The Queen sat high upon her throne the next morning, a fur coat around her shoulders. Neither her husband nor her daughters were anywhere in the vicinity, but Cain didn't exactly care so much about that. He'd brought Jeb with him, keeping his boy in his arms while he walked with confidence and no fear before the Queen, giving her a bow of his head while he took off his hat.
He might have had no fear, but that didn't mean he was without respect. Adora, she…well, she would have had his head if he hadn't shown the Queen of the O.Z. the respect she deserved. Even the thought of Adora sent Cain into a moment of cold, brutal shock where he lost the ability to speak and he was immediately glad that Ambrose had tagged along to make proper introductions.
"My Queen, this is Wyatt Cain, one of the city's Tin Men," Ambrose murmured with great deference. "He was a member of the Mystic Man's protection detail and he wishes to leave his son in your custody while I escort him on a task."
"A task?" The Queen's voice was as clear as a bell and Cain found himself bouncing Jeb slightly to wake him up. It wasn't often that you got to be in the presence of the Queen and he wanted his son to remember this day.
"We need to find the Mystic Man and we both have a shared goal in finding a man named Zero," Ambrose said darkly.
The Queen seemed to take her time to mull Ambrose's words for some time, her beautiful lavender eyes falling on Cain in the meanwhile. Jeb had taken to sucking his thumb as he stared at the Queen and Cain did his best to pry the finger from his son's mouth, aiming for at least an inch of dignity while in the throne room. Eventually, her gaze drew itself to Jeb and a smile slowly dawned on her face, as if the suns peering out from the horizon.
"And who is this dear boy?" she invited.
Cain set him down on the ground and watched Jeb make his way slowly to the Queen as she beckoned him. He couldn't do anything but wander back to stand side-by-side with Ambrose and just hope that something good happened.
He really never expected what he saw.
In a matter of seconds, the Queen swooped Jeb up into her arms and began to whisper to him, rocking him back and forth and making small, magical lights with her fingers, delighting Jeb as she smoothed his hair back and asked him simple questions about his name and what had happened and when Jeb began to have problems relating what happened to Adora, the Queen soothed him and kept him in a gentle swaying motion.
"We'll take good care of young Jeb, Mr. Cain," the Queen promised. "My daughters will take the most responsible of care in regards to him. I will task Azkadellia with it specifically." She smiled softly at Jeb and then took a long look at Cain, which made him falter and for the strangest of reasons, he felt almost like he was about to fall to his knees in front of her.
"I will send you with my protection and my seal," she said, very seriously. "And we will care for your son as long as you wish it."
"If you don't mind me asking, Ma'am," Cain offered, clearing his throat and never knowing when to just let it be. "Why?"
"Because Ambrose asked it of me and I could never deny my dearest friend," the Queen insisted simply. Cain glanced to his side to catch the sheepish smile falling off Ambrose's face, who immediately stared at the floor when he realized that Cain was staring at him. Cain didn't take his eyes off of Ambrose, though he was pretty sure that the Queen was the more interesting of the two in the room. He'd just yet to figure out the Advisor's angle and he really didn't like being full in the dark about these kinds of things.
Why hunt Zero for something like a knock on the head?
Cain wasn't sure of all the answers yet, but he planned on finding out.
"We've got ourselves a deal, then," he informed Ambrose, sticking a hand out to shake. "First we find the Mystic Man, then we get Zero."
"Agreed."
*
In the morning, Ambrose was awakened by a heavy pack falling on his stomach.
He gave a cry of surprise, slowly sitting up and staring at his surroundings, panicking when he genuinely didn't know where he was or who was in the room with him and was this his bed? Who was he again? "Rise and shine, beautiful," a sarcastic voice alerted him and Ambrose tried to fix his bedridden hair as he slid a pair of reading glasses on and looked at the Tin Man, already equipped and ready to go.
At least he'd remembered him.
"What time is it?" Ambrose protested tiredly.
