kaisooficrec

It took them a few more hours to find another village that was a safe distance from the last one. Neither had thought to bring a lantern or oil, so they had come across the village with great luck. They placed the corpse in the underbrush about a mile away and made haste to book a room in the local inn.

As it usually is the night before Sunday, the place is bustling. Men in twos and threes took up the majority of the tables, yelling and having indistinct conversations over their mugs of beer. A couple of drunks tottered around along the walls, giving a docile hiccup. There was a small band playing in one corner, comprised of a pan flute, a dulcimer, and a lute, who played to their heart’s content, without any care for the fact that their audience was too inebriated to appreciate their musical prowess.

Kyungsoo refrained from removing the hood of his cloak, instead tugging it closer as if he’d felt a chill to his ears. He tilted his chin down and led Jongin by the elbow up to the bar.

“Could I get my friend patched up?” he said quietly.

“ ‘Course. Got a nasty lookin’ cut there, master. What’d you do?” the barkeep asked, wiping her hands on her apron. She was on the younger side, maybe thirty or so, her thick dark hair plaited over one shoulder.

“Misstepped and fell off my horse,” Jongin said, smiling sheepishly. “Spooked her on the way down. Her hoof clipped me.”

“Eh, nothin’ to be ashamed of, we get buffoons like you five times a day. Don’t you worry, I’ll fix you up, young master. What do you boys say to some pancakes, eh? Just bought the flour this afternoon, could whip ‘em up nice and hot for ye.”

“I’m alright. Think she kicked me harder than I thought. Still feeling a little dizzy.”

Kyungsoo realized then that Jongin was probably telling the truth. Despite having thrown up everything in his stomach he hadn’t complained of hunger the entire journey over, either. Kyungsoo thought about this lack of appetite, and he suddenly and inexplicably felt guilty.

“I’ll take you up on that,” Kyungsoo said, producing a few crowns from his pockets and sliding them across the bar. “We’ll take it to our room, though. Is that okay?”

“Don’t see the harm in it, ‘less you make a mess of it. Got enough mice as it is.”

“No, we’ll be careful.”

“Then do as you like. Wouldn’t want to eat in this crowd o’ pigs either. I’ll send yer friend o’er with them when they’re ready.”

“A drink for my friend too, if you’ve got one,” Jongin cut in, before Kyungsoo could slip away.

The woman nodded and took up a wooden tankard. “You boys hear the big news goin’ around?” she said, as she filled it up.

Jongin stiffened slightly. Kyungsoo kept still, glanced up as if nothing was out of the ordinary. “What’s that?” he asked politely.

“They found that knight that deserted the Round Table, east of Kaerdin,” the woman said. “Bunch of them Church guards rallied up a party and dragged the poor sod back to the capital.”

Kyungsoo still didn’t move, but beside him Jongin relaxed, almost too visibly relieved. “No, I didn’t hear of it,” he said, while Kyungsoo said nothing. “Hadn’t even realized there was a knight missing.”

“Then I’d reckon you don’t get out much. There’s been declarations everywhere. Been charged with high treason, reward floatin’ around for anyone who spots ‘im and reports ‘im alive. Guessing those villagers made good of an opportunity when they saw one. I heard they saw him trying to pawn off his armour to a local merchant. Told the Church straightaway, and they flew down like devils to catch the bugger.”

“Must’ve been a horrid affair.”

“Rightly was. No word on his sentence yet, but I’ll bet he won’t be hanged without the whole capital coming out to watch.”

“Excuse me,” Kyungsoo said, slipping away from the bar.

He retreated to their room, nearly slamming the door shut behind him. His shoulder drooped with his heavy sigh, but it was without relief. A heavy strain laid between his shoulder blades, coiled tight. He slowly removed his armour piece by piece and set them on the table, each movement pulling a painful grimace from his features. His heart felt like it was beating at the wrong pace, a sudden exhaustion coming over him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d needed a moment to himself until he had it.

The door opened, without any knocking to warn him, and Kyungsoo instinctively turned his head away sharply, facing the wall.

“It’s just me,” a familiar voice said. Jongin walked in with a full plate in one hand and the tankard in the other, his head now wrapped in bandages and the rest of him adequately cleaned of blood. He used his elbow to shut the door. “Everything okay?”

