Standing next to a packed bag which leaned on the side of her bed, Clarisse let out a sigh of relief. She had packed enough clothes to last them a week before she’d have to do any laundry on top of everything she had for adventuring, and even had a small purse to sling by her side carrying first aid supplies.

  In her hand was a neatly folded up parchment – the letter she had written for her mother. She had taken great care in writing it, well aware of the risks she was undertaking. Nikolas and Seraphim were shady characters at the very least, but she had consciously tried to portray them as anything but that in her description, even including a little sketch of both of them at the bottom.

  With everything packed and the lamp put out, now the only task left for Clarisse was to wait for her companion to return. She wanted so badly to unfold the parchment and add in more details, assure her mother once more that she would be fine and that she would come back to visit her soon, but she couldn’t dare to open it again. Not after the white lies of omission she had left in it regarding Nikolas…

  Walking back from the city square, Nikolas had purposefully taken a scenic, lonely route back to stall himself. A doll floated next to him, speaking in whispers silent enough to not be heard by the sparse population of the city in those parts.

  “All the way to Aruna? You’re not going to find much time to be alone on a trip that long…” Sera inquired, she had her own doubts with his impulsive decision to leave Junnhaven.

  “I know, I know,” Nikolas raised his gaze towards the sky which was growing redder by the moment, hands tucked away in his pockets as he walked slowly along the edge of the street. “But time is what I need to let the questions of the guild die down. And I can pretend to sleep just fine. The real issue is that she’s beginning to see dreams of my memories.”

  “That’s peculiar…” Sera replied, her wooden eyes narrowing with suspicion. “The mana bond? How much has she seen so far?”

  “No clue… she does know about Sherly now… probably the rest of the old crew as well,” Nikolas grit his teeth under the mask, looking down with a frustrated grunt. “She should also be able to see through my disguise too.”

  “And this is why I was skeptical about you choosing a kitsune,” Sera chastised him, completing a revolution around the adventurer and scanning his appearance. “When do you plan to reveal the truth to her?”

  “It wasn’t like I knew she’d see my memories-!” Nikolas protested, his eyes following along with Sera as he twirled mid-step with ears flattened against his head. “I’ll wait until there’s a good time to mention it… what I told her wasn’t technically a lie, though.”

  “Souls and tails aren’t quite equal-” Sera made a cross with her arms in front of her, before landing on Nikolas’s head and sitting down in between his ears. “Though, I’d like to know your past too… maybe I should tell her, hmm?”

  “They’re none of your business,” Nikolas shook his head to dislodge the doll before grabbing her out of the air with a quick swipe of his hand. “You know exactly what you need to know, and I don’t want to talk more about it.”

  “I’ve given you enough time to open up about it so I can help or whatever it is that you need–” Sera complained, wriggling in his grip but unable to free herself. “Who’s Sherly, for instance? You meet another girl and all of a sudden, she knows more about you than I do.”

  “I’m not interested in giving you any information you can use against me,” Nikolas replied bluntly, firmly placing Sera on his shoulder before letting go of her. “Sherly’s long dead. Don’t try to change that.”

  “I wouldn’t– when have I ever done that to you? Shakuni would if he knew, and you know that.” Sera piped up in a confused, almost accusatory tone, her volume spiking loud enough to be audible down the street for just a moment before settling again.

  “Why am I up here, exactly then?” Nikolas shot back, narrow eyes glaring at Sera from the corner of the eye slits in his mask. “An insurgent hidden in the overworld for you to employ whenever you need? You could’ve chosen any of your shapeshifters to do the same. They’re far more sociable than I want to be too.”

  Sera let out a sigh and looked down, seemingly having no comebacks to his question. “I won’t try to bring Sherly, or anyone else for that matter, back. You have my word. And you can talk about these things to me. You should talk about these things with me.”

  “I’d rather not,” Nikolas shut her down again, though this time his tone betrayed pain rather than anger. “A queen should have better things to do than listen to my past.”

  “It’s not that I don’t have things to do! I want to know.” Sera tried to explain herself, placing a hand on the side of his head to try and comfort him. “I want to know you. We’re one of a kind, after all.”

  Nikolas remained silent for a few seconds, only looking up from the cobbled path below them to look at what was ahead when he had to make a turn. “We aren’t. But maybe some other day…” He both agreed and disagreed with her in a single breath, much to the doll’s dismay. “We’re entering the busier part of the city. Let’s talk later.”

  “Fine…” The doll conceded, floating back to his backpack and closing it after herself as she comfortably lodged herself among its contents.

  The rest of Nikolas’s walk back to the apartment remained outwardly quiet, though his internal dialogue seemed a bit too amused for his comfort.

  “How long do you plan to keep hiding me from everyone?”

  “. . .”

  “They’ll find out sooner or later, hahaha-ha!”

  “I wish you’d just disappear someday.”

  “And where would I go? No vessel in this world can contain me!”

  “I seem to be doing a pretty good job at it.”

