After their meal was completed, Jacob found his eyes darting to Starrick, wondering what the day had in store for him. It was obvious he'd get nowhere with any escape attempts during the day. Not with the sheer number of guards surrounding the perimeter and any source of transportation he could possibly use. He'd have to be smart about this. He'd have to play Starrick's game.

He tried to ignore the way that thought made his stomach turn, all too aware of his little "lapse" in memory that morning and what it could possibly mean. He forced the thought from his head. There was nothing he could do about it for now except stay calm and focused and keep an eye on it. That'd have to be enough.

"So what's the plan?" Jacob snarked, trying to ignore the small, gibbering panic in the back of his mind as he smiled broadly at Starrick. He leaned back into his chair, laced his fingers behind his head and leered. "Day one of templar brainwashing? Going to try and convince me that your way is actually for the greater good?"

Starrick set down his paper and slid his eyes slowly to Jacob. Jacob tried to resist a shudder, but it slid gently down his spine regardless. If Starrick noticed, he didn't say a word.

"No, actually. I don't think you're quite ready for that," he said, lacing his fingers before him as he scrutinized the boy at his table – as though studying a rare, strange plant. "I thought we might play a game instead."

"You mean other than the one we're already playing?"

Starrick's smile widened. "Obviously."

"What did you have in mind?" Jacob asked.

"You'll see," he said, lifting himself from his chair and waving Jacob along.

And that's how Jacob found himself standing before a small but lavish chess set tucked into a grand bay window overlooking Starrick's expansive garden. He couldn't help but sneer.

"Chess?"

"Yes," Starrick said, taking a seat at one end of the table – black. He gestured to the other chair as he settled in. "White for you, I assume? It seems fitting."

"Quite."

Jacob tried not to feel a sting of embarrassment as Starrick watched him struggle up into his seat and get comfortable – baffled on the best way to sit and still reach the table. Ultimately, he had to sit up on his knees. And he hated it.

But Starrick said nothing. Small mercies.

"I assume you're quite good at this game," Jacob said, trying to look confident. "You look the sort."

"A successful leader must be good at this game," he insisted as he straightened his pieces meticulously. It was only when he was satisfied that everything was in order that he leveled his gaze upon Jacob once more. "Its merits reach far outside the confines of this board, you see. Have you never played?"

Jacob tried not to scowl, but wasn't quite successful.

"With Evie, yes. But if you wanted a good game, you should have taken her," Jacob said, crossing his arms. "I never saw the use of this stupid game."

"Again you think I chose unwisely between you and your sister," Starrick said, making Jacob flush.

"I hardly wish our situations switched. I'm glad she's safe, wherever she is."

"She's dead," Starrick said.

"Say that however much you'd like, you're wasting your breath," Jacob said, moving as though to leave.

"Tell you what, Jacob. Why wait for your darling dead sibling or your brotherhood to save you when we can do this instead," Starrick said, gesturing to the board. "Beat me and I'll let you go. I'll hand you a carriage and a driver myself, and that'll be the end of it."

Jacob settled back into his chair, mouth ajar.

"You're shitting me."

Starrick wrinkled his nose at his choice of words but did not correct him.

"I am a man of my word."

"And if you win? What then?" Jacob asked.

"You will come with me to a tailor and you will behave properly for the entirety of the trip."

Jacob's heart stuttered in his chest as he realized precisely what that meant. Going to a tailor meant accepting his new body, his new size. It would mean intimately addressing every way he's changed, made all the more painful by the fact that he had no illusion as to what sort of clothing Starrick would want him to wear. Children's clothing, small and cute and boyish.

It was a high stakes match at first glance, but Jacob had to remind himself that it only felt that way because of his ego. If he won, he was free – if Starrick kept his word. If he lost, at least he wouldn't be running around in a nightgown, no matter how foolish children's clothing would make him feel.

He settled back onto his knees and made a show of eagerly scanning the board, his smile croaked as he said, "Let's get this show on the road then, shall we? I'd rather like to be home before dinner."

Starrick started slowly, purposefully losing a weak piece here or there to identify what he already knew – Jacob was just as bullish and straightforward on the board as he was in the streets. It wasn't long before he began to pick off the assassin's pieces one by one, dragging the game out purposefully to see where Jacob's lines were and how he handled frustration.

