“Hand in hand, the siblings walked away from the crumbling house. The smouldering ginger smelled bittersweet and the blackened sugar was swept away with the breeze. Hansel snuck a look at the burning place for the last time, before facing the rising sun with Gretel.”

“You’re sure these are stories for children?” Leta asked.

Lucas pulled the small boy next to him away from the middle of the street. “Probably.”

She sighed and turned around. “Everyone, pair up.”

The children shuffled around and got into a wonky double-file line. “Two, four, six, eight, ten. Good, we haven’t lost anyone,” Leta said. “Remember what I told you guys?”

“Stay close to you and keep the string tied around our wrists!” The children replied in unison.

Leta smiled and led them forward. Lucas followed behind the group, keeping them close to the side of the street as it branched into the main road. Horses dragging crates of raw materials behind them would occasionally pass close by. It felt like a disaster waiting to happen. Perhaps he shouldn’t have suggested the idea of a field trip after all.

But he could only make up so many stories to pass the time for them. The days had suspiciously gone by without conflict, not that Lucas wasn’t glad for that. Regularity was welcome, although its presence would leave a dreary sensation in the back of anyone’s mind. The children knew that as well, and it was no wonder they were growing restless.

Lucas wondered how Leta had kept the daycare engaging if she hadn’t even thought of activities such as field trips before. The kids here were old enough to start school, but he doubted they even knew how to read or write.

He would have to tell Leta later on and she would have to get paper and writing materials for them. Not to mention he’d have to talk with Rheto and organise something on his shifts.

The least he could do right now, though, was take them on field trips through the town’s various regions and hope they learnt something from it.

“Have you been on the main road before?” Lucas asked Korro, the boy shaking his head.

“Well, it’s where most of the shops are. If you look over there,” Lucas pointed to a building in front, “that’s the town hall. The fancier shops are just past it.”

Korro nodded enthusiastically and joined the others in their eager staring into the shopfront windows. The shopkeepers waved as they went by, and they waved back.

“Can you pass me a few coins, Leta?” Lucas called out.

“You’re asking me even after you took the gold a few days ago?” She replied, which caused him to stiffen slightly. Of course, she would have noticed the string losing its magic property.

“You’re only mentioning that now?” He asked.

She narrowed her eyes but threw the coin bag at him regardless. It sailed over the children’s heads and slammed into Lucas’ chest. He slipped into a pastry shop that they had passed by and scanned the display cabinet. Rolls, cakes, and muffins were laid out neatly on the glass shelves.

“I’ll take a dozen muffins, six strawberry-flavoured and six banana-flavoured,” Lucas said, handing over a gold coin. The pastry chef nodded and packed the muffins into a cardboard box. “Keep the change,” he added, walking out before he could be given a large pile of silver coins.

He handed the coin bag back to Leta once he was done and moved back to the end of the line. They continued walking past the shops, past the florist, past the baker, past the Grey Angel.

Lucas stared through the open door of the tavern and for a split second, he met the gaze of the bartender. He saw their eyes widen and their mouth being pulled into a frown, but just as quickly as it happened, the door slammed shut.

A shrill scream from behind them made Lucas whip his head around. A man was holding her down on her knees, stifling her movements. She tried to scream again, but he covered her mouth. A kidnapping in broad daylight? Or was this an assault? But who would dare to do this on the main road?

His skills were still basic, but he had the shabby dagger on him. He reached for it but stopped when he saw a bright pink light whizz past his face. Leta had discharged a warning shot at him, which cautioned Lucas not to move any further.

There were more men, dressed in a dark blue uniform. Behind them was a tanned middle-aged man, who had his head down and wrists bound together by a pulsing string of light. Lucas had seen him before, this was the farmer. The one to who Leta had given a document.

But it wasn’t the farmer’s presence that chilled Lucas to his core. No, it was another man, with shining black shoes and a bloodthirsty smile. His words, “You sure you didn’t steal it?” echoed clear as day in Lucas’ head, as they had when they were in the casino. Why? Why was he here?

The man turned his head and spotted Leta, who had her teeth clenched. “Oh, Leta! Fancy seeing you here,” he said.

“Perce,” she spat out.

“Now, now, that’s not the tone you use to address a dear friend, now is it?” Perce said.

“Why use the main road?” Leta replied.

“Because the people need to know what bad behaviour gets you. Honestly, I have to thank you for bringing the children here. It’ll be a great learning experience for them.” Perce put his hand up and the man who had restrained the screaming woman let her go. She ran to a few other women who promptly comforted her.

Lucas moved in front of the children, and held out his arm, shielding them from the sight ahead. A few of them were sniffling and many others were quaking. He bit his lip.

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“I have to say, your companion is rather impressive. To think he would retain such a high level of competence,” Perce said, grinning. “I digress, though.”

He moved back to the middle of the street, where the uniformed men were. “Places to go, hey? Well, apart from you. You’ll be enjoying your time serving us. Right?” He shook the farmer, who quickly nodded.

Perce waved at everyone on the main road, who had been glaring at him. “Make sure you follow the rules!” he yelled gleefully, as they walked away.

“I-Is that what’ll happen to us if we don’t?” One of the children spoke quietly to Leta.

“No, it won’t. Don’t worry about that alright?” Leta rubbed the child’s head, her gaze softening.

