozy, warm bedroom of Winsten manor. Come morning, she would wake up to Lucia’s ‘Hey!’s and ‘Whoa!’s and tell her over breakfast about how she had this weird dream where she was fighting bandits like a broken marionette and watched as they exploded one after another.

Yeah, fat chance.

“How are you, miss?” the child smiled at her, his gentle eyes – were they actually glowing in the dark?! – raking up her bloodied figure thoughtfully. “The night has been very unkind to you, yes?”

Joe glanced at Nero in askance, but the man merely shrugged. “He arrived barefoot sometime after you were gone.” He said, confusion evident in his voice. “I hadn’t even heard his footsteps. One moment he wasn’t here, and the next moment he was.”

What was the child doing in a desolate canyon in the middle of night? The kind frequented by bandits, no less? Why hadn’t she seen him before? The girl glanced furtively at the ominous shadows of the cliffs. Was this, by any chance, a g — gho — ghooos —

“Ah, you’re shaking, miss.” The little boy pointed out, eyes teasing. “Are you actually scared?”

Why this little – ! Joe coughed purposefully, and drew herself to her full height. She would NOT be intimidated by rude brats, even those with glowing eyes that mysteriously stepped out of the shadows of spooky canyons.

“Hello kid.” Joe began before her thoughts could go further in scarier directions. She wasn’t good with children. “What are you doing here? Where are your parents?”

“You’re injured.” The child ignored her words completely. His voice carried softly through the stillness of the night, lilting with the wind. “You’re so very injured. This one should have arrived faster. This one is very sorry.”

This one? Joe plastered a smile on her face and walked towards the child. The boy was even more beautiful up close. How was it even physically possible to be this beautiful? It’s unfair, dammit!

“What’s your name, kiddo?”

The boy smiled, all dimples and pearl white teeth. His hair was pale, almost white, shimmering in the moonlight. “This one is called Pierre. This one knows that you have been fighting. This one should have arrived faster.” He was repeating his words like a broken record. “This one is sorry.”

“No need to apologize Pierre.” Nero frowned. “You did good staying out of harm’s way. A battlefield is no place for kids.”

‘I am a kid in this world too dammit!’ The thought popped up in her mind before Joe could even stop it. She flushed in embarrassment. ‘Calm down, you idiot.’ She told herself firmly. ‘Don’t go getting jealous of snotty kids. Brat’s younger than half of your real age, for fuck’s sake!’

Pierre eyed her with a knowing smile. For a wild moment, she thought that she’d said all that out loud, but the boy brushed past her merrily and skipped over to Merlin. Before Nero could give out a shout of warning, the boy had already brought his fingers upon the bloody gash. The horse neighed delightfully as he caressed its wound with gentle hands.

Joe stared at the scene suspiciously.

“A short distance towards the north.” The boy began, eyes fixed on the horse. “There is a hamlet called Mirlock. You can find a shelter for your steed, if you know where to look. This one will take you there if you wish.”

Joe exchanged a confused glance with Nero. “It’s true.” The man nodded at her. “There is indeed a hamlet with that name, as far as I can recall.”

Was this a trap? Did the remaining bandits want to bring their guard down using a child? Nero was staring at the boy with renewed concentration, most likely thinking along the same lines. Joe would be more wary of the situation, if she actually hadn’t witnessed the majority of the gang being ruthlessly exterminated like termites right in front of her eyes.

The memory of the bloodshed sent a familiar shudder down her spine.

“Let’s follow him.” She told Nero. He turned to her in surprise. “You’re injured, and so is Merlin. We won’t be able to walk much farther than this. The bandits wouldn’t try anything funny tonight, I reckon, not after what they have witnessed here.”

“Ah, as you wish.” Nero gave in too easily. She suspected that using the water magic had taken too much out of him. But more importantly, he was willing to trust her judgement this time, and Joe didn’t want to disappoint him either.

She subconsciously gripped the longsword tighter. It was now strapped to her back, a heavy but reassuring weight. She didn’t think that she could part from it without feeling paranoid. Not tonight, at the very least.

“Well, Pierre.” Joe turned to the little boy, who was silently listening to their conversation with a serene smile on his face. “We will take you up on that offer. You can lead the way.”