  “For now…”

  “Don’t get any ideas.”

  “But where else will you turn when you’re pushed to the limit? I’m the only person you can really trust to keep you alive.”

  “. . .”

  “That’s right. I’ll have my day…”

  Peeking from between the thin curtains of her room, Clarisse spotted her fox companion walking down the street to her place and was already waiting for him at the door as he climbed up the stairs to the first floor. “Were you able to find a transport for tonight?” she asked once he was inside.

  “I did! We’re even getting paid for it.” Nikolas replied as he entered, holding up an envelope of his own, which presumably contained their contract for the job.

  “Woah- I was expecting to pay for transport…” Clarisse commented, accepting the envelope and skimming through its contents.

  “Don’t sweat the details. It’s an escort and protection gig over a relatively safe route,” Nikolas mentioned while she was reading through the contract. “If anything does come up, I’ll handle things and you can sleep on the way there. We’ll get to the next city by the morning and figure out our way from there.”

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  Clarisse raised her gaze from the parchment as Nikolas summarized its contents, releasing a soft sigh when he got to the end. Of course, that was the catch. They’d need to find work to support themselves from then on. “Are you sure we’ll be able to find something to do along the entire route? The desert is pretty empty as far as I remember.”

  “Problems~” The kitsune spoke whimsically, doing a final sweep of the room to make sure he had gathered all of his extra sets of attire. “tend to show up fairly regularly in those parts. Despite being devoid of civilization, the desert is a tumultuous place by its very nature. Are you all packed to go?”

  “I am, but can we stop by the post office first?” Clarisse put on her shoulder bag and jingled a pair of keys in her hand while holding the parchment she had written on in the other.

  Walking through the city in the dead of night had been strange, but Clarisse felt a great weight taken off her shoulders after dropping off her letter. The merchant guild where Nikolas had found their escort job being close to the post office also helped. Before she knew it, she was seated in the back of the caravan, with their bags stowed away with the other goods.

  Peering out of the tarp covering the backside of the caravan, Clarisse watched the city gradually diminish until she could only make out the lamplights of the watchtowers placed regularly along the walls. On the other side, Nikolas was standing near the front next to the merchant himself who was guiding the horse-drawn caravan along its path.

  Feeling eyes set on him, Nikolas glanced back and gave her an affirmative nod before returning his keen gaze to the area around them. It wasn’t long before Clarisse let the day’s exhaustion set in, and with her head supported against her shoulder bag, she drifted asleep.

  Clarisse would be greeted by a far worse environment than the ones she had grown used to in her dreams that night, instead finding herself in a damp alleyway, lit only by soft illumination of a faraway lamp reflecting itself through puddles in the ground. Everything looked hazy and blurred, and everything past the alley darkened away into oblivion. Despite the twilight hour, her ears weren’t spared from a busy onslaught more reminiscent of the farmer’s market than of peaceful nighttime. Wherever she was, the nightlife was quite prominent. She could hear it even if she couldn’t see it, people were present in the vicinity.

  A tall and rotund man smoking from an ornate pipe then walked into the alley. She felt a certain aura of impoverished wealth from him by the pair of golden teeth glistening in the lamplight and the layered jacket he wore over a striped shirt and ragged suspenders. He was imposing by his stature alone, but then he lowered his pipe to speak, and his voice was even more unsettling and gruff than she had imagined.

  “Did you bring the goods?” The man spoke with heavy breaths and deep tone, frightening the comparably diminutive redhead. If not for the open sky above them, she felt that his presence alone would be able to hog all the air in the room and leave her to suffocate in desperation. Before Clarisse could recover from her judgement of the man, another voice spoke from behind her, although this was one she could recognize.

  “Of course. Although, not even a greeting first, Remus? You’re cold!” Roman smirked, stepping out of the darkness to reveal himself. His outfit looked far more put together than that of Remus despite bandages over his left eye and neck – a messy crop of brown hair adorning his woolen sweater and leather pants. Behind him, Clarisse could faintly make out a sleeker figure, which she had no doubt was Selene if her previous dream with the pair was anything to go by.

  “Your inability to deliver in our past meetings has left a sour taste in my gadder,” The hulking figure apparently named Remus spoke after releasing another whiff of smoke. He fished for something in his mouth with a greedy finger before spitting into the side of the street. “Hand it over now.” He demanded, wiping the saliva-ridden finger carelessly along his striped shirt.

  Clarisse backed up against one side of the alleyway as Selene stepped past Roman and tossed a large sack onto the ground between them. Merely by the way it rolled over once before becoming stationary, its contents were clear to some extent. “The payment?” Roman asked, crossing his arms as Selene retreated to peer over from behind him.

  “Checks are in order first. I trust its restraints are strong enough to last the journey?” Remus grinned as he knelt down in front of the sack and opened its head to reveal a child with black hair, blindfolded and gagged.