"Six in the morn, by the position of the suns. We're wasting daylight, let's go," Cain ordered briskly. Ambrose groaned and wanted to turn over in his warm covers and forget that he had ever agreed to go with this madman on his quest. "Your men gave us a lead on the Mystic Man's whereabouts and we're going there first. Wherever the Mystic Man is, Zero will be close."
Ambrose rubbed at his eyes and peered up at Cain, who had yet to show any emotion in the light of morning. Without his hat on, Ambrose noticed the way the light caught his pale hair and wished that he were more awake to deal with the rush of physical attraction that coiled in his stomach and pushed through his body, alerting other parts of him that it was, indeed, time to get up.
"Can I at least have some privacy to get dressed?" he snapped, hoping that it sounded officious enough to get Cain out of his eyesight until he could get himself into a presentable condition.
"Fair enough," Cain conceded and left the room before Ambrose's physical state could give him away. The warmth in his lower stomach turned hotter and hotter still as he took hold of himself and brought himself off in the early light of morning to the memory of large hands, cold eyes, and a strong jaw.
It didn't mean anything besides the fact that Ambrose had a keen eye for pretty things.
By the time Ambrose was ready to go, he had only wasted thirty minutes of daylight and had managed to groom himself, clean himself up, and feed himself in the space of a very short span of time. He smoothed a hand over his long, tattered green coat and a pair of rather sullied beige trousers. When he was done, he gave a nod to Cain. "While in town, refer to me as Glitch," he informed him.
"Why?"
"Because Ambrose is the Queen's Advisor." The pseudonym had something of ironic amusement to Ambrose considering the medic's words and rather than go by something from his past (that someone might yet recognize), he was going to indulge in the sordid little joke. If he was going to have moments where his brain didn't work right, he wanted at least one laugh from it.
"Where I come from, you say who you are and you deal with the consequences," Cain said lightly, his tone clear that he disapproved of Ambrose's version of espionage.
"And where I come from, announcing who you are at the door is asking to be shot and not all of us have a death wish," Ambrose retorted in turn, rolling his eyes as he clasped a pack and clutched it to his chest. "Well, let's go, before we spend the whole day arguing."
*
The streets of Central City were covered in the thick fog of both the weather and the dense steam that could choke a man from one too many exhaust pipes. Cain walked through the haze like a lone figure in the night, barely breathing in and keeping his hat tipped down to avoid the citizens seeing his face. Though it hadn't been very long – a matter of days, even -- Zero had been able to recruit himself something of a small force to fight against those who swore to defend the Queen and her family. Behind Cain, Ambrose followed carefully, constantly watching if someone was on their tail and refusing to say a word.
Cain liked that about him. He might have been a fancy Royal type, but he acted like a soldier in the field. He'd yet to see the other man actually fight yet and he spent his time slightly worried about that, mainly because Ambrose – sorry, Glitch, he was still getting used to the insistence of a code name -- never seemed to carry a weapon. As far as Cain was concerned, you used your own name, you carried a gun, and you walked swiftly. With Jeb in the care of the royal family, Cain could let his worry dissipate slightly, but he couldn't do much to make his grief fade.
All he could do was ignore it.
"Cain," Glitch-Ambrose hissed at him, dragging him back with one hand wrapped around his front and the other clapping over his mouth. He tugged him forcibly back into the shadows, just in time to avoid a couple of men in long coats searching the street for Tin Men to cart off for 'questioning'. Cain held utterly still, so much so that he was a statue in the shadows of the Central City alleys and he refused to move. Three days inside the tin suit had taught him how to rage against a hidden foe and had taught him how to remain perfectly patient, to refuse to move. They had to get to the Mystic Man, but they also needed to get there without being caught or else all was lost. Glitch's hand was hot over his mouth and Cain closed his eyes tightly as every muscle in his body froze in place and he stood there, no more than a figure in the alleyway. Eventually, the Longcoats moved on and Glitch relaxed with an audible sigh of relief.
