Firelle stood in the courtyard of his own castle, his jaw clenched and shoulders burning as Franco’s ninety armored men watched men watched his every move. A few minutes into the search of his property, they had found Lyle and sent him to wait in the courtyard with his father. The boy watched the men surrounding them with unease, clutching a book to his chest.

“How long is this going to take,” Lyle asked, looking up at his father.

“As long as it takes,” Firelle said, his voice terse. “The boy is looking for anything he can get his hands on, and with this kind of royal support, he’ll be damned if he leaves empty-handed.” With any luck, Marie would be able to feed the idiot a red herring to control the damage. As long as they got through the day with the Reinbahm family intact they will have won. This was obviously a calculated attempt to bring down their house, but who could have known the girl was here?

“Are you talking about-“ Lyle was interrupted by a hiss from his father, who directed a burning gaze toward him.

“Understand that the best thing you could do for our family right now is to stay silent until our guests have left.” Firelle said, glancing up at the royal guards standing around them. Thankfully Franco was of the belief that women and children had nothing particularly important to say, because if he heard one mention of a particularly athletic girl with red hair scaling the walls or training with Jon, he’d be on them like a bloodhound.

The fool should have separated every man from each other and interrogated them all individually, but instead he rounded all Firelle’s men up into the same place, which made it easy for Marie to magic whispers in every one of their ears, instructing them not to mention Princess Ariana on pain of death and provide them a cohesive story.

A wooden door slammed against the stone wall as Franco burst out into the courtyard. Firelle turned to face the furious Inquisitor, struggling to keep his straight face. Franco’s face was like a thundercloud as he approached, violating Firelle’s personal space as Marie followed behind, her hands fisted in her skirts.

Firelle glanced at his wife’s demeanor. Something was off. The Inquisitor hadn’t found anything damning, or he’d be gloating. Why didn’t she feed him a red herring, and why did she appear distressed?

“Where are you hiding him?” Franco said, his breath tickling Firelle’s beard and grabbing his attention back to the High Inquisitor.

Him? Firelle thought, confused. Franco should be here to look for the girl. Who else would he be looking for? “Who?” he asked, not specifying a gender in case this was a mislead.

“You know who,” Franco said, his lips downturned in a snarl.

“No, I don’t. can you not say?” Firelle asked, his mind racing.

“Every perfectly clean record I find is simply more proof of a deliberate, premeditated attempt on the throne. You’ve been keeping your records clean to keep your distance, so you can pretend to swoop in at the last minute like a perfect vassal, only to undermine the king’s authority.

Franco was only part right. “So no proof of anything is proof of treason?” Firelle asked, raising a brow. “A strange world you live in, High Inquisitor. By that logic, we should lock up our young men until they commit their first misdemeanor. Unless they are executed for treason first.”

“Damn it, Reinbahm!” Franco shouted, shaking Firelle’s jacket in a move that came perilously close to an assault on a landed lord. “I’ll tear this place apart piece by piece and burn it down if it’ll drag out the one you’re hiding!”

Firelle opened his mouth to call Franco’s bluff. “Uncle!” came a young woman’s shout, and a girl wearing a yellow dress threw herself into Firelle’s arms, causing the aging lord to groan and take a few steps back. “Play along.” Came a whisper in his ear, followed by the sharp sting of pointed steel against the back of his neck.

“Uncle, I just got out of the bath and there were soldiers everywhere, what’s going on?” Ariana Heartglow Fellianore said, grinning up at him as she detached herself from Firelle, a glint of metal flickering in her hand, stowing the knife in her sleeve.

“Who is this?” Franco demanded, and Firelle suddenly knew he’d been outmaneuvered.

“Anna Gulivere, my lord,” Squirrel said, stretching her hand out to Franco’s with a glittering smile. She was, for all appearances, a vivacious young noble lady. “Aunt Marie and Uncle Firelle’s niece.” Firelle’s brow lowered. He did indeed have a niece on Marie’s side of the family by that name, but he’d never said her name to Ariana.

It didn’t matter, the point was lost. If he didn’t support her claim, Franco would start asking the wrong questions, maybe even take her in. So many of those roads lead to their beheading as traitors. Franco was stupid, but not to the point where he’d overlook something like this.

