"Please take a seat" Astred's voice reached him.

Percy did not even think to object that it was far too dark for him to see where he might sit. He merely stumbled forward, groped blindly for a chair, found one, and sat. He was bound tightly by nothing. That darkness, that scent, that urge to do as he was told.

From of the darkness, a lamp sighed a weary light. Astred sat facing him. They were alone: the darkness left untouched by the lamplight was quiet and still. There was nothing to see other than that man before him, and yet, it was impossible for Percy to focus on him. There were eyes, yes; and a mouth, and a nose, and hair. Dark brown hair, and a face that was pleasant, if unremarkable. Percy felt that he could not hold those features in his mind, could not commit them to memory: there was no closing in on them. They were as the waters of a river, carving its bed and leaving it behind as soon as they made their impression on it. Percy knew that, even if he was met with entirely different features when he was next summoned, still he would recognise that man: not for the traces of his face, but for the traces it did not leave.

"Did Sir Evans succeed in breaking the curse?"

A question that wasted no words and no preambles, a precise cut from knives already sharpened. That man would carve a straight road ahead of him wherever he determined to go; through bedrock or flesh, carve it all the same.

"Yes" Percy answered. He thought he had spoken normally, but his voice dropped in the darkness like a pebble thrown into a well.

"And how did he break it?"

He knew by now that there was little point in wasting his breath – and how scant, how precious it seemed to him now – by protesting that, surely, Astred had already heard it all from Evans himself. Percy started to weave his tale, recounting their arrival in the city, how he had been taken into the house and opened the door for the others, how Evans had spoken to Armand, summoned the enchantress...

"And then..." his voice faltered.

Anyone else would have picked up his words where he had left them. 'And then?', they would have repeated, perhaps with coaxing kindness, perhaps with growing impatience, but either way, handing him the thread of his tale so that he might keep spinning. But Astred merely watched on.

"And then" Percy continued at last, dragging himself painfully through that silence, "he kneeled before the sorceress, and he pleaded with her to see reason and to break her curse. And she did."

He could feel the straining of the truth he twisted now. It should not be so very hard; he had lied countless times before. But Astred's gaze flayed his mind, pierced his thoughts, threaded them as he wished with needle and twine.

"You pick your words carefully" the man said. "You say kneeled, when you could say prostrated. Pleaded, when you could say beg. Why flatter him?"

"I do not flatter him" Percy snorted. It was far too lowly a sound for such a venerable backdrop; and, in fact, it barely sounded at all.

"You do not chastise him, either."

"You wish I did?"

"You know what I wish you to do."

Percy felt a sudden despair at the blinding embrace of the shadows around him. He was often afraid of the dark. Not because he imagined monsters there lurking – he did, but he had been taught he would defeat them – but because he had a terror of losing his bearings. He had not managed to dust it off over the years; had not even tried, believing that as he grew older and wiser, the fear would leave him and seek other, younger, more foolish minds to haunt. As he had let it be, it had eventually settled into cobwebs that shrouded him in mute dread every time he met a dark room.

And here, in the night-soaked confines of this tent, he knew himself too well. He had his thoughts laid bare before him, and he found nothing to cover their shame.

"I've thwarted him where I could" he managed to mumble past the cobwebs.

"Tell me how."

Astred's tone was not disbelieving. He simply demanded to know.

"I question his authority. I oppose his plans. I... drag my feet, I – "

"You should never drag your feet. If you are to make his path difficult, you should apply yourself to it fully. Honour the power you have against him. That is not enough: they already expect you to question him and oppose him. Go beyond what they expect you to do. Ensure he struggles."

Somehow, his words sounded almost gentle to Percy, as gentle as other things could be: a gentle push into murderous waters, a gentle sip from a poisoned cup. He had to stop his own head from nodding, wrench it into stillness. But he knew his silence was taken as agreement.

"I will be riding past your town in a few days. If you agree to this, I will spread word of your exploits and see that people there know of your feats."

Percy was stunned for a moment. He tried again to focus on Astred. It was like tracing mist. But he noticed, at least, that the man's stare lingered on the golden beech tree clasp that Percy wore on his cloak – the same clasp that the fervent followers of the chosen one wore back in his hometown.

"I did not think you would offer to lie so willingly" Percy frowned.

"I would not be lying" Astred countered. "I would say you are making a difference, making history. That you will be remembered, and your name will live in legends. Is that not what matters to them? Do this, and that is what they will hear from me. They will be proud. None of it will be a lie, not if you respect your purpose. I'm sure Evans' nanny told you your village seers are mere charlatans, but you should believe them when they say you were seen by his side in events that will change the course of history."

