Rayan was seething. Alone in an unfamiliar part of the castle, watching the king's fingers flex irritably, Nicholas was very grateful for whatever rule forbade wearing rings to large gatherings.

"I...what?" Nicholas said sluggishly. His body was still on the dais. His hand was still in that oily grip, scratching against a coarse beard as that man smelled his wrist.

Nicholas had spent his adolescent years and the entirety of his first and only relationship longing to feel desired. At the foot of the throne, with sultry kohl lining his eyes and light bouncing titillatingly off of the crystals at his hips, he had been looked at like a prize. It felt filthy. He wanted to pick at every inch of skin that had been ogled that way. To scrape it off and let it scab, turnover his cells so he could forget the feeling.

"Have you lost your hearing as well as your mind?" said Rayan. "You've grown too comfortable - must I remind you that you are a prisoner? You are to be seen by no one, and yet you are parading yourself at the center of my ball in-" His eyes flicked over Nicholas before quickly darting back up. "For Saints' sake, you're- this is-"

A frustrated sound came deep from his throat. His arm lunged forward and Nicholas flinched back, shoulders jumping to brace for a hit. Rayan reached past him to yank at the curtain behind him, ripping it from its rod in one pull. "Cover yourself!" he ordered.

Nicholas fumbled under the curtain's weight, bunching ultramarine fabric against his front. He was not particularly uncovered, aside from a slice of his midsection. With the window stripped, moonlight struck Rayan's form, sapping the undertones from his skin but making apparent the enraged flush on his face.

Nicholas draped the curtain across his shoulders and hugged it around himself, nestling into the safety of being closed in and covered. It was the same comfort he drew from the walls of his apartment, or even, on particularly baring work days - presentations, corrections, performance assessments - the walls of his cubicle.

"So that wasn't you?" said Nicholas.

"Me?" Rayan was incredulous. It showed in his stance, the way his shoulders drew back. But it showed on his face, too. Nicholas had expected the king's anger to be cold, contained in lowered tones and darkened eyes. This was bright, loud, erratic, spilling out all over the carpet.

"I didn't want to be up there. Cairo...I thought you put me there."

"I am not that kind of villain," Rayan sneered. He paused. "What does Cairo have to do with this?"

"He offered me a bath. But it was a different room than last time, and he locked the door, and the, um- courtesans. Were there." Nicholas curled his fingers into soft velvet. "I got swept up."

Rayan processed that in increments. "Cairo," he murmured, searching the window behind Nicholas like he could somehow find his counselor through it. His face slipped back into its usual repose, but his jaw ticked, and winds tossed behind his eyes. This was the rumbling thunder before a cloudburst. This was more what Nicholas had imagined.

"Why did you let them force you?" asked Rayan. "You should have said something."

"I did," said Nicholas.

"Clearly not."

"I did. I tried."

Rayan scoffed. "Did you." He didn't phrase it as a question, and wasn't that infuriating, as if Nicholas' answer didn't even matter.

"No one would listen."

"Then speak up!" A sudden outburst, a downpour. Rayan's eyes snapped from the window to Nicholas and he was overflowing again, feeling in full force. "Did you say something, or did you mutter and mumble and let yourself be interrupted with that wounded doe look on your face, trying to appear as powerless as a fawn? How long will you go on pretending you don't have a voice? You are practically bursting at the seams every single second - speak your mind before you blow and take my entire castle with you."

"God," Nicholas laughed. Rayan's brows lifted in surprise. "That must be so easy for you to say, isn't it?"

Maybe he truly had left his body on the dais. He found himself remarkably unencumbered as he raised his chin. "How easy as a king, to look down from your throne and urge me to speak when you have never been silenced a day in your life. How strange I must be, how deeply fucking repressed I am for holding my tongue, when an entire kingdom has hung on your every word since your first babble." He could hear his voice raising, bringing lightning to a rainstorm, but he wasn't there. No cork could plug his lungs from here.

"Have some perspective, Your Majesty. Try to imagine how it might feel not to have control of every single aspect of your life, then try to imagine feeling that for years on end, and then, try to imagine becoming somehow even more powerless in the blink of an eye. Imagine being thrown from your miserable existence into something worse, imagine being chained and beaten over crimes you didn't commit and magic you can't explain. Imagine, in the midst of that, getting locked into yet another situation you don't understand. I am scared. I am scared and I have been scared and you don't get to tell me how to work with my fear! If you're so damn worried about your castle, let me out of it."

Rayan looked ready to cut him down. "Back up," he said.

Nicholas did not remember stepping forward. At some point, the curtain had fallen around his ankles.