Firelle opened his mouth to corroborate her story when Franco caught Ariana’s handshake and pulled her in close, tearing away a swath of her dress covering her chest. “Thought you could trick me again, you bastard?” he shouted.

Ariana and Marie let out shrieks of dismay as Franco manhandled Araiana by the hair. Firelle’s jaw dropped, he had no idea where the inquisitor’s aggression was coming from.

“In the cell and with those beggars! Thought it was funny eh, Mr. Nonextas?” Franco shouted as he dragged Ariana about by the hair. Firelle stood slackjawed for only an instant before leaping into action. He could tell Ariana’s plan to leave had gone awry, and if he managed the situation well, he could cut off the path of her escape.

Franco was tugging on Ariana’s hair, increasingly perplexed, when Firelle’s fist caught him square in the nose, forcing him to drop the girl, and reel backward, clutching his face.

“What in the three hells do you think you’re doing to my niece?” Firelle said before turning to place his coat around Ariana and begin guiding her away, toward a place where she could be kept under control. Ariana, loathe to cooperate with him, began to bawl and collapsed onto her knees, hugging the cloak around her protectively.

Firelle wanted to curse her soundly, but he couldn’t simply haul her over his shoulder and carry her away. Besides the questions he might receive, the girl was still carrying a knife up her sleeve.

Franco stood, holding his bloody nose, mortified at his own behavior. The hair had been attached to her head, the dress had been real, and her breasts... A lead weight settled in his stomach as he watched Firelle kneel down and comfort the young lady. Franco glanced around, and saw his own men watching him with confusion and horror.

“Shit,” Franco cursed under his breathe before dropping down to his knee and bowing his head. “I beg your forgiveness young lady!” Franco began groveling, trying to save the situation by any means necessary. “I’ve been hunting an Illusionist over the course of my duties, and your presence here was suspicious, but I had no right to do that to you. Is there anything I can do to earn your forgiveness?”

“I want to go home,” the young lady sobbed over and over, rocking back and forth as Firelle raised his gaze to Franco. The High inquisitor had said he earlier, and that he was hunting an illusionist. Firelle only knew one person who could irritate someone that badly. Franco was hunting Toren, who must have humiliated him enough to goad him into assaulting a noble lady.

Firelle scanned the crowd, but he didn’t see anyone stifling smug laughter. There was only one way Ariana could know the name of Toren’s cousin, and that was if he had told her himself.

Ariana wept beside Firelle, babbling about wanting to go home. Franco took a step forward, kneeling in front of her. “Please, allow me to escort you home,” he said, his voice contrite. “I feel awful about this.”

Ariana’s weeping dried up with a few hiccups. “Really?” she asked, before Firelle stepped in between them.

“It’s fine, High inquisitor,” firelle said, trying to head off the conversation. “I’m sure she’d feel much safer escorted by her uncle’s men.”

“But I’ve always admired the Inquisitors,” Ariana said from behind him. “And all your horses have come down with a fever. He said it was a mistake uncle.”

“I know, dearest, but-” Firelle said before being interrupted by franco.

“I’ll take care of it,” Franco said with pride, “You’ll be safer among my men than in your own home.”

Firelle was afraid that might be the case, and he decided to cut his losses after one more ploy. “Very well, you may take Anna to her home in the Gulivere Vale.” The Gulivere Vale was thirty miles out of Franco’s way. A week’s march out of his way, with the wages of a cohort of royal soldiers, the expense wasn’t insubstantial.

“Umm…” Franco said, realizing his predicament.

“My father is in Illistaire for their annual wine celebration, my lord,” Ariana said, looking up at the two of them. “You can simply leave me with my father when you reach the capital.”

“Excellent,” Franco said, landing his fist in his palm. “Then it’s settled. After we’re done here, we’ll escort the lady back to her father in Illistaire.

Firelle sighed inwardly and resolved to catch her again after she escaped from Franco. He turned his gaze to Marie. “Marie, could you get a change of clothes for Anna here?” he said, glancing back at his wife before he furrowed his brows. Marie was staring at Ariana with the most visceral hate he’d ever seen on his wife’s face. “Marie?”

