Valéry patted Coconut's neck. Her light brown coat had been brushed the previous night and looked particularly silky. Her blonde mane caught the glimmer of the morning’s light.

  "Ready for a ride?" He asked in a whisper, laying the saddle across Coconut's back and getting the straps ready. She nipped at his shoulder. "Yes, I know. Did I wake you up? Did you want to sleep in?"

  Her ears flicked and laid flat, and her dark eyes glistened with suspicion and exasperation. "How dare I take you out this early, is that what you're thinking?" A smile curled on Valéry's face. He reached under and began to get the front and back cinches of the saddle, and lastly the breast collar. He pulled the strips of latigo through and pinned them to the cinches.

  "Don't blame me!" Valéry said with a huff, pulling himself up from the left and onto the saddle, his boots snug in the stirrups. "You can give Hilde all your fury when we see her."

  Coconut led Valéry with her usual sluggishness down the lane feeding from his house to the street. By the time they were in the market square, she was up and awake and stopped her complaining. The weather was turning pleasant after a chilly spring, and it was another of a string of balmy and bright days. Coconut's neck and mane were nearly hot to the touch, Valéry noted, as he patted her during their ride.

  Pennant banners connected the half-timbered houses and storefronts of Teichostro. Balconies were lush with ivies and the full blossoming of flowers. The rabble of people couldn't drown out the tweeting of sparrows and cooing of mourning doves. Their small, curious heads poked from the red-tiled rafters of houses. Their fidgeting movements only stopped to observe the people below.

  Laborers were hauling goods, and merchants opening storefronts. But, all types huddled around the bakery's outdoor booth. Valéry himself was almost seduced by the warm, comforting smell of fresh pastries and bread. Such was his desire for a cinnamon-laced, soft and gooey snack that he squeezed the coin purse at his belt with need.

  "Valéry!" A female voice came from the throng of people. He turned his head and pulled on Coconut's leash to slow her a little. It was Ventoria, his blacksmith friend, getting something for breakfast.

  "Good morning! How are you?" He called back, Coconut still carrying him forward.

  "I'm fine, thank you. Those horseshoes and nails are done, whenever you want to come grab them!" A sly and hungry customer slipped past her in the line to buy.

  "I'll be by later! So long," with a wave, Valéry turned forward and continued on to the counselor's building. He could see its white marble dome from here, sat on a hill and gracefully watching over the rest of the city. He wove his way between the main street and side streets as foot traffic and carriages allowed. As he drew closer more of the counselor's building revealed itself.

  It was a wide, blocky building, and not more than two stories. Cross-hatched windows glittering with rising sunlight flanked the center dome. Coconut carried Valéry past the iron fences with their spear points and curious-looking pigeon ornaments.

  Valéry went up a side path past the gates to the cavalry officer’s stables. Coconut hated the hatchfeathers housed there. Once she caught a whiff of them she slowed her trotting and began her nagging. She began her show and dance, heavy breathing, nippering, and turning her head to look back at him. "I know, girl, but I can't take you inside."

  Tomasin, the stablehand, helped guide her in. He had a nervous look about him. "Is she in a good mood today?"

  Valéry shrugged, "You'll be fine. She doesn't bite that hard, after all."

  Coconut gave Tomasin a wide-eyed look. The hatchfeathers began to ruffle themselves and squawk. Their broad, vertical beaks snapped and shuddered as they did their calls. Tomasin took Coconut's reins and led her to the stall in the back, far from the hatchfeathers. He looked tired of her unamenable tugging already.

  Valéry popped from atop Coconut unassisted, and left her to Tomasin.

  Heading for the exit, Valéry dipped his hand right into the stall of Ga Knipp, Joyln's hatchfeather. Ga Knipp brought his warm beak up to Valéry's hand, rubbing his soft blue cheek to the visiting palm. He ran his fingers through the crest of blue-purple feathers on top of Ga Knipp's head. They flared out to meet his digits. Ga Knipp's long-clawed forelimbs clutched the wooden door of his pen as he savored the scritching. Hatchfeathers were short compared to Valéry's horses, especially Coconut. He felt like a giant riding alongside Joyln and Silas when they went on patrol.

  Next to Ga Knipp's stall was his sister. She was Hilde's hatchfeather, Ga Knopp, who didn't like anyone but Hilde. Valéry settled with a verbal 'hello' to greet the curmudgeon of an avian and carried on.

