“No-oo, oh no no no. What are you thinking?” Prin groaned.

“It would be better if we aren’t seen at all. But if we are, we can’t be seen carrying Aster out of here. Is what I was thinking.” Elwin said. “There’s plenty of room. Aster is so short.”

“What if it hurts her? What if she can’t breathe?” Prin stood up and positioned himself protectively between Elwin and Aster. The fairy joined him, hovering over his right shoulder.

And if Elwin wasn’t mistaken, he got the impression the little thing was glaring angrily at him.

“That won’t happen.” Elwin said calmly. “But we certainly don’t have time to stand around and argue about it.”

Prin crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I don’t like any of this.”

“Neither do I.” Elwin said. “Just ask her if she’ll do it.” He gestured at Aster, who hadn’t shown any particular signs that she would, or could, answer the question.

Prin turned back to Aster. “Oh what should we do? Do you want us to sneak you out of here in a trunk?” He suddenly got a stricken look on his face. “I think . . . she may not want to go anywhere at all with me. Not ever again. This is basically kidnapping.”

Elwin sighed. “Well, as you already said, she can’t be left here. Especially since . . .”

“Fire.” Aster said. She opened her eyes, but they were glittery, distant.

“Even if we don’t burn it down, she may be seen as a murderer. Who would ever believe . . ?” Elwin continued.

“Yes, but who would believe Aster did this?” Prin said.

“I mean . . . no one with any sense.” Elwin said. The same no ones who would ever believe you did it yourself. Some people don’t care about having any sense, and they are sometimes right.

“We’ve got to go. One way or another, we’ve got to go.” Elwin urged. He tossed some clothes on the floor near the body and poured lamp oil out on the clothes. A minty green dress with flourishes and ribbons in complimentary shades of pink, a jaunty asymmetrical hemline giving it extra flair. A yellow and white ruffled confection with a polka dotted under skirt, like an exotic lemon pastry. It did seem like a desecration of the highest order to destroy Aster’s lovingly handmade creations. But he didn’t have time to stand around and be sentimental about it.

“Oh wait, wait!” Prin said. He walked around the room wild-eyed and gesturing here and there with his hands. “Aster’s beautiful things . . ?”

“None of it matters all that much.” Elwin said. “I’m sure.” Especially not if we let her die from blood loss and shock. But he didn’t say this out loud.

Prin sighed hard and took a deep breath. “She’s going to hate me after all this.” He said. But as he said it he wasn’t standing around like a tree stump, he was going into action. He opened the wardrobe and found a cloth bag, for shopping maybe, and put Aster’s robe and a clean set of bloomers and chemise. Then he went to the vanity and scooped small things out of the drawers, and took the journal that had been taped underneath. He picked up the kit of incense like pieces with a potent herbal, medicinal smell and picked the matches out, leaving the rest behind. He handed the box of matches to Elwin. “Better than nothing I guess.”

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“She’s not going to hate you.” Elwin said. “Aster wants to leave this place. It’s not like she wasn’t looking for an opportunity.” He picked her up out of the bed, tucking the warm shawl around her as her eyes fluttered shut again.

“No, I mean, for before . . . what I did.” Prin said glumly.

“Let’s angst about that later.” Elwin suggested. He sat Aster down gingerly in the trunk. She just fit with her knees bent, but it worked. The old lock had been busted out at some point, leaving a hole in the side. “No need to worry about the breathing part.” He put the stuffed bunny in her arms for comfort. Suddenly thinking she looked like a child, which he guessed people more often did when they weren’t well.

Elwin went to the wall that faced the woods, or well, something desolate he hoped, he couldn’t really remember, and looked for a weak spot. Something moved under his hand. There was a spot where the ramshackle wooden wall was both loose and wet from some sort of roof runoff or leak. “Right here.”

Prin put the meager bag of things in with Aster and went over to Elwin to see for himself. He pushed on the wall and his hand went through the mushy boards. “Yuck.”

Elwin broke it apart, enough so for both themselves and the trunk to fit through. He paused now and then to listen, to hear if any footsteps were coming toward them, or anyone seemed to be commenting on the commotion. Although he didn’t think he was being very loud, all things considering.

“Okay.” Elwin took a deep breath and struck a match. “Here I go.”

“Are you sure it’s the right thing?” Prin chewed on his lower lip. His face pale above the gory landscape of his blood-stained clothing. Like a disaster victim, like the end of the world.

“No. But I think it’s the only thing.” Elwin lit the pile of oil-soaked dresses. “I just hope it burns well.” He quickly shut the lid on the trunk, and Aster’s pale face like a painting of a dead queen, and pulled it out the hole in the shack’s wall, herding Prin out ahead of him.

Luckily Elwin’s hunch had been right and behind the shack was a quiet stretch of trees. He felt a twinge of worry about the chance of the fire causing wider spread damage then he had thought. But what choice did he have? It was self preservation . . .

Smoke was already crowding along behind them before they had disappeared into the woods.

Just at the tree line Prin stooped and picked something up.

“Hurry, hurry, Prin.” Elwin urged. He was pulling the trunk along and it was no problem at all, it had probably weighed more with the sewing materials inside then it did now. Still, it was hard to make it go smoothly over the brush, and Aster was being very quiet. Unnervingly quiet. This could be a problem quiet.

“Sorry, I just – Maybe it’s Aster’s.” Prin rolled something around between his fingers, and when Elwin got close enough to see it, it was a pink-gold ring that glinted in the morning light like watered down blood. It was tiny, and Prin put it on his pinky for safe keeping.

“She does have small fingers.” Elwin said, distracted. Now he was rolling the trunk over the knobly roots of old trees, trying to somehow roll it smooth and slow while still moving quickly. He resisted the urge to open the lid and peek inside. He could smell smoke although he couldn’t see it anymore.

“Why are there always rings everywhere? Do people drop them that much? They fall off?” Prin was looking at his hands, and the four – now five rings.

“I suppose so.” Elwin said. He wondered if they were going in the right direction. Wait, the right direction for what? Where were they trying to go, anyway? A tree branch smacked Prin, and then him. “Oof.”

“They never fall off me.” Prin observed.

“We have to hurry.” Elwin said. Prin must know this already but he seemed to be getting distracted.

“But where the hell are we going?” Prin asked. He threw his hands up in the air in premature defeat and looked back at Elwin.

He was very calm for someone accepting his own doom.

“I don’t know.” Elwin said, suddenly realizing it. “But we have to get there faster.”

The prince laughed. “There is only one place we can go. Though I hate to further involve them.” He turned back towards the trees again and kept trudging. “I guess they’re in it up to their eyeballs already anyway.”

Elwin wanted to argue but he could not. “Do you really think they’ll keep it a secret . . . that Aster is there . . . Or, the state, the state of us this morning? If the other one comes poking around . . .”

“The Captain will.” Prin said. “And, of course, Valor. I don’t know about the others.”

“The captain will help us.” Elwin didn’t like to trust it, but what choice did they have at this point.