“It is now,” Kyungsoo said, taking the beer and drinking deeply. It was cold and frothy, and he found himself draining it in one go. He let the tankard fall onto the table with a thump, let Jongin hand him his food next. “I should be asking you that.”

“What do you mean?” Jongin asked, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Your injury.”

“Oh, it’s fine now. Puts me at ease to know it’s not open for an infection to settle in.”

“Do you still feel sick?”

“A little,” Jongin admitted. “But I don’t feel hungry anyways.”

The pancakes were thin, served with melted butter for flavour. Kyungsoo rolled one up and dipped it before biting it in half. He ate like this in silence for a while.

“You look troubled,” Jongin said, and Kyungsoo startled. He hadn’t noticed Jongin watching him.

Kyungsoo sighed. “I am. I’ll be honest with you. I don’t have a good feeling about this. What your cousin was up to.”

“Honestly? You’re not alone.” Jongin bit his lip. “I don’t know what I’m going to find. And I realize it’s not right of me to ask you to blindly follow me into this. It’s just that I’ve never strayed beyond the village fields. If it weren’t for you I’d probably be dead right now.”

Kyungsoo winced slightly. “I should apologize, actually,” he said, looking down at his food. “I realized I was callous with you earlier.”

“I…I think I deserved it. I was desperate, and I wasn’t honest with you. Help is hard to come by, especially for a task like this. I didn’t want to scare you away.”

“That’s not really what I meant.” Kyungsoo set his plate aside. “I mean when we were...when we found the body.”

“Oh.”

Kyungsoo looked at Jongin’s lowered head, face shielded by his hair as he folded his hands together quietly. The same strange guilt from before crept up in again. He felt, oddly, as if he’d failed the lord somehow.

“What happened was normal,” Kyungsoo said. “Seeing a dead body for the first time isn’t easy. I’ve seen plenty of grown men who’ll grow faint at the sight of one no matter how much they claimed to have done this or that.”

“Does it get easier?”

The unexpected question threw Kyungsoo off. Jongin’s face remained serious, waiting.

“It depends how you look at it,” Kyungsoo answered slowly. “If you ask me, it never gets easier. The difference is that it stops being about the horror of it, seeing someone get killed. You start seeing different things. Injustice, jealousy, revenge, passion. You see the intention instead of the endgame. But no matter how you look at it, at the end of the day someone’s dead before their time, at the hands of someone else. And that’s not as easy to swallow.”

Kyungsoo tore a pancake in half and held it out. “Here. You need to eat something.”

“No, that’s alright, I’ll—”

“Please,” Kyungsoo said, stiffly.

Jongin’s eyes flitted between Kyungsoo’s face and the morsel. He took it hesitantly and nibbled on the edge of it. “Have you ever killed anyone?” he said, pointedly. A leading question.

If they hadn’t been sitting so close, the way that Kyungsoo flinched almost imperceptibly would have been lost in the warm, muffled bustle of the laughing crowd outside. Then the moment was gone, and Kyungsoo turned away, his face hard and blank. “I told you. Once we’re back safe and sound in your manor, I’ll explain everything you need to know about me.”

“What? But we can’t expect us to be there for at least another month, now.”

“That’s not my concern. I’m sticking to my word.” He stood up and took the spare furs out of the chest at the foot of the bed before throwing them onto the rug. The lines around the corners of his eyes were tight. “Go to sleep. We leave with sunrise.”

“Kyungsoo!”

Kyungsoo jolted awake. Jongin’s frantic face hovered over his.

“There’s two guards from the Order here. They’re asking after us.”

Kyungsoo sat up at once. “Pack your things.”

They dressed in a rush, as quietly as they could manage. Their room had no windows; they would have to sneak past, to the front entrance. Kyungsoo lifted his head and gave a silent prayer in thanks, grateful that his armour wasn’t the heavy plate kind that would have clanged with his every movement.

“Kyungsoo,” Jongin said, as they opened their door a crack to peek through it. His voice wavered. “I’m frightened.”

It was his first ever admission of the fact. “Just stay behind me,” Kyungsoo said. He briefly slid his hand over Jongin’s arm to reassure him, heard him take a deep breath to steady himself.