  Valéry made his way past the trimmed and perky gardens and their verdant leaves. The doors to the building were a hefty oak and reinforced with iron bands. The wood was still chipped with cleaving marks from axes. Barbarians had made it this far in decades past. A doorman let him into the building proper. The red carpet laid over the entry hall and stairs softened his steps. The accents of red in the building's drapes and carpeting added a soft look when paired with the white of the marbled tiles and stairs. He went up to the first floor, and down the left hall to Hilde’s office.

  Her door swung open suddenly, and a pouting male presented himself. It was Claude Razorhail. At one point, Claude called Valéry a brother, now he regarded him as refuse on the road. His strawberry blonde hair, tied in a high ponytail, was no less glimmering in the shaded corridor. He tugged the labels of his exquisite black, fur-trimmed jacket with a dismissive glower. His expression wasn't any different than most of Valéry's memory of him. His eyes, the pupils themselves, glinted with a reddish hue. They gleamed when he was be angry, he always was.

  Claude sneered and his grimace deepened, brushing past Valéry without a word. Seeing him struck Valéry's cheery morning with a sudden grey cloud. With lament heavy in his breast, he watched Claude the entire length of his trip down the hall and to the stairs. He wished he had the conviction to lay a hand on Claude's shoulder and force him to sit and listen to what he had to say. What point was there in speaking to a brick wall, though?

  Valéry cleared the catch in his throat and fixed his face into its normal roguish smile. With his mask fixed he allowed himself into Hilde's office after a knock. "Morning, Grand Master."

  "Acting Grand Master," Hilde said with a growl of exhaustion. She stood up from her seat and offered Valéry the chair across from her. Her normally prim and proper uniform was disheveled. The collar's left point was stained with coffee or tea in a dab on its tip. It crinkled and pointed up from the azure mantle around her shoulders.

  "Was he upset before I got here?"

  "Him?" Hilde asked with an emphasis in her voice. She sat down as Valéry did. He crossed his legs over, brushed a bit of dust from his pants, and looked up. The piles of books, paperwork, and letters formed a mountain range of parchment such that he couldn't see her.

  Noticing this, she stood up again and leaned over her desk. Her hands supported her droopy, tired frame with a slight shake. "His eyes were plenty red when I told him I couldn't spare any more officers for Windmill."

  "Is he worried about the illness reaching his idyllic town?" Valéry supposed.

  Hilde nodded and pinched her brow, "He wants more men so he can establish a quarantine quickly if it jumps from Riverbreath to Windmill. That's why I asked you here actually."

  Valéry's chest seized up. Is she going to assign me to Windmill? Being that close to Claude, even if it was just being in the same town, filled him with confliction. Interest and desire matched themselves against a heavy sense of discomfort. He kept a cool and level exterior, but his mind was already clicking with thought at the possibility.

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  "I want you to escort Sebastian to Goldmeer. He has to access some records from the archives there, and seek guidance from colleagues."

  "Sebastian, really?" Valéry's Windmill fantasies evaporated like morning dew and he tapped his chin. When he thought of it, he couldn't recall a single time the white-haired alchemist had ever left the city. He and Sebastian didn't interact much in their lines of work, but they both served the city of Teichostro under Hilde. Valéry with his sword, and Sebastian with his books.

  "Yes. He doesn't have much experience outside of his study. And with the road to Goldmeer not being as safe as it was in recent years, I'd like him to have some protection."

  "Of course, I can manage that. I'll make sure he gets to Goldmeer and back home safely."

  Hilde's eyes, ringed with purple bags, squeezed closed with a bit of relief. She nodded and tilted to the side. "I'm hoping someone or something in Goldmeer will be what we're looking for. Riverbreath is getting worse."

  Valéry's one functional eye scanned the room as he thought aloud, "I wonder if it's anything like that plague a few years back."

  "Not at all," Hilde said. Her words were constricted with grimness. It focused Valéry's attention back on her. She removed her half-moon glasses and let them clatter to her desk. "It's far worse. A quarter of Riverbreath is so ill they can't move, and just as many are dead."

  Valéry shifted in his chair. "If that made its way to Windmill or here at home, it would rip through the city."

