Killian’s dark gaze bored into his soldier. ‘So handle it.’

‘It’s – it’s not – Lieutenant sent me to get your instructions, Major - he doesn’t know what -‘

‘Spit it the heck out, Brown.’

‘We received the king’s correspondence,’ Brown stuttered. He edged away, his lips pale. ‘The guild can’t spare any mages to help. Not for a week. All mages halfway decent for field work have been assigned elsewhere. King has requested you use any of the local mages.’

Killian’s jaw clicked. He stood up and stalked out of the cell, straightening his uniform as he went.

Gray strained his ears to hear them.

Brown stood at attention in front of Killian out in the corridor, but his gaze flickered onto Gray, then back at Killian’s face.

Killian snatched the correspondence from Brown.

Brown flinched.

‘Local mages?’ said Killian.

‘That’s the orders, sir.’

He groaned and adjusted his cap. ‘There are no mages here. Even as far down as Reviness. They’ve all damn disappeared.'

'Dis-disappeared, Major?' said Brown.

Killian seemed to deliberate. 'They might be here. I'm not sure. I can smell something - either mages or sorcerers - they’re here, skirting the town, same as Longwark. They’re playing some sort of fucking game of cat and mouse. It’s … unusual behaviour.’

‘What are your orders, Major?’

‘Get a group together. Get Lieutenant D’Orsay to lead you, but I want Codder in charge of tracking. Be smart about it. Mages are a tightly-knit lot. Protective of their own. Do what you have to. Question their friends, their familiars. Go to Sirentown, if you must. Bring me a mage. A good one. They need to be able to fahren large distances.’

Gray sat up slowly, pushing aside the pain in his ankle and various other pulsating injuries littering his body, as he cautiously watched the two men through the doorway.

Killian said something low and soft to Brown that Gray didn’t catch, and then turned and saw him watching.

Gray swallowed and lowered his gaze.

The door clicked as Killian strode back in. He crouched in front of Gray. ‘Eavesdropping, kid?’ His tone was softly polite, but there was an edge to it that hadn’t been there when he’d spoken to Gray a minute ago.

‘No,’ Gray lied.

Killian offered his hand. ‘As much as I love this vomit hole, we’ve got to go pick a fight with a sorcerer.’

Gray stared at Killian’s outstretched hand. There was no damn way Gray was going to help this man. This man was delusional.

Physically fighting against him, though, was not an option.

Pushing down every screaming instinct within him, Gray grabbed Killian’s wrist and let him haul him to his feet.

Filtered sunlight lit the prison corridor.

The familiar faces of some of Krydon’s guards were pressed to the barred windows from inside the cell doors.

The sounds of them shifting, coughing, and softly talking echoed off the walls.

Killian’s imprisoned the entire Kyrdon guard, Sorena had said.

You scared the shit out of your guards, the rookie had said.

Gray felt the burn of their gazes tracking him and Killian down the corridor.

The Krydon guards inside the cells were growing quiet.

Killian manoeuvred Gray past the soldiers on duty and around the corner.

Gray staggered, but Killian kept him upright. Gray couldn’t help the moan that worked its way out of his throat at the sight of the set of stairs leading up out of the prison.

‘Come on, then.’ Killian hefted Gray’s weight a little. ‘Up we go.’

They set up the dirty stone steps. Sludge dripped from a pipe further up, and it clung to the cracks in the stones and dribbled down.

‘You’re looking pale, there, Gray.’

Gray strained to keep his grimace in check. Sweat beaded his face. His ankle was on fire. It was agony, every step.

They reached the landing. Gray choked back a sob, hating himself. His pulse pounded in the wound from the mugger’s attack. Killian hustled him along a stone corridor, not even out of breath, the stench of the prison ebbing away.

In the hall, paused before them with a folder clutched in her fist, was Poppy, Mayor of Krydon. Her salt and pepper hair was not in its usual neat bun.

Their gazes met, and then she slammed through a door and disappeared.

Killian took him out a side door, through the garden, and into the streets.

After ten minutes of Gray being hoisted alongside Killian, and seeing the few townsfolk scurrying on the street away from them, Killian dumped Gray in a chair outside a coffee den on the outskirts of Krydon’s border, that looked out onto the mountain and forest.

Killian went inside to order, while Gray wiped sweat off his brow and tried to push down the screaming pain in his ankle.

Killian came back with a mug of coffee for himself, and a glass of water for Gray.

Gray watched him sip his coffee, fury and confusion swirling inside him.

‘See here,’ said Killian, leaning back and propping his elbow on the back of his chair, ‘we act like we’re talking. We’re talking about something important. You should lean forward and whisper.’