“I told you, the place was swingin’ last night,” the barkeep said, irritated. This clearly wasn’t the first time she was explaining this. “We get all kind of travellers. I don’t know about any ‘suspicious figures’ coming through here.”

“I implore your forgiveness, fair woman, but this is a state matter. Any recollection would be of most help,” the taller of the two guards said. He was also older, with weathered tan skin and snow-white stubble. The other barely looked old enough to have stopped sucking his thumb. They both wore silver plated armour and deep green cloaks, decorated with the emblem of the White Oaks.

“Are you certain you didn’t see two strangers travelling together? They would have been two men, possibly injured.”

Kyungsoo took the lead and slipped out of the room, keeping close to the wall. Jongin followed, thankfully without blundering.

In that moment the barkeep glanced up and looked Kyungsoo dead in the eye. Kyungsoo froze, alarm shooting through his veins, cold and viscous. He saw something come over the woman’s eyes, a quick dawning realization. For a moment, the entire inn seemed to dissolve, their locked gazes like a tunnel blocking out all other surroundings.

The woman faced the knight again. “You deaf? What you want me to do if I don’t remember nothin’?” she snapped, her tone less controlled than before.

It barely took Kyungsoo a second to understand what she’d just done. Instinct told him to keep going, to keep creeping along the wall, but his legs remained stiff and unmoving where they were. He hesitated.

“You dare raise your voice to us?” the younger knight cried out then, apparently better at threatening people than carrying out a normal conversation. “You address the agents of the Church, who serve the honourable Prince of Light. Have a care who you speak to like that!”

“I don’t give a fuck who you serve. And you quit that damn shrieking, you’ll wake my customers, you shitty brat.”

The younger knight grew red in the face. Before his companion could do anything, the boy snatched a handful of the woman’s dark hair and violently smashed her face into the countertop.

In that brief second, something inside of Kyungsoo snapped. He dimly remembered drawing his sword; Jongin’s yell, muffled by something; the shouts of the knights, the clamour and scuffle of metal striking metal; and then a long, high-pitched hysterical scream. He blinked, and on the floor were the two knights, the older one desperately trying to remove his shoulder pad, where Kyungsoo’s blade had slipped between the cracks and plunged deeply just an inch of his armpit, bright red blood staining the polished metal. The other one lay still on the floor, blood pooling beneath his neck.

“Don’t touch me!” the barkeep screamed, cowering away from Jongin. Her nose was broken, the blood already messily smeared over her mouth and chin. “Get out! Both of you get out!”

Kyungsoo drew his face deeper into the hood of his cloak, grabbed Jongin by the arm. “Come on,” he said roughly. He did not look the woman in the eye.

Outside Jongin suddenly dug his heels into the ground. “Wait! We need to get Joonmyun’s body!”

Fuck. “We don’t have the time,” Kyungsoo said, forcibly dragging Jongin against his will. “We need to get out of here.”

“What?” Jongin tugged back, face filled with hysteria. “No! We can’t leave him there! I have to go back!”

“You can’t,” Kyungsoo snarled, turning on Jongin and gripping his arm so tight that Jongin yelped, shrinking in fear. “Shut up and listen. I just killed a guard of the Order. They’ll have reinforcements swarming by noon, and if we spend one more moment standing here like idiots it’ll give them enough time to catch up to us on the road. We can’t bury your cousin if we’re both dead. Now get on the goddamn horse.”

“What’s going on?” another voice said from inside the inn, woken by all the noise; his words floated clear as day through the open windows.

“Please,” Jongin gasped, his eyes already drowning. He looked like he was about to have a panic attack.

Kyungsoo gritted his teeth, manhandled Jongin towards his horse. The lord was barely resisting now, but he was hyperventilating as he moved, his feet slipping off of the stirrups twice before he was able to swing himself up onto the mare, still crying, still begging please, please. Kyungsoo ran and fairly leaped onto Persimmon.

“Hey!” a voice yelled, the door of the inn bursting open.

“Let’s go!” Kyungsoo ordered, snapping his reins, and the man’s next shout was lost in the sound of the horses spurred into gallop and flashing down the road, away from the scene of the crime.

