Wesley Smythe brought up abruptly, nearly colliding with Tall Pines. They’d not even cleared the threshold of the farm house.

“I say,” he complained. “What is it now?”

Tall Pines had turned and was looking speculatively down at Wesley Smythe’s gleaming white shoes. His gaze traveled up the crisp trousers and shining tunic of his dress whites, and finally to his face, his eyes twinkling. “How attached are you to them pretty white duds?” he asked guilelessly.

* * *

Dar’s eyes flared wide, a shudder running through his body. He’d been back in the kitchen with the pirate, replaying the duel. This time, though, all the others he’d killed were there as well, lining the room and staring emptily at him, an audience of the damned. This time, the pirate was winning. He shuddered again, wrinkling his nose. He could still smell the blood.

The curtains were drawn, and the room was dark. Only a hint of light peeked out from beneath the doorway, aided by the merest trace of muted moonlight seeping through the drawn curtains.

He couldn’t see Mailyn, but he knew she was there. She had his hand again. He felt her squeeze at his shuddering, and he squeezed back, his heart thumping. He took a moment to breathe and compose himself as the nightmare faded, its banishment further aided by the warmth of her touch.

He lay for that moment regarding the dark form of his shadow or sidekick or whatever, the understanding dawning on him that something significant had changed in the last few hours, even beyond the events of the attack and its aftermath.

Lying there, striving to pick her out of darkness, the notion took him that she wasn’t any of those things anymore. Or maybe moreso that she wasn’t just any of them anymore. She’d become, over the past day or so, someone completely different. Or had she? Was it really something in her? Or was it him?

“So,” he said softly.

“So?” she replied, sending shivers down to his toes.

Something about the way she said it —something about the sound of her voice— touched him in a way it hadn’t ever before. How was that? Had it somehow just suddenly changed? Or had it always been so soft and musical and able to send chills to his fingertips, and he just too blind simple to notice?

But then, he had noticed, hadn’t he? The other day at the edge of the island. Again when he’d first awakened in her sister’s house, her hand clamped around his and her tear-stained face so close to his he could feel the soft wash of her breath. His heart had been trying to tell him, but his brain had been too addled to listen.

Well, it was listening now, and his heart started in thumping again, but this time it wasn’t fear. Or at least not the same kind of fear.

“Turns out you’re a girl after all,” he noted, voice husky.

“Turns out,” she giggled.

“When did that happen, I wonder?”

He felt her hand shift as she leaned in close enough that he could sort of see her, and the pace of his heartbeat quickened. “I was always a girl, Darnan,” she whispered softly. “I suppose I’m just getting better at it, is all.”

Well, she’d got that right, he figured. He reached his far hand up and cupped her cheek, marveling at how soft it was, how smooth. She leaned farther in, tilting her head to bring it more fully into contact, and he remembered how she’d lain it on his shoulder in the sunshine and how he’d been too dense to appreciate it.

He could feel her smile more than he could see it, but his own followed quickly nonetheless.

“I’ll say,” he breathed, tilting his head a bit to catch more of her profile in the faint moonlight.

He felt a tug at his middle from the strain, but the pain didn’t seem so important at the moment. He wanted to get up closer to her, but she had a lock on his right hand and he didn’t want to let go with his left. So he sort of experimentally pulled her down towards him. She acquiesced readily, as though she’d been waiting for him.

“I don’t guess I can think of anybody who could do it better,” he admitted to them both as her lips touched his.

“Ahem.”

Mailyn jerked upright, drawing a wince from Dar as he naturally tried to follow her up. He groaned and fell back onto the bed.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“I see that you’re feeling better, Darnan,” his mother quipped brightly.

“M-mom?” Dar stuttered, caught in the square of light showing through the opened door, face flushed. “Uhm, Mom... we... uhm... this wasn’t...”

“Don’t be silly, Darnan,” she said wryly. I can see clearly what it was or wasn’t.

“Mailyn? I’ve brought Darnan’s dinner. Would you be so kind?”

Mailyn lunged to her feet and hurried to Mrs. Palin, who handed her the tray and turned to the light switch.

“Thank you, Mailyn,” Lizbet Palin smiled over her shoulder. “Please do try to feed him before any more uhm-we-ing occurs, will you? I have a suspicion that he’ll be needing his strength.”

She winked at the furiously blushing girl, but left the door conspicuously open in her wake.

“What d’you suppose—?”

Mailyn lay the tray in his lap, still blushing, and scooted her chair closer to the bed.

“Just eat your dinner, Darnan,” she sighed. “So we can get on with the uhm-we-ing.”

He looked down at the tray and the food arrayed on it. Then he looked back up at her, which caused her blush to deepen.

