"Marcel. We have to leave. Immediately."

Marcel scoffed. "Don't be ridiculous. Do you know how long the line is for the dragon-roasted shrimp plates? Forty-five minutes . I am going to stand here and enjoy my seafood platter, do nothing else, and drink my wine even if the entire castle starts collapsing around me." He paused, a shrimp halfway to his mouth. "Why are you so very…sweaty?"

"Marcel. Do you remember that thing. That uh, the one thing you said not to do?"

Marcel's lips pursed in that way that had and always would mean Jane was about to be in very big trouble. "… 'Cause an international incident' ."

"Yes. That. I have done it. So we should leave now ."

Several seconds of dearth ticked by, at the end of which, the Spymaster released his most beleaguered sigh, and with excruciating slowness dumped his platter into a nearby plant. "I hate you Doe. Almost as much as I hate being right. Let us move."

They fled the palace at a gallop, the midnight bell tolling behind them, Jane's mind a mess of broken glass. How had that man known his dreams? More, more than just the dreams, he talked about spires in trees, things Jane hadn't envisioned before, but the words of them sparked revolutions in him so rabid they made his head hurt. He unfocused his eyes, watching the back of Marcel's courser as it kicked mud at a frenzied pace, and tried to stop the tidal wave of visions as they came flooding in.

When they finally allowed the horses rest—a day away from the capitol and still four days from the border—Jane stared at the fire, barely feeling his exhaustion. He had so many questions…could the visions that plagued him truly be memories? Normally he'd dismiss the thought out of hand—they were too strange, too nonsensical to have actually happened—but normally figments of his imagination didn't jump out of parties claiming they knew him, so maybe normal could go to hell.

The logical thing to do was ask Marcel. They'd known each other longer than Jane's memory stretched back, and he needed him to fill in details on a near constant basis whenever Jane was supposed to know a fact he did not. But something kept him back. What if he asked Marcel about the mystery man, and he knew nothing, proving something was far more wrong with Jane than either of them thought?

Or worse: what if he did know who that Scarlet was to Jane?

The questions chased circles around each other, and Jane sensed it wouldn't be long until Marcel came back from checking their perimeter and finally tried to wring some answers out of him. Namely, the exact details that had put them on the run from the Scarlets. Jane still wasn't sure what he was going to say to that.

The sound of a violent crash dangerously close to the clearing's edge warned that that might be put off for a little while.

Jane raced toward the noise of a steadily increasing scuffle, drawing his blade and arriving on the scene just as it came to an abrupt halt. There, Marcel had their interloper pinned to the ground; a knee on his back, a blade to his throat as Marcel pulled him back by the head.

The name slipped out without Jane willing it. "Tavish?"

Tavish's head jerked up, despite the knife beading a line of red against his skin. It was him, though he'd abandoned the mask and changed into a simple riding uniform. His eye, panicked a moment before, softened. Daring to hope.

Jane hadn't meant to give him any, but saying the name felt right, felt familiar. He tried to tell himself it was only because he'd said it a few times during the duel, but it didn't stop the feeling, that feeling that connections slid past his cranium like oysters being torn from their shell.

"Jane? Do you…?"

Again, Jane took a step back.

Marcel wouldn't be so easily placated. He looked between Jane and the man he currently had pinned several times before saying, "Tavish? As in Tavish DeGroot ?"

"Er," Tavish said. "Which answer doesn't get me slit?"

Marcel glared at Jane. " Please don't tell me this is why we had to flee the Scarlet Palace in a whirlwind of disgrace."

"Um," Jane said. "This is not why we had to flee the Scarlet Palace in a whirlwind of disgrace?"

"That is just wonderful to hear. Then perhaps you can offer me an alternative explanation as to why the crown prince of Scarland is sneaking into our camp in the middle of the night?"

"I wasn't sneaking!" Tavish protested. "Honest. I was just trying to talk to Jane, to…"

Marcel pulled his head back farther. " How did you find us? "

"This is the fastest road to Cerulea! Someone in the last town said they'd seen you passing through, and then I saw your fire…"

"Merde ," Marcel spat at Jane. "I told you we should not have stopped for supplies."

"We may take it then that an army without its baggage train is lost; without provisions it is lost," Jane said.

"If you say-"

"-Sun Tzu said that."

"Shut up ." Marcel spun back to his interrogation. "How many are with you? Where are they? Do they know you're here?"