Cain took that as a sign that he could move.
"Your guys said the Mystic Man was down the Old Road, just off a couple of blocks in the middle of town," Cain muttered under his breath, waiting for Ambrose to catch up and adjust his coat. "We have to get to him before he gets moved again or we're really out of luck."
"What building?" Glitch asked quietly.
"A place called the Old Performer's House," Cain said slowly, checking to the left, then to the right, gesturing forward. "C'mon," he hissed. "Cross. Now."
They made it across the street and down the way to the Old Performer's House with no trouble at all thanks to Cain's leadership and Glitch's uncanny ability to fold into the shadows and dispose of trouble before Cain even drew his gun from its holster. He'd have to ask later about where Glitch had picked up his ability to move like that. Cain knew Tin Men who had been trying for annuals to perfect subtlety and still couldn't even claim slight knowledge of the skill.
"Here," Glitch nodded to the door, hooking a hand over the belt-loop of Cain's coat and nearly shoving him inside. Cain made to protest, but his swears were cut off by a single finger of Glitch's to his lips, shooting Cain a 'don't even say a word' look. "Men, outside," he hissed, pushing Cain up the stairs. "I'd recognize Zero's little pet symbol anywhere. He's gathering himself a little band of thieves." Cain knew that better than anyone, seeing as they had come to his home to forcibly lock him away in what should have been his permanent prison.
Cain wasn't about to wait. There was a time to wait and think about plans and possibilities and there was a time to take action and Cain was a professional at being decisive. He kicked down the locked door, gun lifted with the safety off and he was ready for anything they might come across.
There was just a man tidying up the shambles of a room.
"Don't fire, please!" he begged immediately, tossing the broom to the ground to hold both hands up in the air as he looked at Cain in panic. Cain could sense Glitch moving in to stand behind him, but he didn't falter. He wasn't about to trust anyone, especially not in a climate that was growing more and more paranoid by the day.
"Where's the Mystic Man?" Cain demanded.
"Gods, I don't know!" the boy – had to be a boy, no more than sixteen – protested wildly. "Zero came in and took him away, said they had a show down on the South archipelagos with a stop by lake country!"
"The caves," Glitch murmured worriedly behind him.
Not one of the three men had to say a word to know that they were all thinking about the same thing. Two little princesses standing in a cave…
*
"That settles it," Cain said, holstering his gun as he stepped out into the alley. Now that the sun had started to trickle into the sky, he felt safe enough to actually step forward and bathe in the warm light. If Zero wanted to take him on with the citizens watching, then Cain would happily let him try just that.
"Settles what?" Glitch-who-was-really-Ambrose muttered, sounding tired and extremely irritated. Cain barely turned, letting the morning light cast shadows on his cheeks and the hat cast a dark line that hid his eyes.
"We're going to find the Mystic Man, remember," Cain said patiently. "Either you're coming with or this is where we part."
"Due south?" Ambrose scoffed.
"You got other plans?"
"What about your son? I thought you were itching to take him away from everything of royalty?" Clearly, the early hour didn't suit Ambrose in the least, from his irritable reaction to Cain, the plan, and just about everything else they had encountered. "You know as well as I do that going into those caves without a plan is suicide and maybe you're willing, but I certainly am not!" he insisted. "Now. The Queen will help. She can use her magic to scan the caves and see just what is going on and maybe, just maybe, Tin Man, we'll be able to go out there with a plan."
There was a very long moment of silence between them.
Truth be told, Cain wasn't sure if he wanted to ignore the man, punch him, or just do both. He'd just had to have a good argument though, which bought him some time and left Cain sighing while nodding down the street.
"One day. If you don't have any other leads by then, we do it my way."
*
They had left the palace some fourteen hours after they had arrived with maps, currency, and hope in tow. The Queen had been able to sense the Mystic Man's presence near one of the larger lakes in a cabin and had marked it with a circle of red on the map for Cain. He has asked about Jeb, but she had almost instantly assured him with a playful smile on her face as she'd said, 'he will have all the joys in the world while his light shines elsewhere for a short time'. It'd been too wordy and flowery for Cain, but the gist was that Jeb would be safe and Cain had a goal in mind.