For all he had talked about feeling scared, right then, he was unafraid. Nicholas had thought forever that he was going numb, but he'd never imagined the breaking point would manifest like this: emotions in feverish bloom save for the one that had ruled so much of his life. Fear had frozen over, if only for a while. Could nerves be overworked? He didn't know. He wasn't thinking about it. He inched back as far as the pile of curtain allowed.

"You know nothing of the life I've lived," said Rayan. Nicholas nearly laughed again.

"I know enough." That should have been the end of it. It should have never started. But Nicholas took a full breath in and more words rode on the exhale, out of his control like everything else. "And, God, God, has it crossed your mind that those of us who live on the ground might actually have to consider how our actions affect the people around us? Every minute I took up in the baths was time the courtesans would have to pay for. Your life might be worth a thousand, but I just get the one. My discomfort doesn't warrant someone else's pain."

This time, Rayan was the one who barked a laugh. It bounced off the wall like a gunshot. "I am the king of a nation, you nearsighted clod. I have been the only royal blood in Caldora since I was a child. Every breath I take has consequences, it is all I think about."

"How's this for a consequence, then: I was forced onto that dais because you brought me here. If you're pissed that your esteemed guests saw your prisoner, take that up with yourself."

The king was slow to respond. Slow enough that the steam seemed to leach from his stance, and Nicholas started to come back to himself. Still no fear, though that may have had more to do with the almost childish chagrin on Rayan's face.

"That is not why I'm...aggravated."

"Guilt, then?"

Rayan didn't deny him. Nicholas breathed heavily with exertion that hardly seemed warranted. His throat scratched. He never raised his voice. He realized he was tired enough to curl up right there. The curtain looked very comfy.

"If it bothers you so much, why have courtesans at your birthday at all?"

Rayan grimaced. "Cairo likes to plan the parties," he grumbled. He was being so expressive. Nicholas felt like he should have been paying more attention. "But they are there willingly. It isn't...you're..."

He turned his face. Again, he reminded Nicholas of a teenager, this time poor with his words and frustrated about it.

"Yasmin," Rayan said. She appeared around a corner in the direction of the ballroom. The thought of her witnessing that exchange made Nicholas' cheeks burn. "Take him to the sick room."

"I am assigned to your side for the entirety of the event, sir," she said.

"You are assigned wherever I put you."

Yasmin's eye twitched. She dipped her head in a bow. "Of course."

She procured handcuffs from somewhere within the dramatic flare of her coat. She walked at Nicholas' back, steering him with a hand on his wrists. In the reflection in the window, he saw her raise her middle finger to her king.

They're friends, he realized. Close friends.

"'M losing it," he murmured.

"You must be, speaking to your king in that way."

And yet Rayan had not harmed him. He probably had every sovereign right. Yasmin was much easier to fear, but she squeezed his wrists after his apology and left it at that. Maybe they were all tired.

Back in the infirmary, she undid his cuffs and answered his questioning look with a flippant gesture toward his outfit. "Quickly," she said and turned her back. He could have kissed her, if he were so bold and if she wouldn't murder him.

His clothes were still at the bath, but he couldn't bear the thought of putting back on Madam Bashar's pants and shirt. He wished for another bath to wash off the lingering touch of salacious eyes, but it was enough for now to be rid of the garments that had promised more than he could give. He crawled into bed naked and pulled the cover up to his armpits, holding out his hands over the sheets for Yasmin to cuff with red cheeks.

She eyed the pile on the floor. "I'll bring a change of clothes in the morning." She sounded a little annoyed. If he weren't so used to her sounding like she wanted him eviscerated, Nicholas would not have indulged the possibility that this was her way of showing sympathy.

Sympathetic. Yasmin. Huh.

He ate his cold dinner and slept like the dead.

As promised, Yasmin brought Nicholas clean clothes with his first meal, but they weren't the pale linens he expected.

"I need your address," she said.

"My address?"

"In South Simona."

"I, um. Don't have one." At least she had turned his back to allow him to dress, so she couldn't see him cringe at his own slow wit.

"Either you truly are innocent, or you make a terrible spy."

Nicholas slowly did up the buttons of his gray shirt, the shirt he had worn to work the day his journal chewed him up and spat him into another world, buying himself time to clean up his response. "The city hasn't exactly been kind to me. I tend to float around."

Nice. Play the orphan card.

When his shirt was tucked into his pants - the black ones wearing thin around the ass - Yasmin refastened the cuffs and left him with his breakfast and scores of swallowed questions.

She was back before he could ponder them too deeply. Nicholas was staring down at the waters of Lake Charlatan, scraping the last crumbs from his plate, when, one by one, the dividing curtains swept aside until she was glaring at him across several beds. She held his work bag away from herself between two fingers as if a rat might crawl out of it.

"We are leaving," she said.

