Autumn rain whispered against the windows and softened the edges of everything. Golden halos bloomed around the lanterns as the air grew heavy and damp, hushing the noise of the other students' riotous exit. Rajo lingered in the classroom, taking fastidious care to straighten the pages of his books and align their spines perfectly in his section of the low shelves lining the room. The afternoon instructor shook her head at him, but said nothing.

They'd sat for exams today, so the big wall slates were already clear. Rajo could invent no other excuse to linger. The others seemed to have moved on though - perhaps restless after too many hours of sitting and remembering and solving puzzles. He gathered his satchel and took his time at the tarnished mirror in the cloakroom.

It was good to have an excuse to wrap his bright muffler high and pull his hood forward. Most folk in Castletown were more or less Hylian, even if their ears could only be called pointy when you squinted. Outsiders were amusing curiosities to gawk at and question - and blame for any and all misfortunes.

Roan would start a fight in his place, but he wouldn't care what happened next when he did. He wouldn't have to - he wasn't witchborn.

Thinking of Roan reminded him of the letter in his writing desk at home, unanswered. He should make the climb to the hill overlooking the barracks soon, maybe today. Lightsday was good for spying, because everyone was either busy with attending their devotions or avoiding the same.

Rajo slipped through the close alley between two enormous guildhouses and vaulted over the low fence into the garden behind. Ma Idrea would surely love it as he did if she could but see its rambling and overgrown glory, full of fragrant blossoms. The house the garden belonged to never held anyone but servants, and they didn't worry about child-thieves the way some Hylians did. Maybe they had nothing worth stealing.

Sometimes the housemaiden even came out to walk with him - but not today, with the weather even a little dreary. She took chill easily, and had better be curled up by the fire and leave her chores for a warmer day. Rajo didn't mind - he didn't really like his notebooks to get wet, and Anna always wanted to know about his studies, even the really boring ones at the abbey.

Anna was easy to talk to, and she didn't care that Rajo wasn't like other boys. He was surprised to realize he would miss her when they left Castletown for the winter holiday. Everything else about this country he was certain he could live a hundred years without, except perhaps this strange refuge in the shadow of the great temple complex.

"I will bring her something," Rajo muttered as he let himself through the far garden gate into a narrow street leading to the east market. He didn't carry many rupees with him, but he could always raid one of the wishing fountains if he needed to. Vah Kamenus would be furious if he knew how Rajo plotted to misuse his teachings, but what else was such a minor fetching spell good for anyway? It wasn't a fast magic, and wouldn't work on anything heavy or which he couldn't see.

Anyways, he knew he'd replace what he borrowed later, next time Link unlocked his blue brass-bound chest. The fountain spirit would understand. He just needed Anna to remember him. It was important.

What she would like best though, he did not know. Rajo wandered through the small east market, frowning over each of the little shop-carts. Grownups mostly ignored him, as they often did on Lightsday, so he even had a kind of bubble of quiet to himself in the middle of chaos.

If he was buying for Lamis, this would be easy. She loved anything bright, but rare pigments and new patterns best of all. Roan's wishes he could not answer, for he wanted a real sword most of all, and Da Corfo would never allow it.

For little Taedra, anything sweet would do. Ensren wanted nothing at all, or pretended to. Rajo knew his true weakness - books. Any and all books he encountered, he read. The challenge with him was finding something truly new or rare.

"This is not a present for Anna," Rajo muttered under his breath. Vah Kamenus would lecture him on discipline again if he knew how his worst student couldn't even focus on a task of his own choosing.

It wasn't his fault. Everything in the market worth seeing suggested itself as a gift for someone - but nothing quite suited Anna. Brightly patterned ribbons seemed too garish for her, and what use had she for a set of delicate bluesteel throwing knives? She never said anything at all of her own reading, and a bag of bright sugarbloom trifles seemed entirely childish. He was supposed to be ten now, after all.

Rajo climbed the alley stairs and up the iron ladder to the roof of the corner shop, heading home empty handed. Rain came so often to Hyrule that they built everything with deep eaves and wide gutters, well supported. The leap from one section to the next wasn't far. He didn't care if he did splash - he wore sturdy boots, and anyone below ought to be wearing a hood anyway.

Rajo always made a tidy profit on this road, collecting chipped rupee shards from the detritus, no doubt forgotten by crows. That was how he noticed Link in the market below. He should have been working. Unless a true downpour came, Link took but one rest day in a week - the ping and thud and whine of construction always underlay the babble of the crowd, even on Lightsday, even in a misting rain.

Rajo slipped into the shadow of a false gable, hidden even if Link looked up, which he didn't.

He just stood at the gem-setter's table, his golden hair fallen into his face and his broad shoulders painfully squared. People might as well have jostled a stone for all he moved.

The merchant didn't seem to care. Rajo couldn't hear much but the lilting whine with which they said it. He tried to convince himself to keep going, to get home before Link could. Whatever the reason for his leisure, it surely would mean less time to spy for Roan.