Jacob hated this game. It brought up memories of his childhood; of Evie crushing him with every pawn stroke she made. Of their father praising her, the chess games slowly becoming something only the two of them shared as Jacob wandered outside – dirty cheeked and knees scabbed.

He was pretty sure they had a set on the train. He had seen Evie and Greenie playing when they thought no one was looking, talking softly, laughing, smiling differently than friends would.

Lost in thought, he didn't realize the mistake of his last move until Starrick swiftly took yet another piece from him, steadily encroaching upon the safety of his king. No matter what he did he couldn't keep the man off his more valuable pieces. His forces were spread thin, steadily being picked off one by one as Starrick blazed a destructive path across the board. A childish fire began to burn in Jacob's stomach, whispering wickedly within his heart to leave the game unfinished. He couldn't lose if they didn't finish.

"Poor sport," he could remember Evie chanting, tongue peeking out from between her lips whenever his inability to keep up would get to him.

Jacob crossed his arms and glared out the large viewing room windows onto the garden.

"I told you, if you wanted a chess companion, you picked the wrong sibling," he grumbled, still lost in the memories of Evie's chanting, his every childhood shortcoming. Across from him Starrick sucked in an old, whistling breath and leaned back in his own chair in a rare show of relaxation. It almost startled Jacob from his sulking; almost.

"Again you question my choices," he mused, drawing Jacob's reluctant attention from the window. "Do you think so little of your own abilities, Jacob?"

Jacob's eyes nearly popped out of his head.

"Have you met me?" Jacob asked. He had never been accused of being self-conscious before. Vain? Surely. Over confident? All the bloody time. Self-conscious? Evie would have a fit if she knew. He could picture her now clinging to the vanity in the train, struggling to stay standing as she laughed herself silly at the thought. "Jacob Frye, gang leading of London. Suave, handsome head of the resistance? Ringing any bells? I know who I am, Starrick."

Starrick nodded beseechingly as though the point were plain as day, but Jacob could see a sharp cleverness twinkling in his eyes, dark and sparkling like a snake's.

"Of course, of course. It's just remarkable how often you compare yourself to your sister. If you wished for a piano player, for a good son, for a chess companion… in fast, during our time together you've admonished me more for my choice of who I took rather than the fact that I took you in the first place," Starrick said. Jacob could feel himself going pale with every word that fell from Starrick's lips. Because of course Jacob was furious he was where he was, but… the man wasn't wrong. He had complained more about his shortcomings than he had the fact that he had been kidnapped and changed.

"Was Evie the gold child, Jacob?" Starrick continued, voice mild and yet eyes so keen. "Did you father—"

Jacob quickly stood from the board, chair squeeling on the hardwood but too heavy to knock over completely from a weight as slight as Jacob's.

"Shut up," Jacob demanded as lowly as his little voice would allow. "You don't know what in the bloody hell you're talking about."

He expected the man to react to his outburst, to his disrespect, in comparison to the picture perfect boy Starrick expected him to be. He reached for his enemy's anger, desperate to be back on familiar ground. Instead the man only stared at him patiently, chin in one hand, and said, "Truly? Because it all seems as plain as day to me. Your sister and your father were rather close, weren't they? Like mirror images of one another and yet so distant from you even though you were your sister's twin?"

With every word Jacob could feel his stomach turning and twisting and sinking, but he couldn't force himself to leave – entrapped like a mouse between a cat's sharp and playful paws.

"They both enjoyed history, culture, the arts. They both became enamored with the pieces of Eden and their purpose. They both valued secrecy and stealth over brute strength, didn't they? Two peas in a pod in every way, and no room for you."

Jacob's little hands turned into fists at his side. He could feel himself begin to tremble. As a man, he might've been able to temper it into something subtle, but as a boy… His body felt too small to contain all the things that were raging up onto the surface, drowning him.

"You're wrong," he said lamely, his little lip caught between his teeth.

"Am I? I can see the signs, Jacob. I had a sister once, too, remember?"

Right. A sister for a sister. Jacob felt his lip curl free of his teeth and he took an angry step to the side so that the chess table didn't dwarf him so ridiculously.

"Your family is nothing like mine—" Jacob began, but Starrick cut him off gently but surely, like river water running over rocks, quiet and overpowering.

"My father loved her. You know the old saying: there's nothing quite like the love between a father and his daughter. She smiled like the sun, her hair gold and lovely, and she had him wrapped around her little finger. He bought her a pony for her birthday. Took her to all the loveliest plays. Do you know what he did with me?"