He hadn't expected Ambrose to tag along.
"What, and leave you to be shot?" Ambrose had said sarcastically, loading up the truck. "My work isn't so critical that I can't go with you for a couple of months to search for answers. If anything, it should help with the reports."
"You really think it's some old crone in a cavern?" Cain asked dubiously, getting the truck's old engine rumbling away while the heat of the truck brushed over them, promising a comfortable journey.
"No," Ambrose admitted, closing the door behind him and waving into the rear mirror at Azkadellia, who had come out to the front steps to see them off and blow kisses that were 'from DG and Jeb both'. "That's just not logical. It's more likely a quiet political coup tired of the monarchy."
"That happen often?" Cain asked curiously as they hit the streets.
"More than you'd think, Tin Man. We try to keep it quiet from law types like yourself."
They drove in silence for close to five hours before they spoke again and it was only because Ambrose was falling asleep and Cain, out of some misguided attempt at male bonding, reached over and prodded him awake, laughing when he got that same irritable look from him.
"You're doing this to torture me," Ambrose tiredly complained, curling back up into the door of the truck and trying to fall back into that blissful sleep that Cain refused to let him have.
It was going to be a long campaign.
*
Out of some misguided attempt at optimism and hope, Ambrose had let himself believe that they would search for the Mystic Man precisely where the Queen had told them to look, find him, get their answers, find Zero, and be done with the whole mess. That, of course, presumed that life was entirely that simple. The truth of it was that after five months of searching, they still had nothing and over half a cave-system left to inspect. Cain had lobbied to go back to the palace for the cold winter months and Ambrose had agreed, hardly the sort of man who was ready to rough it.
When the ground thawed, they were back on the road and Ambrose had grown increasingly dependent on Cain's presence in his life. It was more than the physical presence that was so nice to look at, but the quiet calm that he brought with him.
Cain used to have nightmares in the back of the truck, tossing and turning with his sheets as if an invisible intruder threatened his life. Ambrose had never slept much in his life – always awake and alert for the next idea to strike – and had spent most of his nights watching and wondering what haunted his dreams, spent the darkness watching how all the worries seemed to slide off of Cain's face when a peaceful sleep did grace its presence on the former Tin Man. Ambrose had once tried to rest his hand on Cain's arm to calm him through the night and had nearly earned a broken finger for it.
He didn't try and do that twice.
The silence was companionable, really. And it wasn't always so silent. Sometimes, all it took was the right subject and Ambrose earned himself hours of conversation while listening to stories about Central City or the Mystic Man and a warm chuckle at the recollection of a fond friend from the past. Ambrose liked travelling with Wyatt Cain, far more than he had ever liked dating Francis or dancing with the Baron of the Westlands. Cain had a simple charm to him that came from not trying to be too fancy or aristocratic and a beauty that derived from not even being aware of his own handsome face.
Not that Cain knew any of this. Ambrose kept it mostly to himself for fear of losing the one thing he had come to value so much -- a friend. Advisors to the Queen with brains as big as his had a difficult time finding people who were willing to put up with him for a day, much less the months of time Cain had been travelling with Ambrose. He didn't dare bring any of his private thoughts up, afraid that they might drive Cain away and then he'd be right back to where he started.
"This is it?" Cain asked, as they approached a small cabin attached to a cave.
"Right latitude," Ambrose mumbled distractedly. "Right longitude. This is it."
As with all their previous searches, Cain exhibited the same impatience as always, kicking down the door to Ambrose's annoyed, 'yes, I can see, you're manly' mutterings behind him. Normally they found a house near a cave and it would be empty. Worse, it would have citizens in it, afraid for their life after receiving the Cain Greeting.
Today, Ambrose's optimism finally came through.