Tavish opened his mouth. It was clear he had no answer, that his hope was slowly being replaced with panic, and those dark twisting things in Jane's mind pulled aside just enough to recognize it.

"Marcel. Stop. He's not…I don't think he's…"

He didn't know what he was. He was an enemy. The enemy.

And yet.

Jane found himself creeping forward. He made a motion, but when Marcel hesitated instead of backing off, he locked eyes with his friend. The Spymaster said nothing, but slowly retracted himself, hovering just on the edges of the forest's encroaching darkness.

The sinking sun cast everything into dull grays as Jane stepped forward and gently helped Tavish to his feet. For the second time in as many days. This was all together different before, the prince refusing to surrender room as he gripped Jane by both forearms, hauling himself upwards.

"I know." Tavish swallowed thickly. "I know it was a long time ago. We were kids but I thought- I needed to be sure. This isn't all just a dream, right?"

Jane laughed humorlessly. "Now there's a choice of words." He felt the fingers on his arms tighten. "How do you know me?"

"We were-" Tavish suddenly averted his eye in sheepishness. "Betrothed. I mean, we were just kids and all, so it was our families who put it all together…but we were still friends! And I never stopped hoping…"

Huh. That was…certainly something. Jane leveled an eyebrow over Tavish's shoulder, to where Marcel was lurking. "That true?"

"How should I know?" Marcel waved his dagger impatiently, his hand clutched like he was still prepared to use it. "Yes, once you did tell me you were born in Scarland, but you have told me many things over the years. And yet, completely failed to mention you were once Scarlet nobility ."

Jane shook his head. Him? Scarlet? He'd always known patches of his past were rough…

Tavish looked equally distraught. "Why did you ask him? Why would he know?"

"I've always had…issues. With. Up here." Jane freed a hand long enough to raise a finger and tap his temple. "Marcel helps."

"So you…really don't remember me, then," Tavish finally arrived at, still not quite believing. A note of agony slipped in, that despair creeping back to his voice.

"Maybe. What happened exactly?"

"Cerulean attack. We were out, near the river like always, but somehow they got further into the riverlands without a single warning. Magic maybe. I took a blast when they started attacking." He indicated his patched eye. "We scattered, like all the people in the farms, and we ran for the walls and I thought you were right behind me and…"

Tavish pressed his forehead to Jane's chest.

"Endless Voice, I'm so sorry Janey."

Jane wrapped his arms over Tavish's back. He smelled like horse and road dust, and homes that didn't exist. Jane leveled a look at Marcel.

The Spymaster stared back for a good four seconds before throwing up his hands in disgust. "Fine! We won't kill him. But he absolutely cannot come back with us to Azure Bay with us."


They decided to take him back to Azure Bay.

Well, Jane decided. Marcel—a man who Tavish had never heard of but with all the casual information Jane let slip he gleaned was some sort of bodyguard—tried very hard to undecide for him, which Jane ignored with an admirable earnestness. It might have looked like Tavish feared the assassin, keeping himself so close to the other Cerulean at all times to avoid him, but honestly it was just because Tavish was scraping for Jane's contact at every moment. His shoulder always hovered close to Jane's as they sat on the ground for meals, almost afraid to touch, as though if he tried to make sure Jane was really there it would turn out he wasn't.

"We cannot enter the country with Redmond's heir tossed over the back of your horse," Marcel whined. He did that a lot.

"I got me own horse," Tavish put in helpfully.

"And even if he did not, there is no way we are sending him back to that commie country!" Jane poked the rabbit roasting over the fire with a stick. Tavish was pretty sure you weren't supposed to do that to a spit roast, but he was too busy watching Jane with open adoration to offer culinary commentary. "Have you heard what they were going to do to him there? They were going to make him get married when he did not want to get married!"

"How positively barbaric," Marcel replied drily. "Truly we'll have these human rights violations as soon as we get back to the capital."

Jane nodded. "Glad we're on the same page."

Despite his pleading, appeals to reason, and several threats against Tavish's personage, Marcel couldn't get Jane to budge on the matter. Every day they grew further and further from New Ruby and it shocked Tavish how little that mattered to him. So much for patriotism. With Jane here and only his mother and the slowly constricting noose of Redmond's inevitable demise behind him, the only true path was toward Cerulea.

"Thank you," Tavish said that night, their bedrolls in the process of unfurling (Tavish hadn't packed supplies in his rush to leave the palace, and Marcel had declared him 'Doe's problem' so it was Jane's tent he shared) on to hard earth below. "For standing up for me."