Jacob snarled, "I don't really care," but Starrick continued on like he hadn't.

"Boarding school. Tutors, studies, business school. No achievement was great enough, no subject conquered good enough. I graduated top of my class, but still he smiled only for her. I learned things she could never even fathom, and yet she still hung the sun in the sky. I tripled the profits of our family business, expanding us across London – nothing. Merely a son's duty. It was never enough. He shadow was suffocating."

A small voice got stuck in his throat, unable to escape but choking him all the same.

How did you get over it?

He didn't even realize he himself was not over it. Never thought… He jerked back, wide-eyed and angry.

"You're just playing mind games," Jacob accused. "Trying to distract me. I'm done playing, Starrick."

He took off without waiting for another word. He had been a fool to think waiting was the answer. To stay and play Starrick's games would be as good as waving a white flag. He heard Starrick's chair legs slowly slide back against the hardwood, the man seemingly unrushed, but he didn't stay to see why.

He ran past the first goon that was ambling by in the hallway. The man squawked, confused, but Jacob was already gone before the grunt could even so much as say, "Hey!"

He tossed anything easily throwable on his way. Vases shattered across the floor, books littered the lovely marble. Anything to throw his pursuers off balance for even a moment.

"Fetch him," he distantly heard Starrick order. Not stop him or catch him. Fetch. As though he were something easily retrieved.

"Fetch me if you can, you dumb bastards," he growled beneath his feet as he burst through a kitchen of startled henchmen and wait staff and flew onto the stone of the patio. His feet complained beneath him – soft and tender where his feet as a man had been calloused – but he didn't let that stop him.

Halfway through the garden his heart began to leap as he thought 'holy shit, it's working'. The goons from the house were only just beginning to stir and the guards around the perimeter were unaware as of yet. He flew through Starrick's expensive bushes and out onto the yard – the last stretch of land between him and the trees beyond. If he could just get to the forest, he could hide and slowly make his way to more friendly faces that could point him in the direction of London. He hoped Starrick had not managed to take them too far while he was recovering from what the shroud had done to him; but that was a problem for later, once he was in the clear.

'And Evie said headstrong plans never work – ha!"

He was grinning, the grass wet and soft beneath his feet. He could hear shouting from the house, men scrambling. A shouted "Don't shoot, you imbecile!"

Jacob nearly choked. They were going to shoot a child?!

He made it halfway to the tree line when the sound of fast pursuit made him dare to look behind him for just a moment. A lanky man with long legs was eating up the ground between them faster than Jacob could make up for it, and with a lurch in his stomach Jacob realized he was going to catch him. He was three quarters of the way there when long arms wrapped around his chest and waist and heaved him off the ground, arms pinned to his sides from the bear hug.

He wriggled and snarled even as the goon sucked in a deep breath and victoriously crowed, "I got'em, Mr. Starrick!"

A shout that quickly turned into a wicked howl when Jacob buried his teeth into the man's forearm as hard as he could. He tasted copper just as the arms holding him up disappeared and he fell into the soft earth of Starrick's yard. He didn't wait to see how long that would occupy the goon or how many more were coming. He bolted that last dozen or more feet to get to the trees, lungs burning in his chest. Foliage whipped his face as he passed into the forest, Starrick's now urgent shouting slowly fading behind him.

If he had thought the stone of Starrick's patio had been unpleasant on his feet, it had nothing on the twigs and bramble of the forest that tore little nicks into the soles of his feet – but he didn't dare stop. He could hear men following, but now he had the advantage. Where they might have long legs and an adult's stamina, he was small and lithe and able to dart through the thick forest with relative ease by comparison.

It was working. He would be free. He kicked himself for not trying this again sooner even as he knew he had attempted escape once already and that, thanks to his lapse in clarity, he hadn't had much other opportunities that morning. He grinned and crowed a happy howl as he whipped through trees and over logs, adrenaline burning the pain from his feet.

He could no longer hear the men following him. He made the mistake of looking over his shoulder just to make sure.

His ankle rolled on a patch of soil softer than the rest. He yelped as his momentum sent him tumbling off into a steep fall down a ditch that led to a tiny creek – shallow and softly trickling. His shoulder blazed as it struck a rock on the way down and he yowled, only for the noise to get cut off as another stone clipped his brow on the way down. Jacob tumbled the last bit down into the creek silently after that, one foot dipped and bleeding into the water as one chubby cheek pressed into the soft, waterlogged soil.