"Mystic Man," he exhaled in relief, rushing forward to untie him carefully. He was keeping an eye out for Zero, but there didn't seem to be anyone in the house but the poor older man, tied up to a rickety chair. "Cain, is Zero here?"
There was a long pause and the hammer of Cain's gun was released. "No," he said, the single word rife with more disappointment and anger than Ambrose had ever heard in his whole life. Ambrose took his eyes off the mythical figure tied up before him and took a long moment to watch Cain, worried about him and wanting to offer more solace, but not knowing what to say.
He wanted to think it was because he wasn't that eloquent in times of distress, but he was.
He was glitching again, the sore spot on his head returning to haunt him with a vengeance.
"Eyes of blue," the Mystic Man rasped, pointing at Cain.
Cain took off his hat and pressed it to his vest-clad chest in a show of deference, giving the Mystic Man an utterly confused look, one that Ambrose picked up on quickly. He had a feeling of dread in his stomach that was slowly growing and collecting all the vestiges of hope that Ambrose had set aside and the dread was destroying every ounce. Zero wasn't here and he had left them a shell of a man, from the looks of it.
"Mystic Man," Cain pleaded, falling to one knee before him. It was the desperation in Cain's eyes that made Ambrose turn away in the end, feeling as if he had no right to intrude on those emotions. "Do you remember me?" Cain's words were sharp and precise, a deadly shot in verbal form.
"Eyes of ice," the Mystic Man laughed, an ugly crow of a sound. Rapidly, his attention turned to Ambrose. "Mind of two."
"He's useless," Ambrose said lightly, voice barely there and the dread had completely eaten up all his optimism now, turning it into the iciest of feelings: that bitter cynicism that he always swore would never get him. "Cain…"
"Where's Zero? Is he behind this?" Cain demanded, thrashing the Mystic Man in a vice-grip as he kept repeating the questions over and over again. "Where's Zero!" he bellowed and eventually, it was too much.
"Enough!" Ambrose sharply shouted. Cain seemed shocked by the tone of voice – one that Ambrose had never taken on in his presence before – and released the Mystic Man when Ambrose glided his way into Cain's personal space, confident that he could hold his own if a fight happened to break out. "Enough," he reiterated, voice lower and a warning now. "He clearly doesn't even know who he is, let alone who's responsible. It's vapours."
"Vapours are magic, Ambrose," Cain replied, his tone low and dangerous. "Are you telling me this is the work of your Queen and Princesses?"
"They're your royalty too," Ambrose said, glaring right back. "And they would never do such a thing. Never. Zero must have someone else on his side and we are not going to find him here." And then, he did something he didn't think he had bravery enough to do. "Like it or not, but your life has changed. What you have left is this mission, but not that alone. I…could use your help. With the unseen threat outside the Palace's gates, I've been working on many things, but some require items far out of my reach. I don't trust others to get them and with things getting more dangerous by the day, I don't trust the O.Z. on my own. Make your choice, Cain. Either live in your shadowed past or work with me to make a better future."
Cain didn't answer him.
He took to getting the Mystic Man out of the chair and bundling him into the truck, never once looking at Ambrose. It was all too daunting, that Ambrose had finally gone and said the wrong thing and he'd lost a friend in the process; gods help him, was he about to truly lose Cain because he had to speak the truth?
It was weeks later when the palace came back into view that Cain finally gave Ambrose a response.
"I'll work with you," he said, the palace looming before them like a beacon of hope. "But I'm not letting go of my past."
*
Whenever Cain was at the palace, he always found himself seeking out the company of Ahamo rather than the Queen or her Princesses. Jeb was going on four and a half annuals now and though Cain worried about the environment he was growing up in – Cain couldn't even dare provide the riches that he was slowly becoming accustomed to – he knew that his boy was safe within the thick walls and behind a devoted guard. It didn't change the fact that he was surrounded by fancy dresses, lavish events, and more respect than Cain had ever had in his bones.