Blindfolded yet again, Nicholas was steered around several corners, pushed down into a seat. The ground rumbled beneath his feet. They were moving.

He didn't ask. He didn't dare to hope.

But when Yasmin removed the cloth from around his eyes, he was boxed in by the dark walls of a carriage, and the king's castle was a fading thing behind him, visible only when he leaned his head out of the window.

"I will make this very clear," said Yasmin. "This is not an absolution."

What reason did he have to hope? For all he knew, he was a bull in transit to a slaughterhouse.

"Many questions remain around your existence. You have yet to provide insight in regards to your crash-landing in North Simona, and you have abilities unexplained by any known magic. Until these questions are answered, you will remain under suspicion. Understood?"

Nicholas gave a stiff nod.

"That said..." Yasmin seemed reluctant to say the next part. "His Majesty has deemed these grounds as insufficient to warrant your detention. You will be returned to South Simona with all of your original possessions."

"Oh."

"Is that all you have to say?"

"You'll return my journal, too?"

"I did say all," Yasmin said irritably.

Nicholas rested his head back against the seat and parted his lips on a quiet sigh. He felt the balmy air on his cheeks, hot with Caldoran summer. In a couple of minutes, his mind would start spinning again, fast enough to hurt his head. But he figured, after everything, he deserved this. A short while to be relieved, and to feel accomplished for having made it out of one mess. Even if he didn't know how, even if the next would likely prove much harder to escape.

There it was, the spinning. The respite had only lasted a few seconds, but that was for the best. He needed a plan.

"I have a message from Cairo as well," said Yasmin. "He wanted to be the one to escort you, but it would appear he has fallen into disfavor with our king for the time being. Though it feels as if I am the one being punished."

"Sorry about that."

"He wants to explain: he did bring you into the public bath as some halfwitted joke, but he only intended to leave you long enough for a quick laugh. As the 'mastermind' behind the celebration, he lost track of time."

"Ah."

"In light of your housing situation, he is arranging for a room in South Simona that shall be yours through the next month. Should you choose to stay, he promises the utmost luxury. He has also left a sizable stack of malon with your belongings to fund any auxiliary needs. I believe that is his way of apologizing."

The spinning slowed, if just barely. That was one less issue to sort.

"He did also say he is very sorry," added Yasmin.

"Right."

"And." She pressed her lips together. "He asked me to say- and these are his words, not mine." She looked at Nicholas like she would order the driver to run him over if he did not believe her. He fervently nodded his understanding. "'You clean up nice.'"

She could have easily left that part out. She looked a bit green just from saying it. It dawned on him that Yasmin was brutal and irascible but perhaps honest to a fault. He had not written that on her page of the journal.

"If he was so busy with the party, why was he sent to bring my dinner?"

"I cannot abandon my king's side during public events."

"Why not someone else, then? A servant, or a guard, or..."

Yasmin narrowed her eyes, a swift and deadly shut down. Nicholas cleared his throat and looked out the window.

He inhaled long and slow through his nose, breathing in North Simona. Illogical as it felt to recognize a city he had never known, he was certain. He had traversed this road before, in the dead of night after his release from jail, but North Simona in broad daylight was unmistakable. The baselines were the same. Tudor-style homes crammed between wide city blocks, square buildings of brick and stone several stories high, fat streets with missing stones that snagged the carriage wheels. The smells: gravel dust tinged with coal smoke, the faint salt of the sea.

But everything had been superimposed, overlaid with layer after layer. The smells of fresh bread and spicy food cropped up from market stalls, then faded, then cropped up again. From open windows on high apartment floors, women knelt with easy balance to hook wet clothing onto hanging lines. Below them, men in roughspun fabric hollered at pedestrians blocking the paths of their horses as they lugged carts stacked with crates. Everyone made way but the children, too absorbed in their make believe. Except for one: tangy music floated through the carriage window as a boy blew into an odd brass instrument from the side of the thoroughfare, kicking his feet whenever passerby dropped coins into his cooking pot.

This was the center of Caldoran commerce and trade. This was a sketch on a map and a handful of words in his journal, propped up to stand on its own. It wasn't enough to say it had been brought to life. It had been brought to one-hundred-thousand lives.

In time, the buildings thinned and so did the crowd. They drove by industrial vats that stunk of tar. A stone wall stretched for what felt like a mile. "What's that building?" Nicholas asked. He opted not to look at Yasmin, in case she was trying to evaporate him with her eyes for speaking.

But she answered, "Pondtam Prison."

Pondtam. They were just outside of geographical North Simona, still within reach of its metropolis. In another storyline, Nicholas could have wound up here. He remembered the mad woman with the albino rat across from his cell at the jail. She called me a witch! And you know the fate of a woman called a witch.