He fell still. Out of sight as he was, time passed. Shouting men came and went, and finally returned with dogs. Starrick watched, his brow wrinkled and furrowed as Jacob's old shirt dangled in one hand, the dogs chasing the scent it provided.

Beside him, Abrams directed his men to spread left and right as the dogs darted this way and that.

"We'll find'im, sir," he mumbled, trying to sound confident.

"For your sake and the sake of your men, you better," Starrick said back.

Abrams swallowed audibly before stepping away, shouting more directions.

Starrick watched them all with shallow, impassive eyes. Inside his mind was churning. He had underestimated Jacob. He had created all these fail-safes in containing him; nails in the windows, guards, strict patrolling schedules, one on one contact with the boy first hand…

But still his own bias toward planning had left him blindsided when Jacob did the one thing Jacob does best – blaze a sudden and unstoppable path of destruction. This had come to pass because he had thought about Jacob tactfully rather than how Jacob himself would think.

So he paused, and he closed his eyes, and he thought to himself – where would I go if I were a man without a plan?

He mentally followed Jacob's path of destruction. He ran in his mind as Jacob had, tossing over his priceless decorations to distract the men who had not yet even thought to run after him. He blazed through the house and out into the yard, staying in the garden to use it to obscure his diminutive height before barreling out onto the lawn as Jacob had. Someone grabbed him and he used the only weapon he had left – his teeth.

The second he was free he ran for the woods where his smaller body would excel in a terrain adults would struggle with.

And he ran, and he ran, excited — ah.

Starrick opened his eyes.

Jacob could be gone, there was no doubt. He was a clever boy, if reckless. But moreso, Starrick could not help but focus on the latter half of that thought – clever but reckless. While it was possible that Jacob had gotten away and made enough distance to hide until the cost was clear enough to find his way to civilization, it was just as possible that his own reckless excitement had sabotaged him. If he were hiding on the ground, the hounds would find him. Otherwise…

"Mr. Abrams," he directed, "Set aside a group of men to look up as well, won't you? He's an assassin after all."

Abrams blinked and stammered at him as he rushed to fulfill his request, cursing himself beneath his breath for his foolishness. Of course, they should be looking up.

And then Starrick looked around himself in general. The woods were thick here, dense and overgrown. There were plenty of roots that might have tangled up the child in his haste but they had yet to seen any significant signs of a struggle. He followed the path the hounds had taken so far and looked ahead. There was a small ravine ahead – more like a ditch than anything else – and slight as it may be he could hear the sound of water. No bridges had been built this deep into the woods, no paths cleared. It was possible, the water would confuse the dogs.

He walked toward the creek only to startle quite mildly when the heel of one boot slipped lower than the rest of his foot in a soft spot of soil. Too small to trip him up, but for Jacob…

He looked just ahead and found exactly what he had been keeping a keen eye out for. There was a small hole in the brush ahead that framed the ditch – nothing significant, but not natural either. He walked up to and sighed at what he found lying in the creek below.

Starrick did not bother to call to his men, he didn't trust them for such a delicate task. Instead he carefully made his way down the soft embankment and knelt beside the body he found there. He pressed two shaking fingers to Jacob's throat, but without even trying he could hear the child's broken breathing. He was alive. Chilled to the bone and worse for wear, but alive.

"Oh Jacob," he sighed softly, "This doesn't have to be so hard."

He brushed Jacob's small cheek and then traced the bleeding gash above his right eyebrow tenderly, frowning at how deep the rock that he must have struck had gone. Beneath his inquisitive touch, Jacob flinched and whined.

Starrick hushed him kindly and slowly, carefully gathered the boy into his arms – one arm beneath his knees and the other beneath his shoulders. Jacob fell into his warmth, and Starrick could feel the way he shivered – so he had been here for some time, then. Blood from the boy's brow stained his pristine shirt, but Starrick couldn't find it in himself to care.

It surprised even him, but in Jacob all he saw was himself – lost and undervalued.

He held the boy a little closer and looked for a way back up the embankment. His men startled when he emerged with his find. Abrams stammered apologies and offered to carry Jacob, but Starrick didn't answered. He carried Jacob himself. After all, it was a father's duty to help his son.