At first he thought it was a trick. Some method of sorcery the purpose of which he couldn't understand. Why would the Queen need a double? Especially such a short tempered child-sized double who lost her balance and hacked angrily at a tree with a sword two times too big for her. Despite his misgivings, Jellal watched her from the garden wall with amused interest. She would never have noticed him at all if not for the flock of geese suddenly taking flight in the opposite garden and startling him so thoroughly into imbalance he tumbled from the wall.

Jellal huffed and wrestled his way free of the shrubbery that broke his fall. He backed out of the tangle of branches on his hands and knees only to find himself on the business end of the girl's blade. She scowled so fiercely he flinched.

"Your Majesty," he puffed, still catching his breath. "My apologies. I never meant –"

"My mother is Her Majesty," the girl snapped, nearly poking him in the chin. "You may address me as Your Highness."

Jellal offered her his open palms in surrender and confusion. He hadn't been aware that the Queen had a daughter. How could such an important bit of information have escaped him? Nearly two years had passed since the Queen fished him out of The Troughs and offered him refuge. He still wasn't sure about the runes on his face but he'd assigned some brand of trust to his dealings with the Queen. He thought he knew everything there was to know!

"My apologies, Your Highness," he offered with a grin. "I would bow in respect but –" Jellal glanced down at her sword. "I'm sure you understand."

The girl flushed and pulled her sword back but her embarrassment was fleeting. "What are you doing spying in the royal gardens? I could have you hung from the walls."

"I suppose you could," he said, chancing a wider grin. "But I beg of Your Highness to summon the Queen before ordering my execution. She might have something to say about it."

"And why is that?" she asked haughtily.

"We…" Jellal trailed off. He wasn't sure just how much he should reveal to a princess who wielded a sword. "We have an arrangement."

The Princess narrowed her eyes but lowered her blade. "Fair enough. But that still doesn't explain why you're spying on me."

"I assure you, Your Highness, it wasn't on purpose. I had no idea you'd be here. I was only fearful for the life of this poor, battered tree. The geese blew me off the wall."

"You mean they startled you off the wall."

"Semantics."

The Princess regarded him intently. "Are you a mage?"

"Somewhat," he hedged.

"Your cloak has an apprentice mark." She began to circle him and he decided he didn't mind her gaze.

"We all start somewhere." She completed her circle and stood directly in front of him. "Not all of us have the luxury of being born into royalty." The lie stung the tip of his tongue but he stuffed the feeling away. He wasn't a prince anymore.

"Who is your teacher? What is your trade?"

Jellal laughed lightly and held open one flap of his cloak. Her eyes dropped to the scabbard strapped to his thigh.

"You're an assassin."

"Not quite yet."

"Have you come to banter with me before taking my life?" she demanded. On impulse, Jellal reached for her hand and bowed deeply to kiss the backs of her fingers.

"I would never dream of destroying something precious to Her Majesty the Queen." He released her and took two quick steps back, his meteor spell collecting quietly in his knees. "Though yours is almost it's own shade entirely, scarlet hair has quite possibly become my favorite of all."

Jellal whooshed backwards and perched on the garden wall. Before he could be reprimanded for his sharp-tongued insolence, he turned and nearly flew all the way back down the seventh hill.


The sound of pigeons flapping their wings dragged him from a fitful sleep. Jellal rolled over onto his back and landed on the hardwood floor of Ultear's flat. He sat up and blinked in confusion for a solid five seconds.

"You've been out of the game for too long," Ultear said with a laugh.

"Your couch is an abomination."

"Well, in all fairness, I rarely use it for sleeping." She grinned at him before turning back toward her small kitchen. Jellal scowled at the cushions he'd been sleeping on and felt an impulse to wash.

Ultear's bathroom was just as messy as the rest of her home but he did appreciate the hot water and her delicious smelling soaps. He felt refreshed and had to remind himself he was only back in Crocus for business. A small voice in the back of his mind chided him. Did he really think he could return to his mountain after all this? Jellal sank beneath the bathwater to shut the harassing voice out.

Meredy's laugh was the first thing he heard when he reentered the main sitting room. She was slowly picking apart a pastry from a baker's box that hadn't been there when Jellal sought out his bath.

"For a moment there, I thought you'd drowned," Ultear said lightly, nodding toward the box of pastries.

"You smell delightful, Jellal," Meredy laughed.

"Yes, well, I'll take delightful over the smell of road travel any time." He picked over the pastries and settled on something fruity and sweet. The preserves in the center reminded him of all the things he'd tried to forget over the last seven years.

"We should get going," Meredy said, wiping the loose sugar from her fingers. "Erik is waiting."


Jellal thought the day deceptively beautiful. Not a cloud could be seen in the sky yet the air was sticky as if a rainstorm were on its way in. From the second hill he couldn't see the southern horizon but he had a feeling it would be lined with dark clouds. The closer to The Troughs they drew, the heavier the air felt.

When they reached the foot of the hill, the busy street that would eventually merge with five other streets and tangle in on itself became all Jellal could hear – everyone was selling something or looking to buy something or trying to get somewhere in a hurry. During the day Crocus wasn't any more or less vibrant than at night but things felt different when the sun illuminated the hidey-holes.

"Erik said he'd be here at the crossing but he's not," Meredy huffed. She threw her hood back and glared up and down the street. Ultear leaned against a lamppost and used one of her smaller blades to clean her cuticles. Jellal could not squash the rising panic in his chest. Something wasn't right.

"Maybe he found a lady to spend his night with and hasn't rolled out of bed yet?" Ultear drawled.

"I doubt that very much. Erik isn't exactly suave and I'm pretty sure he's got a thing for that girl at Rattler's."