“I dunno, Mai,” he grinned. “This stuff looks kinda hot to me. How about we give it a little time to cool off?”

She giggled and moved closer.

* * *

Doc’s old Vaux was bouncing and careering along the main road south of Plubbetton at the breakneck pace of around twenty-five miles an hour, its headlamps glaring alternately at ground, verge, and sky.

The island’s main road hadn’t ever been all that great, and yesterday’s multiple high speed passages of the Oshkosh hadn’t done it any favors. Better than an hour outbound from Pascal’s stead, Henry was still hard-pressed to avoid the trenches he’d gouged into its narrow clay surface.

Marty was grumping and bouncing along in the passenger seat, staring out into the night. He was far from sanguine about the prospect of leaving his family at the stead and the tender mercies of the Crown, and this ride wasn’t helping. There were things he very much needed to be doing there.

Unfortunately, there were equally crucial things he needed to be doing elsewhere, and there just weren’t enough people he trusted to accomplish them. The quantity, in point of fact, was two, one of whom was sitting behind the wheel of the jouncing old car, refusing to explain why he wasn’t playing a more active role.

He turned to favor Henry with a foul look, arms crossed.

Henry, as though he could feel his glare, turned to him and frowned. “I told you I’d fix the damned road, Marty, didn’t I?

“Sure, Henry, sure,” he groused. “Probably have Dar do it first thing tomorrow, right?”

“The hell’s wrong with you Marty?” Henry demanded. “You know better than that!”

Marty stewed on it for awhile, watching the roadway bounce about in the pool of the headlights’ glare. He wasn’t really mad at Henry — at least, not much. It was this whole blasted situation.

What the hell business did Black Sun have still existing? How the hell had they gotten themselves to New Victoria? And how was the blasted Crown involved?

He wanted to punch something, but in the mood he was in, whatever it was he hit, he’d sure-hell break it, and he didn’t owe Doc Singh that sort of mischief.

They were coming up on the stead, and he shifted in his seat, craning his neck out the window. There were lights on in the yard. He turned his head, but Henry was already chucking a chin in that direction.

“I got Jacobson’s two oldest boys looking out for your place,” he told him. “They’ll take care of the livestock and make sure nobody messes with anything while you and the family are gone. They’ll be sleeping in the barn, so you won’t have to worry about anybody messing with the house while your family’s at Northridge.”

Marty settled back, crossing his arms. Trust Henry, he supposed. The pirates may have rattled him, but put him back in his own element.... “Thanks, Henry.” he grudged. “I appreciate the thought.”

Henry trundled the Vaux in through the open gate, bringing up before the stable. Marty got out and stretched, taking a moment to glance around, looking to see were things in order.

Glancing up, he caught sight of Timothy Jacobson up in the hayloft, his legs dangling out the door. He had a rifle across his knees.

“Hey, Tim,” Marty called up.

“Hey, Mister Palanna,” the boy called back. “We fetched your horse down from that old Pirate’s place. He’s in his stall.”

“Thanks, Tim,” Marty waved.

Henry had already turned back for the gate, intent upon business of his own. Marty cast a sour glance over his shoulder at the disappearing Vaux before moving into the stable.

The Jacobson boys had taken good care of the animal. He’d been curried and grained. That was good. He had some work ahead of him tonight. It was a matter of a few minutes to get him saddled and tied off to a hitch rail outside the stable’s main door. Another ten and two more animals were tied beside him, wearing pack saddles.

He called Andy Jacobson over to help him as he headed for the house, leading all three horses. Together, they loaded down the packs with boxes of canned goods, water, and assorted supplies from the stead’s emergency stores.

The packs secured, he went inside to clean up, changing out of his stale clothes and donning something more suitable to the task ahead. When he reappeared on the porch, swathed in course canvas jeans and jacket, he looked more the classical bullwhacker than gentleman rancher or adventurer.

He’d strapped his pistols back around his waist and his knives were back in his boots. The last thing he did was to slide a rifle into the scabbard hanging from his saddle.

Sighing against the weariness he already felt, he gathered himself and climbed into the saddle. He seemed to remember all of this being a lot less strenuous in the old days. A lot less tiring.

Reaching down for the lead pack horse’s lead rope. He clucked his mount around and toward the gate, the two pack animals following in train.

“You boys get hungry,” he called to the Jacobsons as he passed. “The kitchen door’s unlocked. Just clean up after yourselves, okay?”

“Sure thing, Mister Palanna!” Timothy called down from the loft. “thanks.”

“Sure thing,” Andy echoed.

He’d spoken to Av eventually, and had learned what had been done with the prisoners. He knew about where they’d be, and about how to get there. It wasn’t promising to be a pleasant ride, but it had to be done. And it had to be done before daylight, when the RN aircraft would once again be in the sky.