"You know, it really isn't so bad here," Ahamo had said one day while he and Cain walked down the marble halls of the main floor. Neither of them were much men of circumstance and after so long around Ambrose, who seemed to demand respect and attention, it felt good to relax and just be a man of simplicity around the Queen's husband, which technically made him King, not that Ahamo ever asked anyone to call him that.
Cain hadn't actually said anything about the palace and Ahamo seemed to notice the flicker of confusion across his face, which drew a laugh out of the man. They shared many of the same values, believing family most important and were around the same age and period in their life. Their young children weren't far off and the sound of them comforted Cain.
"I used to hate this place," Ahamo confessed, scratching the hair on his face. "I thought it was cold down to its floors, that it was a place I didn't belong."
"What changed that?"
"Azkadellia." Ahamo's face lit up just by saying her name and Cain knew that expression well. It was the same one Ambrose spoke of and sketched onto paper when Cain was talking about Jeb. His thoughts flickered to Ambrose and he wondered just where he spent all his time while they restocked between their voyages. He enjoyed the man's company, but Cain had never been prone to introversion the way Ambrose seemed to embrace it. Cain was quiet, but being isolated made him feel useless. "When Azkadellia was born, I started to look at these halls with new eyes. Now, I can't see anything but home."
"Your home," Cain pointed out, unable to keep the quiet tone of bitterness from seeping into his voice. "Kings of realms can have homes like these. Ex-Tin Men have small shacks in the woods." He still didn't know how he was ever going to take Jeb back to that. Worse, he couldn't even imagine a future in which they weren't still fighting off the assails of an enemy who refused to show itself.
"Don't sell yourself short, Cain," Ahamo warned. "More people than just royal figures live in palaces. People who have earned their place among these walls."
Cain still didn't believe much of it and gave a bow of deference to Ahamo, knowing that even if he didn't bring titles on himself, he was still owed respect. With only hours left before he and Ambrose left again – this time to find a rare element of the Ozian periodic table in the ice-caves of the North – he wanted to spend that time with Jeb, reminding him that although he came and went, he was still the most important thing in Cain's life.
When he entered the room, he found Jeb and young DG crouched over a map large enough to wrap them up as if a blanket.
"And then you can be King of the Papay Fields," DG was announcing, sounding pretty important for a girl of all of six annuals. "We'll make you a crown with the leaves and everything!"
"But I want the forest by our house," Jeb had whined, bringing a nostalgic and sad smile to Cain's face at the pronouncement. He'd dropped by the house the other week to see the condition it was in. The roof was slowly caving in and the grasses were growing too high amidst the small other flaws it had. He and Ambrose had lost three days during a short side-trip – on a tip that Zero had been seen in a nearby village, which had been a bust -- when Cain had insisted on stopping to do enough repairs to keep the home in living condition.
"For later," Cain had insisted.
"Honestly, Cain, you'll have a home," Ambrose had sighed before sitting cross-legged on the bench in the back and watching Cain do his work and hadn't once offered any help beyond 'measures of efficiency' to make the job go faster.
He wanted to keep his home from rotting away into nothing. It wasn't the only thing in Cain's possession that needed upkeep, but the fact was that it was the one thing that Cain could actually control. His heart was growing more distant by the day, it felt like. Adora was nothing but a memory shrouded in pain and Jeb was his bright light through it all. Sure, the company he kept was good enough to keep the painful memories at bay most times, but he always got the feeling that Ambrose was constantly a half-second away from scolding him all the time.
"Hey, kiddo," Cain broke up playtime with his voice and couldn't help the broad grin on his lips when Jeb sprinted his way and nearly tackled him to the ground with a tight hug and a giddy shriek of, 'Father!'
DG had ambled up behind him, curtsying distractedly with her dress. "Hi, Mr. Cain," she said, waving her little fingers.
Cain clasped a hand tightly on Jeb's back to keep him close in his arms. "Hey there, Princess," he greeted, ruffling Jeb's hair. "Hope my boy isn't causing too much trouble."