"Mm," Ultear muttered disinterestedly. She glanced up at Jellal and watched him closely. He pursed his lips and paced.

A rickshaw carrying two benches worth of chicken crates suddenly turned the corner and came barreling down the smaller road that led up the hill. The driver had a determined expression smeared on his face and he headed straight for Meredy. Jellal's heart caught in his throat and his arm shot out to grab at Meredy's cloak. She squealed and stumbled back into him just as the rickshaw crashed into a produce vendor still setting up his boxes of fruits. Chicken feathers and apples went everywhere. Ultear watched the messy scene with a look of disbelief and annoyance but her face suddenly smoothed into something hard. Jellal followed her gaze and finally found their missing man.

Erik was crouched in the window of a pub that looked to have been burned out. The brick was charred with swaths of black and the windows were mostly framed by jagged points of broken glass. Only half the empty spaces had been boarded up and the work was visibly shoddy even across three busy streets. Erik had foregone his Crime Sorciere cloak and wore nothing but black. He made eye contact with Jellal before ducking back inside the building.

"Let's go," Ultear said in a low voice. Meredy righted herself and glanced at Jellal in confusion. He nodded toward the burned out building and waited for her to follow Ultear before bringing up the rear.

The empty building smelled like rotten, burned things. Like matches and cigarettes left to spoil in a glass of water. Jellal tried to keep his breaths as shallow as possible. The staircase leading up to the second floor was questionable but Jellal followed his companions. Erik was waiting for them in the far corner of what used to be a lodger's room. The skeleton of a bed still sat broken against the wall. Erik's eyes searched the city beyond the window.

"So was that rickshaw driver your doing or does he just have an appalling lack of skill on the road?" Ultear asked with disgust.

"I couldn't approach you in the street," Erik muttered. "I needed your attention."

"And why is that?" Jellal could feel Ultear's irritation mounting.

"Because there's a price on your head and it's me who's been paid to collect."

Meredy gasped audibly. Jellal's brow furrowed and Ultear laughed.

"You?" she demanded. "You couldn't track me down if you tried."

"I could've slit your throat in your sleep at any point between the hours of three and seven this morning," Erik bit out, still searching the street with his paranoid gaze.

"Who would want to kill Ultear?" Meredy asked quietly.

"I got my theories," Erik grunted. "The job don't have a name on it and the slip was in my box when I went to take off last night." He finally looked away from the window to stab Ultear with a harsh expression. "You know shit's been off lately. Can't ignore it anymore."

"What do you mean by off?" Jellal asked, sticking to the edges of the room.

"I mean somethin' stinks. The whole city's off kilter." Erik dug in his pockets for a cigarette. "I'd bet my good eye it's those fuckin' God Slayers, too. Somethin' ain't right. I can feel it."

"So someone wants me dead," Ultear declared, planting her hands on her hips.

"Yep. Wouldn't recommend goin' home either. Whoever put that slip in my box has to know by now that I haven't taken you out when I could've."

"Someone from the guild? Do you think the slip came from within Crime Sorciere?" Jellal asked, still struggling to understand all the puzzle pieces in front of him.

"Not sure. Could be that someone's been paid off. Could be that our girl here just pissed off the wrong motherfucker." He shot a glare at Ultear before turning his eyes back outside the window. "It's not a stretch."

"It's a stretch when you take into account that the two of you were recently sent to collect me from the Stella border." Jellal said in a low voice that was in complete opposition to the chaos in his mind.

"You wanna specify your word choice?" Erik snapped. "Let's stop fuckin' around here. This shit's serious. I used to be a dragon slayer, I know you're tight with Laxus. I know you got connections high up on the seventh hill. Lay it all out for us so I can decide if I should do me, Meredy, and Ultear a favor and gut you right here."

"Erik –" Meredy gasped.

"He's right," Ultear interjected. "Jellal needs to come clean."

Jellal's heart felt as though it wanted to jump out of his throat. He felt the eyes of everyone in the room and the pinprick of each one. This was supposed to be about the Princess. It wasn't supposed to have anything to do with him! The runes on his face were supposed –

"Let me help you out," Ultear began. "I heard a rumor last winter. A very, very interesting rumor."

"Ultear?" Meredy seemed to withdraw into herself. Jellal, not for the first time, wondered why she ran with assassins when her personality seemed to clash with the entire profession.

"Something about a little lost boy who found his way over the mountains and into the city and somehow managed to gain the protection of the Queen." She began to pace in front of him in a way Jellal very much did not like. "Don't you think it's weird that such a famously missing little boy just –" Ultear was suddenly right in front of him and snapped her fingers. "Disappeared never to be found? Don't you think it's weird, Erik?"

Erik, not one for Ultear's games, simply grunted and kept his gaze on the open window.

"Some claimed to have seen the boy but couldn't recall anything special about his face when asked later." Ultear laughed. "Asked isn't really the right word, I suppose. Anyone who'd ask about a lost little star prince wouldn't ask nicely."

"Prince?" Meredy asked slowly. "Jellal what is she talking about?"

"I –" Jellal couldn't breathe. He'd never wanted to have this conversation. His tongue felt too large for his mouth and completely dry.

Before he could respond, and seemingly from thin air, a blonde woman appeared behind Ultear. Jellal jumped and his back pressed into the moldering wall behind him. Ultear spun around and startled.

"Fuck!" she screeched and fumbled for her knives.

"Oh, hell," Erik grabbed Meredy by the shoulder and shoved her behind him.

The Spriggan Guard member held up her hands in a sign of surrender but she never took her eyes off Jellal and her grin never faded.

"I thought I'd never catch up with you," Dimaria said. "We need to have a chat. I'm afraid things have gone terribly wrong."