Stunned, Henry stood stiff like an ornament at the top of Genevieve’s garden. A nature spirit carved from wood or stone, unfazed by aeons of wind and rain buffeting against its side. Henry, garrison ensign. Henry, green knight. Jen, seemingly unaware of the impact her words had on her brother, mentions something about checking a clock as she gets up to go into the house. The previously calm, at points flustered, Henry tenses up into true rage. “This is why she brought up those murders,” he thinks to himself, “I’m not the only one with informants, it seems she has someone telling her about my efforts at the Garrison… does she know why I’m really on leave?” he ponders. His fists tighten and jaw clenches. He pivots, the rough surface of the tiles beneath him screeching out as he does, and he takes a step towards the edge of the veranda. He raises his arms and begins to bring them down so as to thump the rail, but the smell of Jen’s smoke leaves him and is replaced once again by strawberry. His hammering arms disperse as his movement converts into that of an orchestral conductor. He slides his hands across the rail as his mood clarifies.

“I’ll prepare a fresh jug of water as well!” Jen yells from inside the house, completely ignorant of the effect her comment had on Henry.

“Good idea.” He replies, only now realising how dry his lips had become from the heat. He closes his eyes again, relaxes his body once more, letting the breeze flow through him. He was glad Jen never saw that. His brief loss of control. This rage was something new to Henry, and it was something he was struggling to deal with. But the garden of his aunt, the woman who raised him, was able to ground him once more. A good foundation even in spite of any difficulties he may be having at the Garrison. Eyes shut, Henry let the garden’s chimes and aromas guide him as he visualised the place in his mind. The bushes, plants, and trees. The chimes, river flow, and rustling. The taste of strawberry, the smell of the roses. All of it familiar enough he could reconstruct the garden perfectly in his mind down to every scion of every plant. How the river flowed over the rocks that once formed a weir to power a mill that stood here sixty years ago. How the current would splash over to the shore where a great oak sheltered the growth of moss and algae. It seeped into fertile soil, which in turn fed the plants, which in turn guided the pathway up to the back of the house. A perfect relationship ingrained in Henry’s mind made it so he could reproduce the place just through doing the maths, through following the dominoes as they fell. He knows what makes this clock tick, so he knows how it will emerge from its own actions. Or at least he thought.

“Oh!” a voice yelps out from down below, followed by a heavy splashing and wading. Henry jolts awake only to see the shrubbery by the brooke start the crack as it is wrenched open. A figure with tanned skin and a yellow head veil emerges from the greenery. They wave as they force their way into the garden but Henry does not reply. His face creases into a frown as he struggles to understand what he is seeing. As the figure stumbles forwards, twigs and branches snap all around them, revealing the stranger in a frame of bent branches. Now, fully borne from the weir, a masculine figure stands at the bottom of the garden holding a wide brimmed hat in one hand as they continue to wave. A long flowing coat, dark and purple in the shade, but almost a luminous pink in the sunlight, shoots a strange silhouette towards Henry. He’s seen people like this before. When training in the south in the newly re-acquired lands there were groups of transient folks that had started to live in the area when the country was split. They all wore incredible clothes suited for kings that they would collect from all over the continent, an eclectic sort of peoples who were loved by the locals but crushed by the monarchy before its ousting. Henry had cut his teeth as a member of the Garisson in these lands, he had met this sort before, but the man now hiking up Jen’s grandmother’s garden was far flashier than any he had met. A wide grin framed by a thin goatee beamed from the stranger’s face.

“Hi! I’m Vali!” He yelled in a thick accent, seemingly a hodgepodge of regional Eferty speak and who knows what.

Stunned, all Henry could think to say was, “You’re in the right place.”

Now close enough to see each other clearly, Vali starts to make their way up the stairs and onto the veranda, “I’m always in the right place, friend.”

With one last hike up the stairs the two were finally face to face, both very tall, notwithstanding the knee high boots both wore. Vali swayed in the wind, weaving themselves around the sunrays, whilst Henry remained firm like a flagpole. Still off kilter Henry sticks out his right hand, “And I am Henry, Jen’s brother.”

Vali sees this and is visibly delighted. They begin to go for the hand shake but then abruptly pull back their gloved hand, seeing how filthy it was and thus brushing it against their leg to clean it. Instead they present their left. Henry’s right falls to his side and then, faster than any strike from a snake, his left propels upwards and slaps into Vali’s as they complete this strange handshake.

“Why go through the weir?” Henry asks, not knowing how to go about addressing such a strange social foray.

“Ha! Well they say you can never step into the same river twice, so I collect as many firsts as I can I suppose.”

“Why?” a baffled Henry asks.

“I don’t know, I suppose you never know what experiences might come in handy.”

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“Well,” Henry says, still unable to collect himself, “Um, Jen was fetching some water so take a seat, you’ll need some rest after your… swim.”

Vali grins and bows in acceptance. They place their hat down on the table and begin to take a seat opposite where Henry had been sat before, but before they can Jen returns.

“Ah! There he is! Welcome!” Jen says, rushing to put her tray with cups and a jug of water down. Vali makes their way towards Jen and the two hug.

