A small well sat to the side of the barn, and he hooked the bucket to the rope and worked the handle, pushing it harder than it needed to be, his arms straining even though the bucket dropped smoothly. Just this morning, his muscles were under a different strain, restringing his bow with cheap thine, growing ever more frustrated at the cord snapping. This morning they were ready for the war to become apocalyptic, for the already rough fight against the Wild Folk turning to a horrid massacre, and Eldwylle Castle was right in the middle of the potential bloodbath. Instead something had snapped in the air. Something had changed. Something was missing.

  Now Heddwyn was gone, and Wil could still feel the weight of the little prince barrelling into him, and the pull of fabric as he was torn away. Wil had no idea where the little scrap of fabric had gone, but he could still hear Rhoswen’s screams at the realisation.

  The rope in the well went slack, and Wil changed the direction of the handle, now pulling with a force that the well didn’t need. His brain was clicking and popping like a fire that refused to start, refusing to think of anything that could fix this. He could prove he had nothing to do with it, that none of them had been responsible, but how?

  The knight upstairs was a Mysica. Once in a generation, born with mystical powers, and the chances of him running into one were next to nothing, but being stuck with one? Maybe there was something there, but Tseren had known something was happening. She had been staring at him, and she did have something going on. Maybe she knew. It was a start.

  The bucket rose out of the well, and Wil snatched it up, sweeping back into the barn and up the stairs. Mala had pulled the small table and the candle over next to Tseren, and she’d found a thread of twine somewhere, threading it through a thick needle that was hanging over the wick, glowing orange slightly. Wil dropped the bucket down in front of them.

  He stared at Tseren, and Tseren stared back, her face blank and unwavering. She didn’t seem to be studying him anymore, but it was hard to tell in such harsh shadows.

  ‘Did we ever find out who screamed?’ Mala asked. ‘The noise that sent us all down there.’

  ‘Me,’ Aric said. The kid had claimed one of the hay-beds, and was curled up into the pillow, his knees against his chest. ‘Me was the one screaming.’

  ‘Why?’ Mala asked. ‘What happened?’

  ‘He put something in me,’ Aric said. ‘It was in my head, and I couldn’t get it out. I saw him again and I hid in the room, and that’s when you came.’

  ‘Is it still in your head?’ Mala asked. ‘Whatever it is?’

  ‘It’s everywhere,’ Aric mumbled. ‘All over. I feel wrong and it’s weird and I can’t… it won’t go away. I don’t know what he did to me.’

  Tseren had turned to stare at Aric, studying him with that unblinking, silent gaze. As Mala fixed the needle and prodded at the bloody wound, now darker and larger with just her undershirt on, Tseren turned back to Wil.

  ‘Why are you staring?’ she asked.

  ‘Why were you?’ Wil asked. ‘Back at the palace. You were staring at me.’

  ‘Not at you,’ Tseren said. Mala pinched the skin around the wound and she hissed, stiffening as the needle eased into her skin. ‘The Wild Folk.’

  Mala paused as she threaded the needle through. ‘They were there the whole time?’

  Tseren nodded, then hung her head. ‘I didn’t do it.’

  ‘I know that,’ Wil said. ‘None of us did. It’s why we’re here in this mess in the first place.’

  ‘They think I did it because I didn’t warn anyone,’ Tseren said.

  Wil remembered King Bukidai then. You had one job. ‘You said you were hired, but it wasn’t as a Knight, was it? You were there to make sure the Wild Folk didn’t try anything.’

  ‘No,’ Tseren said. ‘Not that. Political things.’

  Mala frowned, pausing in her work again. ‘You’re not with Okhotur, are you?’

  ‘Don’t insult me,’ Tseren grumbled.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  At Wil’s confused look, Mala added. ‘They’re the warlords that have been running the Kingdom for over a decade now.’

  At this, Tseren shook her head. ‘Just Craioska. They don’t extend out of the city.’

  ‘That makes it better,’ Wil said drily. He shook himself. ‘Don’t take this the wrong way, but why didn’t you warn them? If you saw the Wild Folk hanging around, then it wasn’t them who took the kids? Something you didn’t see?’

  ‘I see magic,’ Tseren said. ‘That’s it. All magic, whether it’s shrouded or hidden or invisible.’

  Wil’s mind went blank. No wonder the King was desperate to have her around. ‘But you didn’t see what took the kids?’

  Tseren shook her head.