Most of the conversations during their precarious journey had been like this. Tavish trying to and failing to find the words that would surmount the impossible hills of ground he wanted to cover, and in the end too busy being happy to care.

Jane stopped in the process of straightening out his boots. "We were friends. That is what friends do."

"We were, aye. Do you really not remember any of it?"

"Not remember, no." Jane frowned. "I dream, sometimes. But…there was always someone there, and I now know that someone was you." He set down the boots so carefully, and fixed Tavish with his stare. "And when I met you again, I liked you then too. You were charming, daring, and proved not all Scarlets need their hands held to cross a puddle."

"You sure about liking me? I sort o' bungled the charming part…"

"You turned out to be noble at heart."

He reached toward Tavish, brushing his thumb against that scratch still scabbed on Tavish's cheek. Tavish froze, knelt in front of him, both huddled so close inside the tent he could see every detail the years apart had left his friend. Wrinkles, the faint outlines of scars, and he searched hungrily over it all, just like he had when the mask had come down. He slung an arm behind Jane's neck and dragged him closer.

"It was a crime to keep a warrior like you away from his sword," Jane said stalwartly. "They have wronged you. If I had been there, I would never have let it happen."

Tavish laughed. "Don't blame yourself for that, lad. You were too busy being kidnapped by Ceruleans."

"Still! It was a mistake we will rectify. I'll get you a real fight DeGroot, mark my words!"

The scream of horses tore through what was left of the conversation. It ripped through the tent as assuredly as the sword that came stabbing through the canvas a moment later. It was their only warning, and as the shredded flaps of tent parted around them Tavish saw why: Marcel, their usually dependable barometer for danger had his hands raised in surrender, kneeling next to the horses as they stamped in panic. Another sword was pointed at his throat, presumably so he wouldn't sound the alarm, and he wore an expression of beleaguered unspurise.

Tavish, honed by years of living under threat of Cerulean invasion, didn't register what was happening at first. His mind snapped to occupation, to blue uniforms that didn't exist. Even as he and Jane were forced to kneel, no time to even get to get their weapons in their hands, he still recognize them for what they were.

It wasn't until one of the bandits said, "you were right Lloyd! Just like on that them poster there!"

They were all leering at Tavish like he was their next meal ticket, and under the burden of that uniform attention he stupidly repeated, "poster?"

"Aye, this one right here!" said the closest one, waving a weather beaten piece of paper. "Ten thousand kröwns for the safe return of the prince, and five thousand a piece for each kidnappers' head."

Tavish paused. It was not productive to argue with the sketch of him presented on the wanted poster—his features were rather on the distinctive side. Instead he said, "well, at least she had the decency to offer more for me than she did for you lot."

Marcel released an exhale whose length did not seem humanly possible, which he capped off with an embittered, " fuck ."

Jane, slightly to Tavish's left, said nothing. He seethed in silence, glaring at their captors as they began to rummage through the camp, and Tavish realized if he didn't do something, someone else would. Guilt played no small part in the need for action either. Here he'd brought trouble down upon the Ceruleans heads, just like Marcel said.

"Listen lads," Tavish said, trying to look like he wasn't addressing the sword waving dangerously toward him. "You're obviously all good, noble Scarlets who're doing their patriotic duty. Now that you've got those er…kidnappers all hedged in, why don't you point those knives somewhere else?"

"Don't think so mate," the one pilfering the food supplies said. "In order to get that bounty, it's really important you don't go anywhere ."

"You won't get any bounty if-"

Tavish was just about to pull the royal pillock card, when his prophecy about someone else taking drastic action came devastatingly true.

However, it wasn't Jane who slipped from his extortionist's grasp and jammed him in the neck with a dagger.

If Tavish hadn't been watching he wouldn't have believed it. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Marcel melt , his entire body turning to smoke, swirling backwards and appearing behind the bandit. He gurgled as he went down, Marcel flipping his knife and falling into a fencing stance.

"Shapeshifter!" one of the bandits hissed, as another rand forward with a roar.

Jane did not waste the distraction. He was up in an instant, dodging inside the range of his horrified guard, knocking him to the ground as, "oorah!" sprang from his lips. He used the tip of his boot to flip the fire's poking stick into his hands, then promptly rammed it through the prone man's eye.

The clearing they'd made camp in had devolved to blood and screaming so quickly, so vividly, Tavish was back on those red banks in an instant. He tried to stay present, to watch as Marcel dispatched another, to notice the next attacker approaching the assassin from behind. He opened his mouth to give warning. Nothing came out.