  Hilde rubbed her temples and fell back into her seat. "I know. Get yourself ready and together, you'll set out with Sebastian tomorrow morning."

  Hilde’s tied up hair became unbound suddenly. A heavy huff followed her repeated attempts to gather her flaxen hair, none of which working just as she wanted.

  "Have you slept yet?" Valéry queried, standing and peering over the ink-capped mountains of paper.

  She shook her head and cast a pleading look at her subordinate.

  "Keep your chin up. Don't worry about Sebastian, I'll get him to Goldmeer with no issue."

  "Thank you. Oh, and thank you for the wine as well," she added as an afterthought. Valéry had almost forgotten himself. He donated a bottle of wine to Hilde's cause. She and her husband hadn’t much time together, so Valéry and Joyln put forward the wine as an excuse for them to bond.

  Hilde's face wasn't relaxed though, it was just more furrowed in disappointment. "How did it go over?" Valéry prodded.

  She shook her head, the words came out as a wisp. "He spent the night with Rose and Erin," she coughed at the end of her sentence, emotion clogging her throat.

  "Oh," Valéry let slip. "I'm sorry to hear that." Valéry brushed his shaven chin and turned to make for the door, the air heavy with an awkward energy.

  "Try to get some rest, if you can."

  She mumbled an affirmative, and Valéry let himself out.

  ◆

  Only a few minutes on Coconut's back and Valéry was at Ventoria's smithy. The temperature around the open-air workshop was far more humid. Thick greyish clouds hung in the air from the running forge. A small flurry of apprentices hammered and forged in her workspace. She'd inherited her father's shop, skills, and stunning muscularity.

  Once she noticed him, she seemed to purposefully pick up a heavy set of ingots. In her show of strength, she rolled her toned and exposed shoulders, smirking at him. She dropped them off by one of her workmen and brought herself over to Valéry. Moving right past him with a flex of her cut bicep. She focused her attention to Valéry’s horse, running her hands around Coconut's neck. The usually surly mare took well to Ventoria, brushing her muzzle to the blacksmith's chest.

  "Can I see it?" Ventoria asked with a sheepish smile, eyes drifting to Valéry's hip.

  He clicked his tongue, crossed his arms, and shifted back on a heel. "How could you come up with a new sample so soon?"

  "I have my ways." She winked and waggled her finger, blackened with soot and grease, back at Valéry as she led him in.

  The interior of the shop was shady and cooler than the exposed anvils and furnaces outside. The clatter of iron and steel banging was dulled here. Valéry relished the smells of ash, metal, grease, and sweat that hung thick in Ventoria's shop.

  She positioned herself behind the shop's counter and produced the goods. She laid out two parchment-wrapped sets of horseshoes and a small wooden box, rattling with nails. Valéry went to reach for them, but she pulled them back with a "tut, tut."

  "The sword, sir."

  With a flutter of his eye and a reluctant smile, Valéry drew his sword from his hip. It was a broad blade, with a pointed tip and basketed handguard. The protective metal wings of a peafowl wrapped around the hilt and grip. The blade itself swirled with patterns that conjured the memory of woodgrain in rich colors of deep silver and grey. Ventoria, having seen it dozens of times, still had the glitter of desire and curiosity in her eyes. Valéry laid it on the counter for her to dote on.

  From her apron's pocket, she produced a short stump of her own work, a small ingot. "Damnit," she exclaimed, slapping the rectangle beside the sword.

  "That's not bad, you seem to have the pattern down." Valéry tapped the smooth surface of her experimental metal.

  She let out a sigh of exasperation. "I thought I had it this time."

  With a tilt of his head, Valéry motioned to take the sword back. She danced her scarred and nicked fingers across its blade gently and relented. "I still don't know how it's possible your sword never dulls."

  "Family secret, of course," Valéry returned it to his oiled scabbard. "How much do I owe you?"

  "Gold," Ventoria replied with a playful lilt.

  Valéry let the statement hang for a second before answering, "gold?"

  "Yes, you know. The type you wear on the third finger of your left hand."

  Valéry made a slight gasp and lowered his eyes with a chuckle, fetching the usual price he paid for such services from his coin purse. "You'd have better luck if I wasn't just given a reminder of the woes of married life earlier today."

  Ventoria leaned back from her teasing and collected her pay, once again pushing over Valéry's goods. "Hilde having more trouble again?"