They rode at breakneck speed for roughly ten minutes, then slowed to a light canter, seeing the sheen of sweat that now glistened on Persimmon’s and Moonshine’s necks. Despite not having done any of the running himself Kyungsoo felt that his heart rate had been escalated all the same, could feel it in his throat as they slowly assured themselves that they were a safe distance away.

Without warning, Jongin veered his horse off the road, causing Kyungsoo to pull on his reins too quickly and nearly vault himself into Persimmon’s neck. “Jongin?”

Jongin stopped his horse and clumsily scrambled off the side of it. Between the wind whistling in his ears and the thundering of hooves underfoot, Kyungsoo had heard a sob or two as they’d been escaping, but now his guilt-stricken grief rang clearly through the cool morning air. He gasped and choked, stumbling a few feet away from his horse before he suddenly stopped, bending his head and burying his face in his hands.

Kyungsoo quickly steered Persimmon over and leapt off, not thinking about tying the horses down as he approached the young lord beneath the shade of an oak tree.

“Jongin,” Kyungsoo said gently, placing a hand on the lord’s shoulder. Jongin didn’t move, his sobs slowly turning into exhausted hiccups. Kyungsoo retrieved his canteen from his saddle bags and forcibly tugged Jongin’s hands away from his face.

“Drink,” he said.

Jongin’s hands shook as he drank, a few tiny sips before he stood there silently, knuckles white as he clutched the canteen like a lifeline. His eyes were rimmed a deep red, his face streaked in drying tears.

“I’m sorry,” Kyungsoo said quietly, and he meant it. “There was nothing we could do.”

The lord wiped at his swollen eyes, sniffling. “I know,” he said. His voice was hoarse.

“I know how much this meant to you. And I know what you’re thinking. But it’s too risky to go back and get the body. They’ll have guards stationed at every—”

“I know.”

If Kyungsoo thought he was surprised by Jongin’s answer, the lord quickly demolished the thought by looking up and giving Kyungsoo a pained smile.

“Even I can see that the odds are against us. We’re as good as wanted men now, aren’t we?” Jongin said.

Kyungsoo hesitated. “Yes.”

Jongin nodded, eyes on the ground. “Getting Joonmyun’s body was important to me. I fear I may never truly be free of this guilt now, not knowing if my cousin’s soul rests peacefully, not being able to give him a proper burial. Even burning him would set my conscious to rest. Do you think they’ll find it?”

“It’s possible. They’ll scout the area for us. Giving him complete camouflage was not the first thing on my mind.”

“What do you suppose they’ll do with it?”

“If they’ve got any brains in those rattling helmets, they’ll burn it. These woods are not friendly. The decaying flesh will likely attract worse things than fowl.”

“And…if they don’t find it?”

“He’ll decompose,” Kyungsoo said, but his voice was not rough. “His ashes will sink into the earth for the worms to fertilize and the flowers to grow, and his bones will lie there, out of sight but not forgotten. You did what you could. You looked after your kin. The gods won’t dismiss that so easily. Neither will Joonmyun.”

Jongin’s eyes grew wet again, but he dipped his head low, not making any sound. His body shifted forward a tiny bit, as if teetering on the edge of an irreversible decision until his forehead was gently resting on Kyungsoo’s shoulder. The elder was too taken back to do anything as it happened, but he relented and lifted his hand to rub it thrice along Jongin’s spine.

“You did the right thing,” Kyungsoo said. His heart pounded with the words. He shut his eyes tightly. “You did.”

They stood like this for a few moments longer. When Jongin raised his head again his expression was heavy with lines of exhaustion. “Let’s go,” he said, his voice defeated, filled with resignation.

The rest of the journey to Londerrtain is uneventful. They opt to camp near the roads instead of taking any more chances within the nearby villages. They pass through settlements without speaking to anyone. Occasionally they were given the odd look; it was clear even to an old man with fading sight that Jongin wasn’t your run-of-the-mill peasant, and for a lord to be unaccompanied except for a single brand-less swordsman was a strange sight indeed. But nothing came of it. They pushed their pace, and as a result news did not travel as fast as they did.

“Do you think,” Jongin asked, as they left the winding forest roads and finally broached the wide dirt paths separating crop fields of wheat and grapes, “they’ll be looking for us there?”