  Clarisse felt her stomach drop as Remus ripped the blindfold off to reveal dazed eyes staring out into the dim light of his surroundings, a mismatched pair she had grown accustomed to recognizing. Her chest constricted as she glared at Roman and Selene with utter disgust. “How could you…” she muttered under her breath.

  “So it really is one of the Crimson Tears… the younger one, anyway,” Satisfaction dripped from Remus’s brazen voice as he gripped Nikolas’s jaw tightly and turned him either way to inspect the boy’s facial features. “I almost can’t believe it - this puny, beautiful specimen is what caused so many ripples?” He shot a rhetorical question at the two standing across from him before returning his attention to the unconscious child, running a finger across his forehead and pushing his messy hair back.

  “I’d advise against playing with him, Remus. He isn’t like your other cargo.” Roman cautioned the brutish man, brushing a hand across his neck and the bandages under his eye in an attempt to elucidate his point. He took a step closer, but reversed it in the same breath when he was met by Remus’s harsh glare.

  “I am a connoisseur of specimens, Roman.” He spat out, apparently insulted by the words of warning. “The doctor has paid well to see it delivered unharmed, but I reckon the freak wouldn’t notice if I enjoyed its company before then.” His gaze returned to admiring Nikolas as he removed the gag around the boy’s mouth and ran his thumb over the newly unveiled features.

  Clarisse recoiled from him in every way she could conceivably do so, pressing her back against the grime of the walls barring the alley as she tried to put as much distance between them. Her emotions had long since gone past the point of disgust or fear, melding into a single desire to somehow escape, to wake up and convince herself that it wasn’t real.

  “You’re a sick bastard, Remus. I would gut you right here and now if this wasn’t business…” Selene suddenly snarled at the larger man, unsheathing a dagger and holding it in a reverse grip.

  “I’m just saying, he’s got a reputation for a reason…” Roman mediated between them momentarily by yanking Selene backwards despite wearing a similarly disgruntled and off-put expression. “You know it’s him, so just give us our payment so we can leave.”

  “Ah… I should, shouldn’t I?” Remus sported a crooked, toothy grin despite their reviled reactions. He produced a small vial from his pockets and uncorked it, holding it under Nikolas’s nose. “But you should have a proper goodbye first.” Remus chuckled, raising the sack so that the boy leant against his leg. The smelling salts gradually awoke his cargo, who was in just as bad a mood as the nature of that night.

  Clarisse clasped her hands over her mouth as the boy’s dazed eyes slowly blinked and found new focus, letting out a sneeze and taking in sharp, smoke-filled breaths as he woke up. Immediately, the entire sack shook as he tried to free himself. Despite his attempts, the restraints all over his body would stay strong and keep him bound, though his movements were enough to make him fall over from Remus’s leg.

  “Tch– tch…” Remus clicked his tongue, pulling the edge of the sack to raise him back into an upright sitting position. “Now, now. Your friends here made sure you couldn’t escape. Why don’t you thank them for their last gift to you?”

  Roman and Selene held uncomfortable guises as they witnessed Nikolas come to and direct his pained gaze at them. With his arms crossed and brow furrowed, Roman simply stared back at the boy with a cold, blank expression. Selene looked away with a pained expression of her own, unable to meet his eyes.

  It took a few seconds for Nikolas’s senses to adjust to the new environment, his reaction beginning with as powerful of a spit as he could muster. “I’ll… I’ll come back.” He began, his voice filled with cracks as he formed words amidst the layer of smoke all around Remus. “For Sherly… Look at me! No matter what happens, I’ll come back someday, and I’ll take everything from you! Just you wait– GAHHH-” The boy struggled in his restraints, his rage soon devolving into an unintelligible roar as he continued to writhe to no avail.

  Unlike everyone else, Remus reacted to the outburst with a loud belly laugh, letting Nikolas yell and scream his heart out at the pair as he produced a large, jingling sack of coin from under his jacket and threw it on the ground between them for Roman and Selene to gather. He fished out a long, bloodied needle from another of his pockets as Nikolas’s threats became louder, swiftly stabbing him with it to suppress the boy.

  Clarisse watched on, feeling a sense of despair wash over her as her surroundings began to grow darker, and everything slowly began turning into a blur. As Remus stabbed the drugged needle into Nikolas’s neck and pulled the sack over his head again, the faces around her quickly turned into a haze of colors, moving around in erratic ways before they faded away with the sounds of the city, leaving nothing but a black void with a lone sound – that of wheels turning and carrying Nikolas away from the alley in the back of a carriage.

  Despite standing alone in the void as the sound of the carriage gradually became fainter, Clarisse could still feel the motion of the carriage, its subtle ups and downs embedded into the very ground as if not only was the carriage moving away but the ground was taking her the other way, far, far away from what she considered sleep.

  She awoke to a different voice coming from a familiar figure of her dreams, though it was far more composed this time around. “We’re here, Clarisse.” Nikolas tapped her on the shoulder twice before exiting the caravan.

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