'Nanny', he said in a mouthful of disdain, as though he wished every child was sent off by themselves to kill their weakness in the woods. Percy stiffened, felt a bestial thing scratch its claw down his back. He missed that water-drop. The smell of the incense clouded his mind.

"Is that why you perfumed this tent with juniper incense?" he asked suddenly. "To make me long for home? What a cheap trick."

Astred smiled. There was nothing unpleasant or nasty about it, though there was no warmth to it, either. It was just a stretch of his lips.

"You would find no incense burner here. It is not a trick. It is your own scent, that you bring with you. This tent is enchanted to block out outside influences. I do not care for noise. And the enchantment also intensifies what is inside. Whatever incense you smell, it is what is most true to you."

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Percy stared at him, peered into that mist. Somehow, he believed Astred. And he hated to think he had carried that scent of incense with him all that time.

He thought of the night before, in the room with Evans, when he had given up on one of his many lies for fear it would create a gap – not that he truly knew what that even meant. And yet, he looked at Astred now with a crooked grin. A part of him was certain that the tent's shadows would obscure it, to spare their master the sight of it.

"Your offer of spreading heroic tales of me in my town... you would not lie. You might create a gap."

"I'm surprised to learn he's told you about gaps."

Percy grew very still and quiet under his cobwebs. It had never crossed his mind that he might not be supposed to know about gaps – that Evans would consider him worthy of sharing a secret with. But he composed himself quickly. He was perhaps a little out of practice, but he knew well how to put on outraged confidence to hide outrageous ignorance.

"I knew about gaps already" he said. He even threw in all the frills he had by now mastered: the slightly upturned nose, the pursed lips, the pinched brow.

This time, there was amusement in Astred's smile.

"I am glad to know your education was thorough. As it ought to have been, with one such as you."

The incense was turning to stench. All he wanted was to leave.

"You did not answer me earlier. Why do you flatter him?"

"I said I do not flatter him."

Something stirred in the murk of Astred's features. A passing thought seemed to arrest him for a moment, but he quickly tossed it aside. Percy looked at Astred's hands, poised on the arms of his chair. Then he thought of Myrtle's hands, always so busy arranging the world around her. Those hands he saw before him now were made for discarding. For throwing away. They were shaped to scorn the world.

"You may leave."

Percy was so quick in his exit that he remembered none of it; not even how he had managed to find his way out of that darkness. In comparison, the sun outside was painfully loud. Nearby, he spotted Valeria arguing with a guard.

"There are tents prepared for you" the guard was saying.

"No."

"The captain insists you spend the night here."

"No."

She turned her back on him and walked away. The guard, who was doubtlessly less polished than his breastplate, raised his hand in a rude gesture.

"When you give me the finger and you're the only one who can see it" Valeria said as she walked on without turning to face him, "you're really just telling yourself to get fucked."

Percy ran to her, feeling every inch an eager child in need of comforting after a nightmare.

"Oh, Percy, thank goodness. You took a while in there, I was beginning to worry" she breathed in relief. He could hardly contain his joy as he realized that she did, in fact, look pleased to see him.

"How is Evans?"

"Why do you ask?" she retreated into suspicion, arching one eyebrow.

"Well... that man is pretty unsettling."

Valeria's eyes dragged reluctantly to the striped red tent. She nodded.

"We're not spending the night here. Come on."

Percy was glad to waste no time in getting as far away from that camp as possible.

They rode for the better part of the day, and passed several places that Percy thought would make ideal camping spots for the chosen one and his travelling companions: forest clearings with majestic waterfalls, towering cliffsides, venerably aged oaks, caves with perfectly round openings, ominous crags. Percy suspected they all had names written in grand bold letters on maps, names that would sound prophetic enough in the stories that would one day be told. But they rode past all of them, and stopped instead by a nameless outcropping of boulders and dried weeds. He seemed to be the only one bothered by the insulting banality of their campsite.

He had watched Evans as they rode – had even, to his mortification, been caught at it a few times – and he had found no change in his behaviour. Evans was neither quiet nor verbose, neither sombre nor suspiciously joyful: he merely looked, as always, like he was taking in the world around him, neither cowering under the heights of the mountains they rode by, nor thinking of them as peaks to be conquered. After a while, Percy was satisfied that Astred's and Evans' meeting in the tent had not been overly grim.