“Undoubtedly,” Kyungsoo said. Jongin had remained largely silent as they’d rode, mildly concerning considering how many questions the lord could conjure at the beginning of their trip. He side-glanced at Jongin’s face. He looked travel-worn, brow glistening with sweat beneath the noon sun, his eyes distracted as they looked unseeingly at the road ahead of them.

Kyungsoo stared at the road ahead, too. “Although we might fare better than we think. Londerrtain’s a large city, but the Church of the White Oaks have no Order outpost there, just the cathedral. They’re still largely focused on their headquarters in the capital. And the city gets its fair share of odd types, that’s for certain. So long as we don’t make a scene we can get in and out unnoticed. It’s just a matter of being careful.”

Jongin nodded, letting this sink in. At that moment they reached the crest of a hill they’d been climbing, and Kyungsoo saw what was ahead of them. “Jongin,” he said, stopping their horses, “look up.”

Jongin did, and his eyes opened, really opened, his lips parting with speechlessness. There in the valley that dipped between the rolling golden hills and the piercing blue lake at the foot of the Van Welvest mountains, the city of Londerrtain stood: a grand scape of tall white stone and sloping tiled roofs, tipped with such a becoming shade of red that the city appeared to have leapt straight from the pages of a children’s storybook. The city stretched and hugged a section of the lake, the white dots of sails from merchant ships just barely visible on the harbour waters. After weeks of nothing but mud roads and rotting wooden shacks with thatched roofs barely overcoming his horse’s full height, the cluster and grandeur of the city below was truly a sight for sore eyes.

“By the Gods,” Jongin breathed. “Look at that architecture! I’ve never seen such stonework before, such tall buildings. In my mind’s eye I never knew how to picture a city, I’d get these ridiculous notions of gold-paved roads and glistening marble walls, but this…it’s fantastic. I could never have conjured such an image. Even the city walls are—“ He looked utterly spellbound, eyes shining. “How could I have only seen this for the first time in my life?”

Kyungsoo looked over the city, relieved to see that civilization was so near—admittedly he always had been a city person—but the lord’s overwhelming admiration was as amusing as it was alleviating. It was the first real smile he’d seen on Jongin’s face since they’d left the manor. He said nothing, not wanting to ruin the moment for him.

“It’s incredible,” Jongin said again, voice quiet with awe. “Have you ever seen such a thing?”

A tiny swell of something quashed whatever good mood had begun to descend on Kyungsoo. He sobered up, straightening his shoulders. “I have,” he said. “I’ve been to this city before.”

Jongin looked over, his captivation momentarily muted by the sound of Kyungsoo’s voice. It registered gradually on his face that something was amidst. “When?”

Kyungsoo didn’t reply. He gently spurred Persimmon forward again. “Come on.”

The city streets, as was befitting of a city, were narrow, crowded, loud, and smelly. All of the buildings and shops were fashioned in such a manner that every three- and four-story were squished together tight like sausages in a tin, making use of every last bit of space they could find; as a result tenants in the floors above could yell to their neighbours in the building across from them, share the laundry lines that zig-zagged the skies and created a colourful patchwork of bedsheets and underpants. Shops, counters, merchants’ stalls filled every nook and cranny, men and women shouting out their wares—flame-charred pigs’ feet, leather shoes of every kind and fit, jars filled with jams and preserves to last two whole winters, doves that were guaranteed to cross the far corners of the country to deliver letters to far-away relatives—the cries and calls were endless. The streets were of old cobblestone masonry, stained with streaks of moss and mud between the cracks where the roads dipped and rainwater puddles collected. People barely avoided getting their toes stepped on by the occasional guard doing rounds on horseback, looking utterly bored. At night, all kinds of music and festivities took place in the main square, regardless if there was any occasion to call for it. Ale flowed, bards sang, and the townspeople thrived. No one who lived in this city could ever grow bored.