Link said something. The merchant laughed, waving a dismissive hand. Link raised his eyes from the table only enough to meet the merchant's and even Rajo shivered at his hard looks.

"I said - how much."

The merchant tittered and fumbled after excuses. Link moved not at all. Heads turned, and the crowd pulled away a little from the stranger with the harsh voice.

The merchant named a price.

Rajo held his breath.

The crowd relaxed and turned back to their various errands when Link opened his purse. Rajo didn't - but perhaps he was the only one who could see the unsettling blue glitter inside. The merchant should have - but they were entirely consumed with filling their own purse with the gold and silver rupees Link gave them.

Rajo counted far more of both than a plain carpenter and mason should ever see at once. Where had he gotten - or hidden - that kind of money? Why live as a near pauper for seven years if he had a king's ransom at his command? And what was so precious that he would actually spend it?

Rajo eased closer, trying to see which glittering pieces the merchant packed away. He wasn't sure what all of them were, but the pectoral he knew at once to be glorious topaz. That piece maybe was worth a hundred rupees - but not as much as Link paid.

Not that he seemed to care. He stood motionless and silent while they packed his purchases in black wool inside a wide, shallow box.

Rajo lingered. Once Link marched away down a side street with his gems, the merchant laughed. They giggled with their neighbor about the fierce fool who hadn't even blinked at 'the Gerudo story' and obliviously paid three times the value of the ornaments without a breath of question.

That couldn't be normal, even for his eccentric 'uncle'.

- o - O - o -

Rajo decided to spy on the parade ground first, and go home later. It better explained the muck on his trousers anyway, and gave him time to think. Not that he should have been worried on either count, as it happened.

Link wasn't inside the little house at all, though all the lanterns burned bright. Rajo turned down the wicks as he went upstairs, surprised to see Link's bedroom both wide open and empty. He wrestled with the temptation to see if he could pick the lock on the big blue and brass chest.

"Better to wait," he told himself, changing into fresh clothes and hiding the others deep in the laundry bin. He didn't know how long Link would be gone, and getting caught formed no part of his plans.

The yellow window in his own room glowed even as twilight fell - which must mean lights somewhere behind the house. Even yellow rupees didn't shine on their own. Rajo listened carefully, but heard nothing.

Then again, Link could be frighteningly quiet when his mind started looping. Rajo couldn't hear him without being very close, and even then it rarely made sense. Mostly it was like listening to a thunderstorm and a wildfire and cracking stone and flooding rapids all at once, and the images in his head flickered like lightning from one thing to another.

Everyone on the farm agreed the war must have been especially horrible for Link.

Rajo decided to look for him. Perhaps he went to buy more spirits at the public house, or maybe he ran into thieves on the way home. He wasn't sure what help he could be, but maybe if Link was in trouble, Rajo could wish something at his enemies.

Or maybe he just fell asleep in their little garden again. He did that sometimes, sitting down too long between tasks.

Rajo peeked out the back window - Link sat on one of the carved benches he'd built that summer with an empty cup in his hands. Not asleep, but he barely noticed Rajo come to stand beside him.

"Hey," said Rajo.

Link only grunted and kept staring at the sad oak sapling in the middle of the garden. An earthenware jug sat beside his feet, and the shallow ebony box on the far end of the bench.

Rajo stared at their little tree also, and wondered if it would survive the winter. Despite Link's careful tending, the little plot still seemed dreadfully bare with stumpy secondhand rose canes and herbs gone to seed. The oak sapling in the center of it all looked especially silly with its overproud flourish of exactly thirteen fat copper leaves.

"It's getting cold," said Rajo. Link's clothes were soaked through, and Ma Idrea would have scolded him for such negligence.

"How was school," said Link, bending to recover the jug and tilt more of its spirits into his cup. This one smelled sweet and somehow hot, less unpleasant than some of those he brought home.

"Fine," said Rajo. "How long before we leave for holiday? Master Budro wants to make me a list of things so I won't fall behind while we're gone."

Link nodded. "So you're doing well? In all your studies?"

"Yeah," lied Rajo. "It's fine. So when do we leave?"

"The snow won't be too bad this year. And we won't need a cart this time, so." Link shrugged. "I can start making inquiries next week or so, find out when the architect will call the season closed."

Rajo frowned. "So we just leave everything here."

"Don't worry. Won't be gone long," said Link, lifting his cup. "Maybe a month."

Rajo made a face. "That's not enough time for anything. Can't we stay through planting?"

"You hate planting," said Link.

"So? School is even more boring," said Rajo, though he didn't really mean it. "At least Da and Ensren will need us for the kidding. Roan is especially stupid at that."

Link laughed, short and bitter. He didn't need to say it - they both knew he was making excuses. Neither of them fit well in Castletown.

But where else could they go?