Gray stared at him.

Wariness coiled through the confusion within him. This man, his bearing, his movement, was different to the man he’d been moments ago in the prison and the corridors. He reminded Gray of the stage players who travelled through Krydon during the summer festivals. They wore masks layered upon their faces - they’d finish playing one character, pull off a mask, to reveal the mask of another character underneath.

Killian in front of his men was dangerous. Killian on his own was … unpredictable.

‘Help me out here, kid,’ said Killian. ‘I thought we had an agreement.’

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Gray swivelled his glare to the tree line.

‘Not exactly the chatty type, are you?’ Killian said. ‘No matter. It’s probably enough for him just to see you with me. If he’s watching.’

Gray reached for the glass of water. His fingers trembled.

‘You didn’t finish your oats?’ said Killian.

Gray hesitated.

'What do you want?' Killian jerked his chin towards the coffee den.

Gray’s muscles in his shoulders were bearably stiff. Confusion peaked within him. Maybe this man was actually delusional, in the medical sense.

Maybe he was nuts.

More likely, though, this was Killian’s attempt for Gray to drop his guard and - what? Reveal his magic again? Confess his papers were indeed false? Tell him the coordinates of Longwark’s location in exchange for a damn coffee?

‘I,’ said Gray, carefully, ‘I really want a bath.’

‘I don’t think they sell those here,’ said Killian.

He disappeared back into the coffee den.

Gray glanced back out to the forest. If his ankle hadn’t been wrecked, he could’ve run into the treeline, easy.

Killian dropped a sweet bun in front of him, and Gray started.

The bun was huge, with sticky peach icing and coconut dusting the top. Gray normally would’ve devoured it in ten seconds flat. Now, though, the smell alone made his stomach churn. His jaw was sore and stiff. His lip was busted. Physically, eating that thing -

‘Eat, kid. You’re no good to me if you pass out.’

Killian was watching him. He was watching every move.

Slowly, Gray went to pick it up, but then stopped, glancing at his hands.

They were filthy. Torn up. His nails were caked with moss from the prison cell floor.

He battled with himself for a moment, before glancing around for something - a cloth, a napkin, a water fountain - to clean them.

His stomach churned, hot and volatile. He could smell the bun, smell the hot sugar, the coconut.

‘Here.’ Killian offered his handkerchief.

Gray paused, his shoulders tight.

Killian waited, holding the handkerchief. It fluttered in the breeze, and then stilled.

‘I’ve worked with you creepy bastards long enough to know your ways,’ he said. His cold gaze settled on Gray’s face, in the same way a mountain lion’s gaze would settle on a passing meal. ‘Well, not sorcerers, so much. Never sorcerers, actually. You're the longest I’ve kept a sorcerer alive.’

Gray stared at him and imagined ten different ways he could kill him.

‘But,’ said Killian, his teeth bared in a horrible smile, ‘your genetic cousin, the mage? Plenty. And it’s all the same shit.’ He waved the handkerchief. ‘Go on.’

‘If you’re trying to get me to react,’ said Gray, ‘if you think Longwark will come out because he thinks I look uncomfortable or angry, you’re going to be talking nonsense like this all day. He won’t care.’

Killian carefully stashed his handkerchief away.

He straightened from his relaxed posture and sipped his coffee, his entire bearing controlled.

‘You’re angry,’ said Killian lightly.

Gray kept his jaw shut, already regretting opening his damn mouth.

He would’ve done better to keep completely silent.

He should’ve let Killian rabbit on.

Carefully, Gray kept still. Calm. ‘Do I look angry to you?’

‘It wasn’t a question, kid.’

Gray drew in a long and slow breath.

‘Most people,’ said Killian, ‘it’s relief. Sometimes fear. Anger, however? That’s unusual.’

Gray slowly took up the bun. He desperately tried to ignore the filthy conditions of his hands. Tried not to care, not to think.

Killian sat in steely silence while Gray took tiny bites of the bun, until he managed to eat about half of it.

He dragged Gray to the blacksmith near the road to Sirentown, barking at Gray to stand where he could be seen from the road when Gray attempted to lean in a pocket of shade against the side of the smithy.

He did the same when he hauled Gray to the fruit shop near the road to Reviness, and to the leather shop and mill that backed onto the stream that ran down from the mountain.

By the time they stopped at the butcher near one of the forest trails, Gray was covered in sweat from the effort of hobbling, and his stomach churning.