It was crowded enough that they decided to step down from their mares and lead them alongside by the bridle, in search of a respectable inn. With every step Jongin took his eyes remained as wide as a child’s, his mouth hanging open, barely avoiding tripping over himself for lack of attention to where he was walking. At this point he was equal parts charmed and bewildered by the things around him. It was clear he’d never been called for attention by so many people at once. For the first five minutes his head could barely keep up with all the offers shouted at him from the stalls, trying to indulge equal interest in each one—Kyungsoo had to pull him along more than once with a firm “No, not interested” when the young lord had nearly let himself be talked into buying a clay ocarina or an elixir Kyungsoo was certain he would never need. A courtesan reached out for his upper arm, eyelashes fluttering and one tit hanging out as she purred a “Well, hello, handsome,” and the poor boy’s eyes had nearly fallen out of his head, causing Kyungsoo to double over in the middle of the street in a desperate attempt to contain his laughter. A dock hand wobbled his way into their path to loudly proclaim that he knew a man who could hold his drink when he saw one and that anyone to turn down an offer was a yellow-bellied jellyfish, and Jongin blathered and stuttered until Kyungsoo finally cut in and merely turned the man by his shoulders till he was facing a shop selling sausages and lamb stomachs instead, and that had been the end of that.

They finally found an inn by the city gates closest to the waterside, a tall-standing and impressive establishment by the name of The Rosebud. It was only ten in the morning, so there were a small few patrons seated at the tables, the head of the cabaret still instructing his delivery men on where to set down the morning’s shipment of Beresgor lager and Egermeir dry. They paid for their room and their spots on the hitching post, and without delay set out again in search of the university.

“So, supposing everything of Joonmyun’s is exactly as he left it,” Kyungsoo said, with Jongin hovering close to his shoulder now as they walked, “what is it you think you’re going to find?”

“Gods, I don’t know.” He was pinching the sleeve at Kyungsoo’s elbow, as if afraid of being separated and lost in the crowd. Kyungsoo tried not to let this distract him.

“I’ve been thinking. Half of the rumours that I’ve heard about them, I mean, they can’t all be true. And if they are, that means whoever was helping him…their influence is great, far-reaching. For some far-away uncle of ours to suddenly drop dead, or for a wealthy prince to go missing? It’s unnerving just to think of it. And my cousin may have been lovesick, but I find it hard to believe he agreed to any of it. So maybe he didn’t know what he was getting into?” Jongin said.

“So our goal is to credit or discredit what we’ve heard,” Kyungsoo said. “And in the event that these rumours hold truth to them, then we find out just how that came to be the case.”

“Starting from what happened with my cousin’s death,” Jongin murmured.

That stopped Kyungsoo dead in his tracks. “Wait. Do you mean to say you don’t know how he was caught? How the villagers found about him?”

“I would have asked the villagers,” Jongin said, voice lowering with guilt, “had they not been so quick to attack. In all honesty there was a fair amount of time when my cousin was missing, news of his death suddenly turning up at the manor. And this had been after his fiancee had passed. Five days, he was gone. I…I was hoping in coming here that he may have passed through during those five days.”

“That’s not much of a lead we’re riding on here. More of a hunch than anything.”

“I know. Please, I know it’s not what we agreed…”

“I never said I was leaving,” Kyungsoo said. “So you can stop asking me, because if you keep doing it, I might actually come to my senses and realize the predicament I’ve gotten myself into. And stop ogling at the strumpets, I know you haven’t seen a breast since your wet nurse stopped feeding you but they’ll think you’re interested otherwise.”

Jongin didn’t retort. Kyungsoo figured he’d sunken into a flustered silence. Then the lord spoke, asking the one thing he wasn’t prepared for.

“Are you alright?” Jongin said, his voice quieting, so that passerbys wouldn’t hear. “I didn’t...I forgot to ask, but, back there, in the inn…”

Kyungsoo looked at the ground. “Back there?”

“You...you’d killed that man.”

There was a heavy, strained silence. “I did,” Kyungsoo said. “And he was not my first. So there’s the answer you wanted.”

The grip on Kyungsoo’s sleeve tightened. “I’m sorry. If you want to--”

“No,” Kyungsoo cut off. “I don’t. Forgive me. It’s a personal matter.”

“Alright,” Jongin said softly. Just that. “Alright.” Kyungsoo was taken aback. He’d expected badgering, demands of an explanation. He had, after all, essentially admitted to being a murderer. Yet the lord hadn’t pushed him, chose to let him keep his secrets despite better knowledge. It left Kyungsoo voiceless and distracted, only just able to continue leading them through the crowds.

