King Venlaan summoned me the next morning, just as I finished breakfast alone in my room. I wiped the stray crumbs from my mouth and went to the throne room. I hardly slept last night, just tossed and turned.

I didn’t see Percy. I haven’t seen him since I found him - them - in the garden. I hoped I’d never see him again. The princesses weren’t there, either. The king and queen sat regally in their respective thrones. King Venlaan dictated his message, and I dutifully memorized it. “Horses will be provided,” he informed me. “Grab your knapsack and leave. Are there any provisions that you need?”

A true friend would be nice. “One candle, sir,” I told him. I’d left mine at the hotel. “And a couple rations, please.” I didn’t dare ask for a new bodyguard. Who knows what would come of that.

“They will be provided with the horses,” he told me. “You are dismissed.”

I bowed and left the room. My head buzzed with sleeplessness. I took the stairs to my room. When I opened the door, guess who I found that had the audacity to sit in my chair? “You!” I hissed. I roughly shut the door and strode over. The guilty look on his face told me all I needed to know. “Are you going to apologize, or are you going to rub it in my face? What did you tell her? That I’m a Freylandian? That I dropped the message? What? Don’t look at me like that. Are you going to say something or are you just going to stare at me like that?!”

He didn’t say anything, just looked at the floor with resignation when I finished my tirade. I sighed, my anger spent. My anger simmered beneath my skin. “Percy, we have no time for this. The king has horses ready for us now. Grab your knapsack. Let’s go.” I grabbed mine and stormed out of the room.

Percy met me at the stables. I didn’t even look at him. I packed my requested supplies, mounted the horse and maneuvered out of the palace grounds. I found the road to Caldey and didn’t look back.

That journey was the most awkward one I’ve ever made. The routine we’d created last time we rode horseback required us to trot for 4 hours, then stop for a half hour break. At each break, I kept my horse between us, so that I couldn’t accidentally catch his gaze. I didn’t share anything with him, not even a funny story like we’d gotten in the habit of.

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By the third break, we'd fallen into a routine. We'd picket the horses within reach of water and have a snack. I always tried to sleep a little. This time, I ate a piece of jerky as my horse drank from the stream. Bushes on the other side of the road rustled, and a raccoon tumbled out of the brush. Missing patches of fur created multiple bare spots in its coat. It looked at me with glassy eyes, cocked its head, spun in a circle, and stumbled toward me. What is wrong with this raccoon?! I couldn’t be sure until it shook its head and spit flew everywhere. Foam dripped from its jaws. Rabies.

I fumbled for my knife, in its case attached to my belt. The raccoon continued to stumble toward me. Its tail twitched. Before I could get my knife, a gunshot rang out and the fevered animal fell down dead. The horses shied a little, but they were used to the noise.

Percy lowered his pistol. He breathed a sigh of relief. “Are you okay?” He asked, and trotted to me.

“I’m fine. You?”

“Never been better,” he replied without a smile. He grabbed a stick, crouched by the raccoon’s body, and poked at it. More spit bubbled from its mouth. “I’m thinking rabies,” he told me.

“Me too. Did you see the way it walked?”

“Yeah, that was strange. Have you ever seen a rabid animal before?”

“No, but it’s one of those things that everyone knows, I think.” My heart pounded against my rib cage like a bird trying to fly away. God, what if that raccoon bit me? Or my horse? Or Percy? What would I have done?

“What should we do with its body?”

“Probably bury it.”

“That’ll take forever!”

“Or burn it.”

“The forest is too dry.”

“Look, there's a patch of soft dirt right there, between the trees. Let’s dig a hole and put it in there.”

“Fine.”

We each found a sturdy stick and scraped out a shallow hole bit by bit. I pushed its body into its grave while Percy hunted for some large rocks to deter scavengers.

After we finished, we hopped on our horses and left - we'd wasted so much time already. Percy brought his horse next to mine and this time, I didn’t go faster to avoid him.

“Callum,” Percy said. “Callum, I need you to know that Chantelle and I were only talking. Nothing else.”

“Okay, before you get any further, just stop. I don’t want to hear your lies or half-truths or anything else you are going to say to me. I don’t know what you two were doing for sure and I don’t know if I will forgive either of you, but especially you, if you did what it looked like you were doing." I nudged my horse to trot a little faster.