"Nah, he's lots of fun," DG promised, barely saying another word as she wandered back to the pile of books and maps that had been scattered out on the ground. Cain felt a flicker of sympathy for whoever was left to clean the mess, but that disappeared quickly enough, given that Cain had done the same for many an annual when Jeb had been only an infant intent on crawling through the entire house, come hell or high water.
"Father, DG lets me play with the maps," Jeb was immediately off, nattering about the last few weeks of their time. "And Azkadellia tells me stories to get me to sleep, but I miss you," he complained. "How long are you going away this time?"
"Couple months," he said apologetically, trying not to mention that it could be upwards of an annual if things went awry. They had to get all the way to the North and explore their way through gods knew how many caverns of ice before they found Ambrose's little element.
"I'll miss you," Jeb protested as a stray blond curl fell over his face. "But," he continued bravely, lifting up his chin. "I'll be good and I'll write down everything that happened."
"That's my boy," Cain said warmly, bringing Jeb closer into his arms to hug him tightly, not wanting to say goodbye just yet, not when there were hours to go.
He spent his time with Jeb in the library with his son in his lap. Jeb spent his time excitedly explaining all the figures and scribblings of a child's journal as Cain kept a wary eye on the setting of the sun, knowing that when the first moon rose in the sky, he and Ambrose would need to be on their way across the waters and to the next town and the next.
Eventually, the call came for dinner and Jeb pried himself out of Cain's lap and stood on the floor, staring all the way up at Cain. "I love you, Father," he said solemnly, with a nod. Cain could feel his iced-over heart thawing just slightly at his son's quiet innocence and he knew he would give anything to protect that, to fill any void that Adora had filled before with her kind smiles and warm cookies and brightness on cloudy days.
"Be good for the Queen, okay?" Cain said, his voice rough with emotion.
The last thing he saw before he departed the palace was Jeb's brave nod, biting his lower lip as Cain walked out with his hat sitting low on his forehead.
Ambrose was waiting for him in the distance beside a hot-air balloon, an item that had only recently been introduced to the O.Z., since the scientific advisors had finally repaired Ahamo's mode of travel.
"You're late," Ambrose noted, but it wasn't to blame him. It sounded more like a greeting because 'hello' was just too common for a man like Ambrose. For some reason, it made Cain smile inwardly. "We missed the sunset."
"Never did take the time to watch a sunset before," Cain opined, barely more than a grunt, as he stepped into the aircraft. "Don't think I'm about to start."
"Fine, then," Ambrose replied, with only the slightest roll of his eyes. It didn't take long to stoke up the fires and get the balloon rising higher into the sky. Really, it made Cain's stomach lurch. He was used to the more conventional methods of travel, whether that was car, horse, or just the simple act of walking.
None of this fancy flying around.
Ahamo's balloon was adequate travel for two over a short distance, to Ambrose's clear delight at getting to test the craft, clear enough to Cain when he started rambling away without even so much of a word to provoke it. "This is neat," he remarked, chin tilted skywards as he studied the propulsion system. Cain was staring away at him dubiously, even if it took Ambrose a while to look down and catch that glance. Before he could get defensive, Ambrose softly (and yet, still audibly) counted to three, as if preventing himself from snapping at Cain while showing him just how much of an effort he was putting into it. "We don't really have these in the O.Z., you know," he explained just why it was so interesting. "Ahamo brought it from the other side in a storm and the scientists patched it up as much as they could. It runs on fuels and the elements are lighter than air, which is how we're…" He gestured with his fingers, signifying birds flying away. "You know, flying."
"You like fancy things like this," Cain observed. "Things that fly and tick the way they're not supposed to."
Even though it was just a cursory and vague assessment, he hadn't counted on Ambrose going all funny and pink the way he had. "I suppose that's one way of putting it," he said, clearing his throat as a slight stutter got into his voice. Cain attributed it to nerves, of going off to a strange land with a man who was still a stranger, despite their nearly continuous annual spent together. "Really," Ambrose spoke, his voice distant and dreamy. "I think I just like a puzzle."
