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T he gateway shimmers as I step through into one of Quin’s truths.

On a pent breath, I enter the familiar, sunny woods of the royal belt.

It’s warm, birds are tweeting and summer blooms pink around tree trunks.

I come to the edge of a small clearing cresting a hill: the woods spread below, and beyond, the grand luminarium glows, straddling the walled royal city and casting its light over the capital.

Some of the most heart-pounding encounters of my life have happened in these spaces.

Movement catches my eye across the clearing. A horse and its rider canter along the craggy edges of the viewpoint. My breath snags on the sight of Quin, carefully dismounting, landing on his good leg. He’s reaching for the cane strapped onto his horse when a loud crash startles the animal.

Quin tries to catch the reins, but the panicked horse shies off into the woods.

Quin hobbles to the cliff edge and leans against a tree with a heavy breath that I can almost feel from here.

Another crash. My chest hiccups, half on a laugh, half on a cry as I see my seventeen-year-old self scrambling down a bushy embankment into the clearing.

I rush up the hill to Quin, who has stilled upon recognising the agent of the chaos.

I remember this.

But I never saw Quin here. This was the day I met—

I get right in front of him but he stares through me, towards Chaos Me who plucks twigs from his cloak, grinning wildly as he veers toward this beautiful young man. But Chaos Me didn’t see Quin’s face then like I do here. Chaos Me saw a face veiled with magic.

I sag to my knees, overwhelmed. It was you. It is always you.

My heart throbs wildly as I watch the rest of the memory. Quin and Chaos Me. Quin and Chaos.

Chaos doesn’t even slow down as he nears Quin—in fact, he speeds up, waving a hand: come; come quick . When Quin doesn’t move, Chaos starts jogging. “Redcloaks. Hide, quick.”

Quin, still shocked at seeing Chaos, merely blinks.

Chaos, the fool, only sees a man—frowning slightly, like he’s unaware of the danger of being caught here. Chaos, the fool, grabs Quin’s arm and tugs.

Quin’s stare drops to Chaos’s fingers wrapped around him, and Chaos suddenly squeezes. Redcloaks have entered the clearing. Redcloaks have spotted them.

Chaos swears under his breath and tosses a wink at Quin. “Don’t panic. Just play along. ”

I shake my head. I know what he’s thinking. He’s thinking they just have to act a little loopy. So the soldiers won’t see them as a threat; so they’ll shoo them along with a mere warning not to come this way again.

I cover my eyes as Chaos drops to all fours and starts crawling around. I wish I’d thought to cover my ears as he starts to whinny.

I peek between my fingers. The redcloaks stop abruptly in the middle of the clearing, watching on in bafflement. And Quin stares.

Chaos pats his hip. “Your faithful steed is here. Climb aboard!” He tosses his hair with a wild neigh, rearing up dramatically. “We’ll ride into the sunset!”

“You’re unbelievable,” Quin mutters, and slings himself onto Chaos’s back. As elegantly as one can on a pretend horse, he keeps his chin high and gives Chaos’s rump a dignified slap.

I shut my fingers over my eyes on a groan before peeking once more.

Chaos is crawling along the grass with Quin positioned awkwardly on his back, pretending it’s most natural indeed.

I slink after them, flushing. The redcloaks glance at one another, open their mouths and shut them again with deepening frowns.

One of them points and whispers in his neighbour’s ear, “That signet on his belt, isn’t that—”

The redcloaks bow as one, and Quin quickly shoos them off; Chaos keeps crawling along, totally unaware.

Chaos hisses quietly, for Quin’s ears only, “Ride me proper. My mane, steer with it. ”

Quin shuts his eyes, shaking his head. His expression is somewhere between horrified and even more horrified, but at Chaos’s buck, he grabs a handful of hair and whips it like reins.

Like this, Quin is held hostage until Chaos has crawled into the shadows of the woods, to a nook by the river where Akilah waits.

She startles upon seeing them and rubs her eyes before nodding to herself. This is Chaos; it probably does make sense to her.

“We’re safe,” Chaos says with a relieved sigh. “Dismount.”

Quin rises slowly, placing his weight on his good leg and massaging the other.

I wince in advance and then wince again as Chaos sits back, knocking poor Quin off balance.

He stumbles and I see the flash of agonising pain he tries to hold back behind gritted teeth.