Gray leant against the cool glass outside of the butcher display. He glared at his feet to avoid the stares from any passing townsfolk, tried not to hear the shocked whispers of ‘Barin’s boy?’, or the oily catcall from a soldier passing by the end of the road. He listened to Killian try to order meat from the butcher. The butcher refused to speak Lismerian and was calling Killian every northern slur under the sun, in a friendly, polite tone.

Gray hid a small smile.

Gray slid down and sat, not caring he was on the hard, cobbled ground, and eyed the grate in the middle of the street. If he could get over there, pull up the grate -

A shadow fell over him.

Killian cocked his head. ‘You’re not so visible tucked down there, Gray. Bait needs to be seen. Come on, stand up.’

Gray fisted his sweaty hands. ‘I need more water,’ he said stiffly.

‘This is the first damn thing you’ve said to me in nearly an hour. You must really need that water.’

‘Yes.’

Killian considered him. ‘Tell you what. I’ll get you that water. I’ll even get you something for the pain. I’ll let you have a damn bath. But, you talk to this idiot in the butcher for me, and then, later, you answer my questions.’

Gray hesitated.

Every fibre within him was fighting against helping Killian in any way.

But, if Gray was going to figure out how to get the heck out of this situation, he needed to know Killian. He needed to know how to make Killian slip up.

Maybe, if Gray got Killian talking about something other than bullshit, Gray would learn a weakness.

‘Hm?’

‘Yes,’ said Gray.

‘Yes, what?’

‘Yes, Killian.’

A pause. ‘Close enough.’

Killian hauled Gray inside the cool shop of the butcher. The butcher was one of Barin’s suppliers for the Tipsy Stag tavern, and she nodded tightly at Gray, her wild red hair pulled back underneath a white cap. A tiny black crow was tattooed underneath her left eye, and she had kohl lining her intelligent brown eyes.

‘I need enough meat for my division for two nights,’ said Killian. ‘Fifty pounds of good meat - beef or lamb.’

Gray translated this to the butcher.

‘I’ll give him off cuts and dog meat,’ said the butcher in fast northern. ‘Are you all right, lad?’

‘Yeah.’ Gray swallowed. ‘Careful. He's sharp.’ He glanced up at the hard face of Killian, and said to him in Lismerian, ‘She doesn’t have it. Let’s go.’

‘Tell her to get it,’ said Killian.

‘I think it’s better we go,’ said Gray.

Killian’s jaw tensed. ‘I need to feed my men. You don’t want to see them hungry.’

Gray hesitated. He didn’t want the butcher to get into strife. There was no way Killian was going to negotiate well with this butcher, striding into her shop in his Auguste uniform, after killing their Captain, stealing from their treasury, and imprisoning their guards. Her son was -

‘She’s refusing to sell me the meat?’ Killian said, softly.

‘No,’ said Gray at once. ‘Uh,’ to the butcher in quiet northern, ‘He and his men’ll be angry if they don’t get good meat.’

‘There’s a lot of angry people here, lad,’ said the butcher. ‘He gets meat from me, there’ll be poison in it.’

Gray refused to glance at Killian. There was a certain appeal in poisoning the Major and his men.

But, if the king got wind of it, Krydon would be burned to the ground.

‘She doesn’t have it,’ Gray said in Lismerian, staring hard at his boots. ‘She’s a small butcher. Let’s just go.’

Killian refused to move.

‘I,’ said Gray. ‘I know where you can get food. Better than here.’

Silently, Killian bunched up the back of Gray’s sweater in his fist, and stalked out of the butcher, dragging Gray with him.

They made their way through the alleyway, back the way they’d come. Gray’s ankle was on fire. He stumbled.

‘She’ll be reported,’ said Killian coldly. ‘For refusing to-’

‘There’s meat in the tavern,’ said Gray, quickly. ‘In the cellar. We source the best meat, it’s good. Your men’ll like it. With Barin gone … it’ll just be sitting there. We have meat, ale, fruit, everything. OK? It’ll feed your men for a few days at least.’

Killian stopped, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

‘You don’t want her meat, anyway,’ said Gray. He wiped his brow with a trembling hand. ‘Ours is better.’

His dark gaze was fixed on a point down the street. He was quiet for so long that Gray followed his line of sight.

Nothing. Just an empty street, with some rubble piled on the corner from when the griffin had rampaged through.

Perhaps this was how Killian thought. Barin would sometimes do the same thing when adding sums.

‘Ours is better,’ said Gray, more firmly. ‘Don’t trouble yourself, writing out a report. You must be busy. She’s done you a favour, I swear.’

Killian slowly shifted his dark gaze onto Gray. There was a strange quality to it that Gray couldn’t decipher.

‘Back to the office,’ said Killian. ‘I have some questions for you, while you’re being talkative.’