It really shouldn't have been so surprising, but it was, that Cain understood then and there just why they made such good friends.
Not that he'd ever admit aloud that they had become friends after all this time.
*
"Jeb!" DG's excited voice called through the halls of the palace while the Princess of seven annuals dashed her way, shrieking with laughter. "Az! Az, help me find Jeb!" She nearly climbed into her sister's lap in the library, prying the book that Azkadellia was reading from her grip. "Please," she begged.
"I was reading, Deeg," Azkadellia protested lightly, but with a simple sigh, she was already placing DG back on the ground and taking her little sister's hand, a protective glow of white magic encircling their palms. "Where did you last see him?"
"I don't know," DG patiently replied. "We're playing and he's supposed to be hiding, but he's really good at it!" DG looked plaintively up at her older sister while swinging their hands, but immediately fell into a petulant fit when Azkadellia started laughing behind her palm. "It's not nice to laugh. Mother says it's unladylike."
"It's supposed to be hard, Deeg. It's a game."
Still, they didn't stop as they wandered through the halls to find the young boy of only five annuals who could be anywhere. He had a talent for hiding and every time his father stopped by to talk to him, it seemed that Cain helped to discover new little crooks and crannies. It made for an amusing day, however, while the rest of the O.Z. sat in a perilous position on the cusp of light and darkness, always about to fall prey into the hands of an evil Witch that half the people believed in and half thought to be nothing more than a story. The Queen did her best to keep her Princesses from hearing too much about the Witch, however, casting a protective spell on both them and their newfound closest friend, the Cain boy.
"Do you think Jeb will stay with us, Az?" DG asked, peering through the music conservatory and the stargazing parlour to see if there was a flash of curly blond hair to be had in any of those rooms. "He can be our little brother! Maybe Mother will let him be a Prince."
"But he's not," Azkadellia patiently replied. "He's Wyatt's son and when he and Ambrose are back from their journey, they're going to go home." There was something like regret in her voice as she spoke what she had been constantly told by people like Tutor. She had grown to love Jeb and wanted to protect him as much as she could. Azkadellia was that burgeoning age between childhood and becoming an adult where she could see into both worlds and not understand either as fully as she might have five annuals ago or five annuals down the line. She understood that she liked Jeb in their lives, but that he didn't belong to them and was Jeb Cain at the end of the day.
Azkadellia could just barely peek into the adult's world and understand that what Ambrose and Wyatt were doing was different than it was two annuals ago when they had met for the first time. She didn't dare say that aloud, though, in case she was wrong. She didn't want to be yelled at. Azkadellia wanted to live her life without getting into trouble.
Which was unfortunate, considering that DG's goal in life was to find enough trouble to rain down on the both of them.
"But I like him," DG protested in a quiet whine. "Why can't he stay? Mother and Father like him too! They're always giving him praise and treats, like us." She twisted up her lips in thought as she wrinkled her nose. "I want him to stay."
"Me too, Deeg," Azkadellia promised softly. "But if his own Father wants him to go away, we can't stop him." She couldn't help the pang in her heart at that prospect and wished that she could use their magic to sway Mr. Cain's heart away from the idea of taking Jeb away. Ambrose and Mr. Cain's mission along the outskirts of the O.Z. was bound to take at least another half an annual and after all that time, she wasn't sure that she could part so easily with the young boy.
"Found you!" DG announced eagerly as she jumped into the laundry cupboard and dragged Jeb from under the pile of towels he had squirmed into. Azkadellia watched with barely-concealed amusement as DG's skirts got tugged at in Jeb's valiant attempt to escape.
That was put to rest by a visit by the Tickle Monster.
The sound of Jeb's shrieking laughter echoing through the palace was a welcome contrast to the much bleaker climate outside the palace walls.
TBC