He snags hold of the nearest tree trunk but still falls.

Chaos turns around to this, immediately apologising and holding out a hand to help him up.

“Hurt anywhere? Let me read your pulse—”

“No,” Quin says firmly, pulling himself up with the aid of the tree. He turns away from Chaos and his face contorts with pain. I swallow and glare over his shoulder at Chaos frowning and folding his arms.

“Why not?” Chaos asks, lifting a stubborn chin.

Quin schools his pain and faces him. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not. I can sense it.”

“Just . . . leave it.”

“I can— ”

“I said leave it!” Quin snaps, and I understand him now. He’s in desperate pain and trying to hide it, and Chaos doesn’t know when to stop.

“I helped you out back there,” Chaos says, while I groan and thump a palm on my head. “At least let me prove I can do it again.”

“Just leave him,” I whimper. He clearly doesn’t want you to know; doesn’t want you to see him weak and in pain; doesn’t want your reaction to him to be pity.

Chaos, the idiot, tries to grab Quin’s arm and Quin roars, “I’ll heal myself!”

“How ungrateful,” Chaos mutters.

Quin presses his lips tightly and glares. Chaos, without the slightest sense of self-preservation, steps right up to Quin braced against the tree and breathes him in deeply. “This isn’t your true face, is it?” He sniffs again, nose barely missing Quin’s hair.

“What are you doing?” Quin utters, and clears his throat with a growl.

“I recognise these herbs.”

Quin’s nose flares.

I notice his fingers trembling on the tree.

Chaos gasps. “Were those redcloaks chasing you? Are you a wanted criminal?”

Quin lashes out sharply, “What if I am?”

Chaos jerks back at this before steeling himself again. “Then I guess I’ve become an accomplice—”

But Quin is already being swallowed up by the forest, having turned away in disbelief .

As Chaos huffs off to fume over this rude young man and vow never to help him out of a tight spot again, I shake my head and follow after Quin.

He limps from trunk to trunk until he’s out of sight, then uses magic to hoist himself into the air.

He doesn’t ride the wind long—around a few trees he finds his horse drinking at the river and gratefully settles upon its back.

He picks up the reins, stares at them, and suddenly laughs; laughs so hard birds flap into the air and squirrels scamper.

He presses the leather against his forehead and massages with a groan.

“Will I ever look at a horse the same way again?”

With a heart-warming chuckle, he starts to make his way through the woods.

He’s too fast. The scene is blurring around him and I struggle to keep up.

When he pauses a moment, navigating a fork in the forest path, I grab hold of his arm and hoist myself into the saddle behind him.

He carries on unaffected—he is a memory, after all—but I slip my arms around his waist and breathe against his soft cloak all the way into the capital.

He dismounts, slides out his cane, and snaps his way quickly into Pavilion Library, leaving his mount in the care of an aklo.

I shadow him through the library and outside again to the garden of pavilions.

A slightly younger Skriniaris Evander occupies one, piles of books open before him but no cat in sight.

“Your highness.” Evander bows and eyes Quin shrewdly. “You’ve come to tell me something.”

“That Caelus Amuletos. I bumped into him again. No—rather, he bumped into me. ”

“Will you settle on a laugh or a scowl, your highness?”

Quin’s scowl turns into another laugh before he forces himself to school it again.

“It was surprising?” Skriniaris Evander asks. “Perhaps enjoyable?”

“It was... interesting. Infuriating.” Quin plunks himself onto a chair and tips his head towards the pavilion roof. “I should try harder to avoid him.”

Evander pauses, shuts the book in front of him, and looks intently at Quin. “Why? You’ve followed him for years. You’re fascinated by him.”

Quin closes his eyes. “I can’t be.”

“Can’t you?”

“Name a single king who has had a genuine lasting friendship.”

Skriniaris Evander taps a pondering finger over his mouth and then leans in to share a secret. “You’re not king yet.”

I gape at him and sidle around the table until I’m close enough to bop his nose. “Seriously, that’s your answer?”

I turn to Quin and wish he could somehow see me. I want to say he can have genuine relationships, that he will . That we will. But... in the end, don’t we only have stolen moments? In the end, isn’t this just one of them?

The memory begins to fade, and I gaze sadly at Quin before heading back through his beautifully recreated memory to the woods where the next door waits.