The child nodded, but it was evident that they were still trembling.

Lucas squatted down, letting himself be at eye level with the children.

“Let’s go back, alright? Everyone here is a good kid, so I’m sure that’ll never happen to any of you.” He smiled and opened the box containing the muffins and began to hand them out to the kids. “See, I got muffins.”

The children’s eyes lit up at the sight of the food and their tears soon stopped as they ate the muffins. Lucas glanced over at Korro and frowned slightly, the boy continuing to retain a neutral expression.

He turned around and led the children back to the daycare area. There were still bitter murmurs floating around the street, settling into the air like a cloud of thick smog. They only fully dissipated once they made it back to the grassy area, far away from the main road.

After an eternity, the afternoon sun came in causing the children’s breathing to slow. Everything was quiet once again, but even still, Lucas’ mind could not be at rest.

“On that day, what was on that document? The one you gave to the farmer,” he said.

“I gave him what he asked for,” Leta replied, keeping her voice quiet.

“I don’t think he asked to be arrested, though.”

The wind whistled as it blew past them, and Leta watched the rippling of the long grass ahead. “Why did you give the gold coins to those two men?”

“Why not?” Lucas replied.

“You tell me.”

“Aren’t you the one who asked? Is it so hard to give me a straightforward answer?” Lucas struggled to keep his voice down.

The only response offered was the rustling of the leaves. Their conversations remained as dry as they had been since his first day here. Her reasons for it, however, remained unclear. This was no longer a matter of trust or unfamiliarity.

But she wasn’t always like this either, Lucas had seen how perfectly capable she was of holding a conversation.

He thought about the question Leta had asked him. The value of a gold coin seemed to be much larger than the value of a silver coin. Though he wasn’t entirely sure about the specifics, he could guess it would be about one hundred times more. Every time he paid for anything, the change that had been given to him was in silver coins.

“Are gold coins only for the upper region?” He asked.

“Somewhat.”

The cogs in his brain were beginning to turn. “What are the theft rates like in the lower region?”

“Not so much theft. It’s more about extortion.”

Just as the bartender had said. He jolted upwards.

“Is that going to happen to the two men?”

Leta gave him a bleak smile and that was all the answer he needed to confirm his suspicions. His own ‘goodwill’ had blinded him and turned into a poison, that he freely gave. The bartender’s suspicions were right. He chewed his bottom lip. Maybe he could prevent something from happening. But he didn’t have any power.

“Don’t worry about it,” Leta smirked as if she could read his mind. “They’ll be fine.”

“How do you know?”

“I already figured out who you gave the gold to. You think I just stopped there?”

Lucas hoped that didn’t mean she had robbed them. Though, that seemed like the kind of thing she wouldn’t do. He deflated slightly and shook his head.

“Think about the answers first, before you ask the question,” Leta said.

Lucas almost scoffed at the remark. He could see a generic picture of Confucius placed next to her words in his head.

“Inspirational life lessons from an aging man with a stringy beard, yeah?” He grinned, causing her to shoot him a look of irritation.

There weren’t any clocks, but the lengthening of his shadow told him that he would have to go wake the children up. Lucas called out, telling them to get up and slowly, but surely, they all rose from their slumber. They rubbed the sleep from their eyes and were a lot calmer than before, almost as if they had forgotten about what had happened.

They wouldn’t though, and that wasn’t the sort of thing that could just be simply erased from their memories. He would have to make sure it would never happen again. Parents soon filed in, taking away their children one by one, until there were three left. Lucas and Leta walked them to their houses and he watched as they waved and went inside. Korro was always one of those children whose parents were never there to pick him up or drop him off. Perhaps that was just the byproduct of exceptionally busy jobs.

Even though the sun was moving to its resting place on the horizon, he knew the day was far from over. They began to set off back towards Leta’s place. Whoever that Perce was, he was surely dangerous. He couldn’t just let an event like that happen again, children or without children. He would turn things around and-

“From now on, I’ll be giving you an allowance.”

“Huh?” Lucas’ jaw almost slammed into the ground.

“You need to see for yourself how things are around here,” she stopped walking and let what she had said sink in.

“Aren’t I meant to follow you around everywhere, keep my head down, all that?” Lucas blurted out.

She raised her eyebrows and fished through her bag, pulling out a small pouch. “A companion doesn’t have to be a mindless slave,” handing him the pouch.

He accepted it and felt the familiar bulges of coins along the bottom of it. “Then what are they meant to be?”

She turned around and once again, kept her mouth closed.

It was paradoxical, in a sense. Lucas had to be a companion, whilst simultaneously knowing nothing about how to be a companion. The word had pleasant connotations to it, as if he was a treasured friend to Leta, sticking with her through thick and thin. He had one friend like that in the past. The thought of him watered the seeds of sorrow in Lucas’ chest, letting them spread, corrupting any positive emotions within him.

But he still could not forget Mika’s words. The less he knew, the happier he’d be. It had become a mantra that echoed endlessly in his mind, yet it was one that he could not abide by, no matter what. Even if Leta wouldn’t answer his questions, he would wade through marshes, and trek through mountains, until he eventually found the answers.

Lucas opened up the bag and found five silver coins lying inside. A meagre amount, but he smiled nonetheless.

“So I’m free to go out whenever?”

Leta gave him a wiley smile.

“With a few rules.”