  "I wish that woman could catch a break."

  "I wish she'd drop that louse."

  Valéry gathered his things under his arm and offered only a shrug.

  ◆

  The sun was getting low in the sky by the time Valéry had fixed the new horseshoes to those in need. He'd gotten lost in his work, caring for his few horses and cleaning their stalls, feeding and watering them. There were no servants or hands to help him, it was a laborious job to perform alone. Still, it gave him time to think. Though, the things that clicked and ticked away in his mind were closer to rumination than simple thought.

  He had almost forgotten about Claude in recent months. Valéry had heard Claude's name here and there but the red-maned patriarch of the Razorhail clan hadn't set foot in Teichostro in almost two years. Not since he turned of age and focused entirely on handling his clan's estate in Windmill.

  Valéry came home to the same manor every day, and yet today it felt particularly empty. The dusty, cloth-covered furniture of the parlor felt empty and dour in a way he never noticed. The paintings and portraits on the walls, also covered to preserve them, felt haunting and isolating.

  He felt like he was creeping through someone else's home as he prepared himself a meal in the kitchen. As he worked on his dinner, he steadily drained a carafe of wine. The food went down quickly, and more wine followed. Rich and red, sweet but with a crispness that demanded another sip each time you put it down. It was from Claude's winery. I wish you'd let me congratulate your success.

  There was so much red that day. His vision warbled as he made his way up the stairs to the study. It was one of the few rooms he went to, so it was uncovered and lively. Dust hadn't laid its blanket here. Nearly as tall as himself hung a portrait on the far wall of the study. It was in a place safe from the ravages of sunlight, and still vibrant as the day the oil was laid to canvas.

  On the left was Valéry's father. A cautious, strong man. He looked so hale, brimming with pride and strength. A far cry from his final days. He had his hand on Valéry's shoulder. Valéry was younger, no older than eight or nine years. Seeing himself without his eyepatch made his fingers drift to the fabric over his ruined left eye. Their hair was dark black both. With an aloud chuckle, Valéry spoke to the figures, "Do you remember the first time I tried to do it myself? I had the dye all over my cheeks and collar. I'm sure I looked a right mess."

  He swirled the half-empty flute in his hand and took another sip. "At least I don't have to use leeches and vinegar anymore. Maybe there'll be a day I don't have to dye it at all."

  Next to his father was Madam Razorhail. She was a gentle woman, and Valéry was happy for the short time he knew her. Tall, graceful, motherly. Bright red hair that caught the sun. Now that he was older, he could appreciate the physical beauty his father saw in her. As a child, he was content to have a stand-in for his absent mother.

  And finally, with her arms draped around him, a young Claude. His hair was short here, bangs just tickling his eyebrows. The painter managed to catch Claude's ever-frustrated brow. Claude still had his smile then, that hadn't been stripped from him yet.

  Valéry noted how much more lissome his frame was compared to the broadness of his father. Though, his heart-shaped face was a far cry from the square and blocky countenance of his father. He’d grown in strength and skill both, drilled into himself in preparation for all his father warned him about. He’d be proud, I hope. Am I strong enough to save myself if there is a repeat of that damnable evening?

  Valéry collapsed into the tall backed armchair and sunk low into it. He nearly spilled the wine over himself as his hand tilted and relaxed into his lap.

  That horrible night stained Valéry's memory and crept back to him in nightmares or when deep in his cups. It had left him half-blind and scarred. The physical wounds were long since healed, but the mental ones still lingered. His father was made crippled from the waist down, sapped of strength and withering year after year. Claude always felt he'd lost the most though, Madam Razorhail was eviscerated right in front of him. No consoling or comfort from Valéry or Valéry's father ever penetrated Claude's wounded exterior. Maybe he's right, maybe it was our fault.

  The assassins were more beast than man, and in their rabid attempt to end the Prendergast line, killed several innocents. Valéry gagged and shuddered at the sight of sausage strings until adulthood. They reminded him too much of Miss Razorhail's intestines, spilled out onto the hardwood. She had gasped and clawed for Claude, trying to hold him close in her final moments.

  Valéry suckled down the last of the wine in his flute and set it down gingerly at the study's desk. He dragged himself to his bed and fell into it, letting the swirling thoughts lull him to an anxious sleep.