  ‘Is it possible you couldn’t?’ Mala asked. ‘They were taken one at a time and… pulled somewhere. Maybe the angle was so you couldn’t see it?’

  ‘Doesn’t work like that,’ Tseren said. Her voice was small, and she knotted her hands together, though it was impossible to know whether it was stress or the needle driving into her shoulder. ‘My powers have never failed before.’

  ‘The man in black,’ Wil mumbled. At this, Aric sat up, suddenly alert. At the girls confused glances, he rolled his eyes. ‘He showed up right before everything happened. He knew you were a Mysica too. It was the first thing he pointed out.’

  ‘Is that even possible?’ Mala finished her stitching and cut the twine with the same dagger that had tore into Tseren’s shoulder in the first place. ‘That he did something to your abilities?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Tseren mumbled.

  ‘Have you ever heard of a Wild Folk being able to do that?’ Wil asked.

  Tseren shook her head, then poked at the stitches neatly crisscrossing through her shoulder. Wil supposed people with her abilities were rare enough on their own. The chances of her meeting another one were slim to none; it wasn’t as though Mysica’s had a secret community to ask these things.

  ‘It doesn’t matter the details,’ Wil said. ‘We don’t know what’s going on. All I can really say is that the Wild Folk are behind this and we need to figure out where the kids went.’

  ‘You’re going to try and bring them back?’ Mala asked.

  ‘I am,’ Wil said. ‘If they’re blaming us, the only way to prove we’re innocent is to show them we didn’t do it.’

  ‘Don’t you worry that it looks like you’re covering up your tracks?’ Mala asked.

  Wil hadn’t thought of that. ‘One step at a time. Heddwyn could testify that I wasn’t involved, but right now I’m more concerned with where they went in the first place.’

  ‘I’m coming with you, if you hope to know,’ Mala said. ‘I’ve known those boys their whole life; I need to do something if I can. Whatever Shihoa has done to piss off the Wild Folk, they’re not the ones who should be paying for it. We’ve always had peace with the Night Creatures, and I don’t understand.’

  Children will always learn about consequences. Whatever reason that strange lord had, it had been intentional. Still, Mala seemed alright in terms of a companion. He could be stuck with worse. ‘I’ll take the company,’ he said. He glanced at Tseren, wondering if she would speak up also. On one hand, there was something off about the woman, in her silence and how she didn’t blink much, in how open she was about her lack of allegiance. On the other, having a mystic on his side would be valuable against the creatures of Réimse Fiáin.

  Tseren met his gaze. ‘No.’

  Wil blinked. ‘That’s not a comment about me, is it.’

  She glared at him. ‘I’m not rescuing them.’

  That was Wil’s answer then. At least she was honest about it. Still, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, ‘even if it clears your name?’

  ‘It won’t,’ Tseren said. ‘The King has decided. The twins did as well.’

  ‘So, that’s it?’ Wil had heard plenty of stories of how barbaric Bulartuug could be, a cutthroat mountain terrain where no King lived a year into his reign and blood stained the rivers red. He’d always assumed there was an element of hyperbole to the stories, but this felt somehow more brutal. ‘What are you going to do?’

  Tseren didn’t answer.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ Aric spoke up. ‘I want that bastard to pay for this. I want to know what he did to me.’

  ‘Of course you’re coming,’ Mala said. ‘It seems to me that you’re the key to all of this.’

  Wil fought to keep his face passive. Aric was a kid, not far past his twentieth year, thin and scarred and small. He almost wished he did have Tseren with him instead. Though, Mala was right; Aric was the key to this somehow. The man in black had singled him out. He turned to Tseren. ‘Can you… can you see what happened to him?’

  Aric perked up at the question, suddenly hopeful.

  Tseren frowned. ‘Not anything on him. But magic… it’s weird around him.’

  ‘Weird how?’ Aric asked. He tapped at his shoulder, gripping it tight and squeezing it. ‘He grabbed me like this. On my shoulder, and it went into the back. Then it was in my head, but it’s all over. Under my skin.’

  Tseren shook her head. ‘I don’t see anything now.’

  Aric’s face fell. ‘But I can still feel it.’

  Wil could still see the man standing over them, the one that looked human even though something was off. Why had he spoken to Wil at all, so openly admitted what was about to happen? If that was what it was. Wil still hadn’t seen it coming. Mala was right though, Aric was the key to this, and if the man in black wanted this boy to be a part of his plan, then Wil wasn’t let him out of his sight.