Marie looked back up at Firelle, and the vapid smile she used to mask her intelligence once again returned to her face. “Right away dear,” she said, her voice gentle and sweet.

****

Hours later, the Inquisitors assembled in front of the castle, forming a double marching line, their weapons thrown over their shoulders, a short train of wagons following behind them, laden with their food, tents, and shovels for the latrines. At the head of the marching order was Franco, sitting atop an armored white charger, with a commanding view of the countryside.

Beside him, Squirrel sat uncomfortably on a spare horse. Her troupe had never had the means to ride a horse for leisure, or travel. Her experience with them had been old nags yoked together in front of their wagon. The width of the horse upon which she sat, one of Franco’s spares, caused the joints in her hips to creak as her legs accommodated to the awkward angle.

Squirrel looked over her shoulder at Firelle and Marie, who watched them leave from the walls of their keep. She couldn’t make out his expression from this distance, and she found she didn’t care. Squirrel turned to face the road and slumped forward on her horse, utterly exhausted. Squirrels eyelids felt as though they were weighted down with lead

“Sit up straight,” the page standing beside her whispered, handing her a waterskin. “Falling asleep on a horse Isn’t ladylike. Besides, you need a plan for what to do after you escape from Franco by the time we hit Illistaire.”

Squirrel scoffed before taking a swig from the waterskin. “How the hell are you not exhausted?” she asked. “Every second of that charade felt like an eternity. I may be a performer, but lying doesn’t come easily to me.” Squirrel squinted at the castle over her shoulder. “I don’t have a plan, but I do have a goal.”

A thought occurred to Squirrel and she turned back to Toren, still in his disguise as one of Franco’s pages. “Did you know he would rip the dress off? That was humiliating.”

Toren chuckled as he walked. “Totally unscripted,” he said, gazing forward at Franco’s majestic figure leading them. “Sometimes it’s easier to predict a smart man than a simpleton.” Toren glanced up at Squirrel. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go break my parent’s legs, politically speaking.”

Toren slid a red notebook out from beneath his tunic with a grin.

***

Firelle stood on the palisade, watching the train of marching men disappear over the rise, his knuckles white on the rough stone of the young castle. Shortly after Ariana had left the front gate, Marie had wordlessly guided him to the room with his dead son. One look at the knife in his throat and his pants around his ankles, strewn across the floor with the other two dead men, told him all he needed to know.

“Send a message calling Harold back from the front lines,” Firelle said, his voice quiet as the princess disappeared over the horizon. “Invoke the law of protection of lineage.” Firelle glanced over his shoulder to the courtyard behind him, stomped to mud by a hundred boots. “Arrest Jon, he’s responsible for her escape. I’m fairly confident his allegiance has been compromised. Make sure Lyle doesn’t make any more trips to the capital. We need to protect our blood.”

Marie stood beside him as Firelle’s retainers began to scramble to follow his directives. As soon as the two of them were alone on the palisade, he spoke again. “Toren is alive. He was here, helping the bitch that killed our son. He’s who the high inquisitor was hunting. We’ll need to set up a net to catch them outside of Illistaire.”

“Leave them be,” Marie said, drawing Firelle’s attention. She stood stock still, standing arm’s length from him, the wind playing with a few strands of grey hair dislodged from her styled hair. “Let her distaste for our family end with Gerald’s death. If Toren succeeds in whatever misguided attempt he has planned, she will be indebted to him. No matter how much he wishes otherwise, he is a Reinbahm. Her favor upon him is favor upon us. For now, we will hide our fangs and build our strength, wash all our sins upon Gerald and wait until she trusts Toren completely. We will wait until her attitude toward us softens. When that day comes, we’ll kill them both.”

Firelle blinked, glancing over at his wife. “I’m so glad I married you woman,” he said, taking her cold hand in his own and pulling her to his breast. “You would have destroyed the Guiliveres, yet you bring me such happiness.”

“And I am grateful you could pay my price, my lord.” Marie said, her breath tickling his beard before she pushed away from him. “But your negligence did allow my firstborn son to die.”

Firelle shrugged. “He was a twat.”

Marie giggled as he drew her back into his embrace.