Eventually they found the university gates, the campus enclosed in another, smaller set of stone walls to help keep students and scholars alike safe from thugs and pickpockets looking to pawn off an unusual-looking object as a “rare artifact”. The gates into the academy itself were large, heavy and solid wood, but not without two guards stationed at the entrance, monitoring the traffic coming in and out. Beyond that Kyungsoo could make out neatly paved roads lined with lavender stalks and a rather tidy-looking neighbourhood of clinics and dormitories, the buildings graciously spread apart in comparison to the density of the markets just outside.

“This is a school?” Jongin said, disbelief plain in his voice. “There’s so many buildings.”

“I’m guessing you didn’t have a need for any, if you were home-schooled.”

“I had tutors, yes, but that’s besides the point. How many people could possibly be enrolled to be able to use all of the rooms?”

“You’d be surprised. People often come from all over to study here. Not often you see an academy of this scale and reputation. In fact, I’m surprised your parents never considered it.”

“My mother was worried about me falling into the wrong crowd. Always thought that was a rather silly notion…”

“Jongin?”

Kyungsoo turned towards where the voice came from. Jongin’s mouth fell open as soon as he laid eyes on the speaker. “Wendy?”

The girl approaching was young, even younger than Jongin, or maybe the same age. It was hard to tell; but the radiant, energetic beauty that she emitted was as unique as it was lovely. Her youth was upon her face, as fresh as a morning dew drop on the petals of a lily, her light brown hair cascading down her shoulders in gentle waves. Her pale skin had an extraordinary look of softness to it, her eyes large and hazel-brown in colour.

“Goodness, I never thought I’d see you anytime soon,” Wendy said, just as surprised to see Jongin as he was her. She placed a hand on his shoulder to stretch on tip-toe and plant a friendly kiss on his cheek. “Especially here, for that matter. And who’s this?”

“This is Kyungsoo. He, uh…he’s accompanied me, to look after my better welfare,” Jongin said. “Kyungsoo, Wendy. She’s a close friend of Joonmyun’s.”

Kyungsoo stepped forward and extended his hand politely. “My lady.”

Wendy laughed. “Gods, I’m no lady,” she said, shaking his hand. Her palm was warm and smooth, and she smelled of lavender. “Just Wendy is fine. So what brings you to Londerrtain?”

“Oh—uh—“ Jongin floundered, obviously stuck, and Kyungsoo realized that news of Joonmyun’s death might not have extended outside of the immediate family. “We came to retrieve some of Joonmyun’s things for him. He’s…away.”

Wendy fell silent. For a moment she looked deep in thought. “There’s no need to pretend with me. He’s dead, isn’t he?”

The words struck Jongin dumb, but Kyungsoo narrowed his eyes, his fingers subtly inching towards his hilt. “How did you know?”

“Don’t—calm down, alright? I’m obviously not armed, you can stop reaching for your sword. The last thing you want to make in front of the guards is a scene. Then they’ll never let you step through the doors.”

Kyungsoo obediently drew his hand away. Wendy’s shoulders relaxed a little, but her expression remained unchanged.

“I thought Joonmyun might have been getting himself into trouble. I mean no offense, but your cousin was never picky about who he shared the details of his personal life with.”

“You weren’t just anybody, though,” Jongin said, rather softly.

Wendy sighed. “Maybe. But that was years ago already. In any case, he continued to write to me when he took his leave for his engagement. Typical lovestruck dribble at first, but it took a turn not too long ago, saying his girl was suddenly engaged to some Middle Eastern prince instead. I could tell he was devastated, and he wasn’t going to sit still about it either. He said to me, ‘I can’t let this go on. I have to get her back.’ And then that was the last I heard from him. Considering the circumstances of things before this little declaration I didn’t think anything good could possibly come of his efforts. But I was hoping I’d be wrong.”

“It’s just as you say, unfortunately,” Jongin said grimly. “It’s clear you already know much of the situation, so I’m going to be straightforward with you. The details of my cousin’s death are shrouded in mystery. We came to see if there would be any clues in his belongings regarding what really happened.”

“So you want to get into the academy,” Wendy said, nodding with understanding. “Well, that’s nice and all, but I doubt you’ll get far with your friend dressed and armed the way he is.”