"Is this where witches are executed?"

Yasmin let out a sharp breath. "Witches have not been hanged for generations. Those rumors would do well to dispel themselves."

"But they are imprisoned," Nicholas guessed. "For how long?"

"It is a serious crime."

"Creating a love potion? Or simply having the power to?"

"Love potion- what are you talking about? The kova zem they command are difficult to obtain and impossible to control except at their hands. The other gifted are at their mercy. You know the story of Delilah; you understand why another powerful witch cannot be allowed to rise. It is dangerous magic."

Actually, Nicholas hadn't understood half of what she'd said. He understood this, though: "Like mine. They're guilty for existing outside of your comprehension."

"Watch yourself. You serve a charitable king. If you are so determined to call yourself guilty, we can turn back to al-Narin this instant. Or we can drop you off right here."

It was not the time for laughter, but Nicholas found himself fighting down a smile. Al-Narin. It was written somewhere around page seven of the journal, above his drawing of the castle. Around it, several other names had been scribbled and crossed out. The name of the Caldoran castle had been a blank spot on his documents for years, a question mark on his spreadsheets. Al-Narin was more of a placeholder than a final verdict, but he supposed the decision was final, now.

He could sense the journal, tucked into his work bag, closer than it had been since that night in the study. He would have his hands on it soon. The thought made him restless all over. If he kept shifting in his seat, he was going to really wear a hole through his pants.

The drive took them inland through countryside and village, industry and excavation. When the sun set, the road was nearly black in most places, until they crossed through towns busy enough to light them. Normal torches and lamps lined the roads; few mages lived this far from al-Narin.

Nicholas felt too anxious to sleep, and yet at some point during the night, when the horses stopped to rest, he blinked and opened his eyes to a bright afternoon. He wiped the corner of his mouth with his sleeve, aware of Yasmin's disgusted side-eye, and looked out the window at South Simona.

It was much like its sister city, but stockier. The smell of the sea had returned.

"It will be a while," said Yasmin. "The hotel Cairo arranged is at the city's far edge."

At this rate, Nicholas might just forgive him. The plan was practically forming itself.

In front of an establishment that could only be described as palatial, Yasmin unlocked Nicholas' handcuffs for the last time and handed him a contract and a pen.

"The terms of your release," she said. "You'll find the main one is silence."

Nicholas signed. He was handed his bag. Inside were his laptop, his phone, his wallet, his keys, work miscellaneous, and his journal. He took it out, opened it to the first page just because he could. The ridges of the paper felt like home beneath his fingers.

"Get out," said Yasmin.

He shuffled onto the side of the road and remained there long after the carriage had shrunk to nothing, single-mindedly fixated on the page.

The Lovers. Shrouded as she was in darkness, he may not have recognized the woman in the drawing if not for the steaming pond she knelt by and the oleander bushes dotting the garden. The crumpled, broken body she reached for had danced in Nicholas' dreams. And then she had burned, and he had wilted.

The sketch didn't have anything to do with his story. It had been a warm-up, a way to flex his fingers. But this woman had appeared in his dream. He remembered it vividly even a week later. That was not normal for his dreams.

You are not supposed to be here. So we're doing the impossible now, are we? I didn't think that was allowed, anymore. Well, anyway. Welcome.

Clutched by the sensation that he was nudging at something important, he bumbled into the foyer of the sort of building he normally didn't even dare look at for too long. It was gorgeous at sunset, but he hardly noticed, head buried in his book. He only glanced up to reach the concierge, oblivious to the curled lips of the affluent patrons. Nicholas gave his name and received his key.

As promised, the accommodations were luxurious. Nicholas sank onto the most comfortable mattress his ass had ever touched and studied the journal's third page. A tray arrived for him unrequested. He filled his stomach on a steaming dish that reminded him of kabsa, flicking back and forth between his maps.

He had claimed South Simona as his home with no particular plan in mind. It was a hugely populated city, and it was close to the frontier - close to Interra. That was all he'd had to go off. You clever bastard, he congratulated himself.

The stack of malon in the front pocket of his bag was more than sizable. He couldn't say he was grateful for the night of the king's birthday, but he would absolutely capitalize on Cairo's blunder. And his deep pockets.

He returned to page three. At the pit of the grassy valley that marked the cleavage between Caldora and Interra, Halcifer School of Magic stood tall despite centuries of neglect, overtaken with weeds but just as grand as al-Narin. Even in two dimensions, it seemed to radiate ancient power. This was a castle that would not crumble.

Nicholas would take a page out of Adrian's book. The almost-king had run from his coronation fast and hard, all the way onto the frontier; there, he had sought answers from Halcifer and its deep history. Nicholas was not a hero, but he could think like one. He had written one, after all.