But it wasn't a weapon this latest assailant struck Marcel with. It was something he'd pulled from his neck, an iron symbol on a chain, and with it he rammed his fist forward until the pendant clattered against Marcel's back.

His skin parted around the pendant like it was water, and though Tavish had just heard the screams of dying men thrice in intimate detail, this one was the most horrifying of them all. Marcel spun, clumsily jamming his blade into the gut of the bandit, but when he fell Marcel made no move out of the way. The last Tavish saw of them was a hulking corpse pinning Marcel to the ground.

Yet when Tavish scrambled to his feet the only thing he could focus on was Jane.

The General had somehow gotten his sword in his hand, a feat Tavish couldn't even fathom right now. He was locked in single combat with one of the last two bandits, and Tavish knew there were two because the second was swinging a greataxe at Jane's back.

This time, the lack of logical thought going on in Tavish's head was a blessing. There was no hesitation as he lunged forward and tackled the bigger man.

It was a miracle the axe didn't get a hit on him. It was less of a miracle when they both went tumbling into the pit fire, though Tavish would take what he was given. He held the man's face down into the flames until his hands blistered, and the screaming stopped.

When it was done, he scooted backwards, shaking, and muttered softly, "bloody hell."

Jane had dispatched his dueling partner with a neat spear through the chest, flicking his blade free of blood before noticing. The prince sat on the ground, staring dumbly at the burning body, watching as the fire thanked him profusely for the fresh fuel.

He felt Jane's hand squeeze his shoulder. "Well done, soldier."

The pause for comfort was brief. Jane took one look around the camp and noticed where Marcel's body was still trapped, and immediately his steely composure disappeared. He rushed over and pushed away the bandit's corpse.

"Marcel!" he grunted, trying to lift the man to a sitting position.

Man? Was that the right term for a shapeshifter? With all that had gone on, Tavish was only now starting to connect the dots.

Jane found the pendant amongst the gore. "Cold iron," he muttered in disgust, and tossed it away. Immediately, Marcel stirred, opening his eyes feebly.

"Is he…is he going to be alright?" Tavish found himself asking.

Maybe that was a strange thing to do—worry about a fae, man's most hated enemy—but for some reason the revelation didn't bother Tavish as much as it probably should have. Marcel had probably saved all their lives and, well, he was Jane's friend. That meant something now, when loyalties were more than red and blue.

"I think so," Jane said. "I've only ever seen it happen once, but I am…reasonably confident it is temporary! Help me get him closer to the fire."

Tavish helped. Their traveling pace was slower, and the tension releasing from Jane's shoulders when they finally crossed the border into Cerulea was palpable. Exactly how bad of a situation they were in was unclear: it didn't seem that Marcel and Jane's identities were known to the general populace, but apparently 'that damn toymaker' would know at the very least. This Tavish gleaned from Jane and Marcel's clipped conversations he was only occasionally allowed to overhear.

In a wild swing from the casual threats Marcel had made towards him during the first leg of their journey, he now spent their days crossing the plains of Scarland—the scent of salt grew stronger every day they drew closer to the sea, Tavish didn't know how anyone could stand it—completely mum. A very obvious attempt to keep Tavish out of the loop, cutting off whatever he was saying whenever Tavish's horse drew near.

Tavish finally breached that gulf of half a day's ride away, the spire of architecturally improbable tower just visible on the horizon. "You're feeding off him, aren't you? That's why he can't remember anything."

Marcel went stiff in his saddle. Tavish had waited until Jane's draft had pulled ahead, swaying easily on the unpaved road. Their conversation was, effectively, private.

What little conversation there was. Marcel held up the silence uncompromisingly, like a blanket of protection, and Tavish had almost resigned himself to believing there would be no speaking to the fae, until he finally broke it with a, "yes, but it is not how you think."

"And how do I think?"

"That stealing the thoughts of mortals is how I power my abilities. That is the faery story you tell in Scarland, is it not? But it is the opposite, really. His memories they….they do not allow me to change, but to stay unchanged, to find something grounded and hold on to that. Without him I would start to…slip. To whatever my own mind wandered to. It is why we do not 'exist' for very long."

The sound of hoofbeats was the only sound for a while.

Finally, Tavish asked, "does he know?"