Kyungsoo blinked, realizing she was talking about him. Wendy noticed his confusion. “You didn’t really plan to walk in with that massive sword of yours, did you? Anyone can see you’re not from around, and you obviously haven’t taken up some honest occupation like shoe shining.”

“So I have to leave my sword behind?” Kyungsoo said, a little sullen now.

“Probably best. And you should find yourself a nice inoffensive tunic or something while you’re at it. There’s no need for chainmail inside the academy walls. You’ll make yourself suspicious.” Wendy paused. “If you want to get inside, I can help you get past the guards at the front door. But you have to promise not to open your mouths. They’re touchy with strangers.”

“Would you really?” Jongin took a step forward animatedly. “Wendy, that’s—”

“Yes, I’ll do it, keep your voices down. Meet me here again at six, after your friend’s found himself a change of clothes. I need to get some shopping done.”

“You wouldn’t like us to accompany you?”

Wendy smiled with amusement. The expression was ill-fitting on her childlike face, but the effort itself made it charming all the same. “I know I don’t look like much, but I can fend off the rougher types just fine on my own. I don’t know if you were travelling lightly, but if you haven’t something to loan him there’s a tailor just round this next bend here. I’ll keep an eye out for you later tonight.”

“Thank you, Wendy. I can’t tell you how much this means to us.”

Wendy nodded. She turned to look at Kyungsoo. The amused smile was still there. “See you later,” she said.

Kyungsoo inclined his head courteously, not without an intrigued smile of his own tugging on the corner of his lips. She turned and quickly slipped into the current of people moving around them, her hair shining against her navy blue robes before disappearing.

“What was that about?” Jongin said, looking at the spot where she’d left. He turned to Kyungsoo when the latter didn’t answer. “Did you hear me?”

“I did,” Kyungsoo said, belatedly. “Come on. I want to find a good spot to tuck my sword away. Last thing we need is the Order barging into the inn while we’re gone and taking our only chance of survival.”

To narrow down the chances of people recognizing them as the serial attackers that had struck the countryside, Jongin had suggested splitting up, even if briefly. It hadn’t sat well with Kyungsoo, but Jongin was growing restless, hadn’t had enough of touring the city. The lord adamantly promised not to stray from the main road, pleading with him like a child would to his mother. Which Kyungsoo wasn’t, so against his better judgement he reluctantly let him go.

Kyungsoo hated getting dressed up. He always had. Not to say that he hadn’t gotten used to it, but that didn’t make the experience any more enjoyable. Getting measured, trying to pick something presentable from a selection of equally ugly doublets, it was all one very nauseating trip of deja vu for him. Every time he put one of these things on he thought he’d be very lucky if he ate a decent supper later and didn’t pop a stitch in the process.

In the end, he picked out the most inconspicuous one he could find: a sleeveless piece of hunter green, with plain gold embroidery, something he could wear over the white shirt he already had without restricting his arm movement. He quickly stopped the tailor at matching breeches.

The tailor had just finished doing up the final ties when the door chimed with someone’s entrance. Jongin walked in, hugging a large bound parcel wrapped in paper to his chest.

“I got us both new sleeping rolls,” Jongin said, and then stopped at the sight of Kyungsoo. The swordsman was instantly overcome with embarrassment. He felt as good as naked wearing anything besides his armour.

“Be honest. I have no idea if this actually looks any good or not,” Kyungsoo said, tugging mercilessly on the hem with extreme discomfort. “I never cared to develop an eye fashion. I’m counting on you to tell me if I look like a pompous dick.”

Jongin, at first, said nothing. His eyes looked over Kyungsoo several times, the expression behind them indiscernible. His throat worked over his Adam’s apple, swallowing.

“You look good,” he said finally.

The way he said it, it gave Kyungsoo pause, a strange, foreign sensation rising from deep in his chest. He didn’t have much time to think it over, though, because the tailor came flying in with waving arms, yelling about stretching the fabric. Kyungsoo dropped his hands to his sides at once, the pinch of the fabric binding his chest bringing his irritation back.

“We’ll take it,” Kyungsoo said sulkily. “I can’t stand here for another second trying on these ghastly things. No, for God’s sake, don’t take it off me, I need to leave like this.” He turned to Jongin. “You ready?”

Jongin took a deep breath. “Yeah,” he said, in a strange voice that wasn’t his own. “Let’s go.”

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