“Forgive me, I came in through the back. It is so much more beautiful this way.” Vali says, stroking the side of Jen’s arm.

“I had a feeling you would, this garden is the pride of my family, I’m so glad you like it.” She says, taking Vali’s hand into her own. All the while a distraught look snaps over Henry’s face as the three take their seats at the table.

“It is truly wonderful, my lady.” Vali says in a mocking aristocratic tone, “but the true beauty is you yourself!”

Jen looks over to Henry, “They’re only saying that to tease you Henry,” she turns back to Vali, “I’ve annoyed him enough already so you don’t have to.”

“Such a gracious host!” Vali replies with a smirk.

“So, yes, this is Vali, and this is Henry. Or did you already introduce yourselves? I’m so sorry.” Jen says partly flustered

“Oh he’s made quite an introduction.” Henry remarks, his pale and shocked face a complete mirror to Vali’s omnipresent smirk.

“He always does.” Jen replies, leaning over to grab her cigarette box, “I’ve prepared you a smoke, my friends.” she says as she presents Vali with a cigarette. Henry stands up to start pouring the drinks. Here he noticed a cup missing now that there were three of them. He thanked the gods thinking this would be a good way to excuse himself to retrieve another. As he did Vali took the cigarette and thanked Jen with a kiss on the hand causing Henry to fumble and knock the glasses together.

Awkwardly he squeezes out, “Missing a glass, I’ll go and fetch another.”

Jen looks up, “No, no.” then springs out of her seat, “I’ll get it, you boys relax”

“Before you leave, miss.” Vali says, placing the cigarette between their lips. Jen looks over, then towards Henry, temporarily consumed by anticipation. Henry looks towards Vali as they pull out their right hand and snap their fingers through their gloves. A simple snap and a mote of flame shoots up from Vali’s thumb and lights the cigarette.

With an excited applause Jen exclaims, “Haha! I love that!”, but this served only to further compound Henry’s discomfort.

“I’ll be right back.” Jen says before leaving. Vali takes in a long drag, watching her as she does. Henry watches with concern.

“So,” he mutters, “Is that a trick with the glove?” Henry asks hoping to break the ice.

“The glove?” Vali asks, slowly panning his head back towards Henry, a toothy grin from ear to ear.

“Yes, the flame. Or is that rude to ask? I’ve never met a magician before.”

“Oh? Then how about a witch?” Vali says as they lift their right arm high, “Or would that be a rude question to ask someone of the Eferty Reds?” And with this their sleeve slipped down their arm, they stretched their wrist to partially pull the glove over their hidden skin to reveal the hint of a deep scar.

Henry’s face flashed glimpses of expressions varying from deep sadness, to anger, and even to glee. Glee? Maybe somewhat of an acknowledgement that he knew that Vali was playing with him, yet still, should he apologise? How could one even attempt to do such a thing? For the Eferty Reds was the colloquial name for the Garrison thanks to their uniforms. But the uniforms were inherited from the Eferty army, much like most of their practices, and this army was the one that reclaimed the lands to the south. An army that was charged with the reintroduction of the peoples of the south into the civilised ways of the monarch, be that through charity or by force… and it was almost always force. The scar on Vali’s wrist was at the joint. In order to convert the Southerners into people of Eferty proper, they had to be processed. Through schools, through work, and through living quarters. Those who resisted the new formalisation of the land were sent to camps in order to implement heavier forms of persuasion, but for those that would not be swayed, it was death. As evidence and to catalogue the number of people who resisted, the monarch’s office required each of the disposed bodies’ hands be cut off so as to serve as evidence. This was supposed to take place after execution, but was in reality mostly used as the method of execution, leaving many to bleed out with their hands removed. Some would survive, although not for long as they were denied the medical attention required, but they would still serve as an example. They would continue to work in the camps, unable to properly contribute because of their new disability, and even incapable of feeding themselves unassisted.

Henry joined the army after the revolution, when he served he was a soldier of the republic, something his father would often remind him of in their short correspondences. He had seen the horrors of the Monarchist Army, he in part had to remedy them, but he didn’t enact them. Although, if he were a year younger, his training would have taken place under the king Tristan III, and he would have been sent to these camps. Would he have still served? His teachers had, those who manage even now did, even some of his current compatriots were present, but woul he have done such things?

Vali snapped their fingers once more, this time shooting a mote of flame into the air that then abruptly burnt out. Henry snapped back to reality. It was said that the true reason for the severing of the hands was a more superstitious one. The Eferty family were once said to have descended from a clan of magi that guided fishing vessels across the sea, vessels that would one day land on the shore and be the founding lands of the city and later country of Eferty. But with the new republic, it’s clear that the magicks gifted to them by the gods had long since faded, but, again, it is rumoured that the vagabonds to the south still had access to witchery. Their healing hands and mastery over raging wildfires. The secret under Vali’s glove was not a trick of stage magic at all but instead the remnants of a recently deceased culture, the flames of ambition, the heat of vengeance, and hands that would surely ring the neck of this new Eferty devil.