Gravely, Marcel looked over the waving wheat of farms along the road, the summer's harvest waist high and growing. "Once. Once upon a time I made a deal with someone who was full of potential, but hounded by ghosts that held them back. It was beneficial to us both. Now of course he does not remember that promise, nor even being that person who has made such a promise, and I for my part have-" He came to a stop. "I have grown fond."

"Ach if ever a fae creature was going to grow a soft spot for some barmy mortal, it would be for Jane. He has that effect."

Marcel looked at him sideways. "You're oddly chipper after having your worst assumptions about shapeshifters confirmed."

"Well…you're Jane's."

"His what?"

"Just…his. I guess I am too now. Or always was. Even when he was gone, he had enough of a hold on me to keep me yearning for thirty years."

They lapsed. Into silence, into routine, into night as the sun began to sink into yellow waves in the west. Every moment there was something newly off about Marcel, but Tavish didn't think much of it; he'd said what he'd wanted to say, and now his mind had only thoughts of the future, what they would do when they reached the city.

He didn't look at the hands twisting in the reigns until Marcel said in rushed tones, "they are going to kill you as soon as we're inside the palace walls."

Tavish didn't have time to reply, didn't even have time for shock before Marcel hurried on.

"They very very badly need this peace. You reveal yourself, claim you're eloping with the commander of Blutarch's armies, it won't matter how willingly you've gone—it will be just the pretense our kingdoms need to reignite the kindling." He stared straight ahead, delivering each line with cold indifference. "Even your personal best case scenario has you being shipped back to New Ruby in a belated attempt at appeasement; but honestly the council would prefer it if you were killed off quietly and cleanly, before word escaped that you'd been seen in the city at all."

"And you're just telling me this now ?" Tavish choked. "While we're in sight of the city walls? And why didn't you tell Jane this?"

"Don't think I didn't. It was the first argument I presented to him, and like always he brushed me off. Jane will and forever be convinced in his own inevitability; no amount of logic will persuade him he can't handle something when he sets his mind to it."

"…If fighting is sure to result in victory, then you must fight," Tavish echoed faintly, dread settling over him.

"To be honest, when it became apparent he would not ditch you, I resigned myself to entering the city anyway. Of course Jane would be upset about your death for a little while, but he'd get over it eventually."

Tavish glowered.

"I…have revised my stance." Marcel cleared his throat. "So now do you see? You must turn around. Forget you ever saw us. Avoid a war that will only spawn more ceaseless death."

Tavish stared ahead. At Jane's horse in the distance. At Jane's home that had kept him safe when Scarland couldn't.

"You told Jane all this?" he said eventually.

"As I mentioned, yes."

"And he came to a different conclusion. He thinks this will help our kingdoms, not hurt them."

"You can't be serious," Marcel glared. "Jane is—delusional is the kindest of the possible terms—and his judgment is blind to things like his own shortcomings and rational thought. You mustn't follow him in there."

"I trust him," Tavish said, with a certainty that hadn't hit him until he spoke the words. "With my life, if necessary."

They entered the palace just as the last of the heaven's eye dipped below the horizon. Marcel was still trying to convince him, his hushed words, in threats where he grew frustrated. Tavish kept his gaze to Jane's back. Even as they walked up the great stone steps. Even when he heard the marching of many armored feet closing in behind them.

He saw the muscles in Jane's jaw tense. Maybe he was expecting it too. He certainly didn't seem surprised when he turned and saw the guards closing in on them.

They three drew their blades simultaneously, but it was almost funny how obviously ineffective that would be, how many the Cerulean numbers outmatched their own. A single second of consideration crossed Jane's face, and Tavish watched it stretch an infinite number of heartbeats.

The General turned, standing shoulder to shoulder with Marcel as they faced the oncoming swarm. He looked over his shoulder and told Tavish, "run."

And there was no way out but in.

His boots slammed against the marble floors of the Azure halls. Again the guilt of what he'd brought upon Jane welled within him, but the screeching pain in his lungs as he sprinted pushed it down. Jane and Marcel might be fine, and Tavish didn't have that 'might'. He had to keep running.

He sprinted up spiral staircases and down corridors, all the while swearing the march of footsteps behind him were growing louder. How long could two men against twenty buy him? A few seconds?

It wasn't his imagination, they were gaining and he was slowing, there was nowhere in this bloody palace to hide . And then. There was a door.

It was innocuous, hanging open as if laughing at him, strange soot stains caressing the wall where the wood touched stone. And as soon as Tavish passed through it slammed shut behind him.