Just as they were settling down and making camp, an old peddler woman came their way, pulling a small cart stuffed full of clanking and clattering. It was filled to the brim with the mess of the world: empty jars, scraps of fabric, crumpled paper, threads tangled beyond any untangling, pair-less socks and shoes, a trickling of ribbons, a wealth of useless, pointless, mismatched trinkets. Her merchandise looked like throwaway scraps to Percy, and he was surprised to see Valeria go towards her while they tended to the horses and the campfire. She returned with a few colourful balls of yarn and a pair of knitting needles.

"I bought these for you" she said as she gave them to Myrtle. "I respect wanting to keep your hands busy, but I won't be able to lend you my hair anymore. My scalp feels like it has a dozen imps pulling at it. Make no mistake, I know I look stoic, but if I ever have to go through all that braiding again, I will cry like a little boy."

Right after supper, Myrtle took up the needles with a gleeful joy. She reached for a yarn ball of an exceptionally ugly yellow, while humming a tune that Percy recognized as one of Armand's drinking songs. The clicking of her needles tangled with the crackling of the fire. Valeria poured steaming tea from her loyal travel kettle into three cups. Evans, Percy realized, was gone. He had been sharing their conversation but a moment ago, and Percy hadn't even noticed him leaving.

"Peppermint tonight" Valeria decreed solemnly as she handed the cups out. "I'd say we've earned it."

"Where's Evans?" Percy asked.

"Wherever he needs to be, son."

She sat back down on the ground with a robust sigh. To watch Valeria sit down was a wonder in and of itself; there were mountains that collapsed with less of an earth-quaking impact.

"I'm knitting you a scarf, Percy, and you're going to wear it" Myrtle announced.

"Like hell I am" he grimaced at the ugly yellow. It was the colour of piss on a street corner.

"Yes you are, because I will have poured a lot of heart and effort into it. You will respect my handicrafts, you little shit" she said with a smile and, to Percy's astonishment, something that sounded close to affection.

"But a scarf, Myrtle? Are you sure you want to give me something to strangle you with?" he grinned.

"It'll be around your neck, I'll remind you."

"Over my dead body."

"That can be arranged too."

"I think I saw a ditch somewhere nearby" Valeria stated matter-of-factly as she sipped her tea.

Percy glanced about him. Still no sign of Evans.

"Valeria" he started, his voice sounding serious enough for her to look up from her mug. "Why didn't Evans intervene when the servants chased us out of Armand's house? Or even when Myrtle and I were fighting?

"What do you mean, 'why'?"

"Well... I assumed he was raised to... step into fights and resolve them when he sees them" he murmured.

Sitting beside him, Myrtle's knitting grew a little quieter. She pretended to be too focused on her task to pay any attention to the conversation, but Percy knew at once she was listening in – it was, he realized with a smirk, exactly what he would have done. Valeria waited a while, allowed the campfire to burn up a few moments, before she spoke.

"Yes, some people raised him to do that. But I raised him, too. Teaching him how to act was the easy part – there was barely any teaching for me to do with that. But teaching him when not to act, to accept when he can't fix things, to judge when he might do more harm than good – that was the hard part."

Percy nodded. Valeria prepared herself another pot of tea – "no point in cutting short a well-earned reward", she philosophised as she waited for the herbs to steep. Percy had the distinct impression he too had been left to steep in something.

When Valeria huddled under her blankets and became mountain, there was still no sign of Evans, but she did not look concerned. Myrtle, in what Percy had to reluctantly admit was a great show of wisdom, seemed to trust Valeria in most matters, and she too slipped into sleep soon after.

Percy himself was not ready for such wisdom. 'I pry on a need to know basis', Valeria had told him before, on a night not unlike that one. Very well; he needed to know.

He roamed about aimlessly for a while, finding nothing but lone trees that looked like lost men, and shadows that looked like gaps in the world. The moon's glow was almost cruel in how brightly it shone over the surrounding plain.

He spotted something at last. The whole field was a flash of silver. Sitting cross-legged at its centre, encircled by the tall grass, was Evans. He startled as Percy's steps neared him, and he fell backwards slightly, supporting his weight on one hand as the other raised a dagger.

"Who's there?"

"It's really not that dark" said Percy, taken aback.

"Oh, Percy. Sorry."

"I can't tell if that's relief or disappointment. Could you really not – "

Percy stopped, his steps stunned.

"Evans?"

"Yes?"

"Why are you sitting in the middle of a field, at night, on your own, blindfolded?"