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I watch quietly from afar as Quin canes his way out of his dance academy one late evening and spies Chaos slipping down an alleyway, gaze darting like he’s up to no good.

Quin hesitates, hands his cane to his aklo, and tells him to meet back there later.

Bolstering his pained leg with magical winds under his long winter cloak, he masks himself and follows Chaos through a narrow, icicled street and down icy stairs to the pathway beside the canal.

There in the distance, huddled by fires under a bridge and around little fissures of warm air opened by an earth shake, are the homeless and the sick.

Their coats are threadbare, and their hands blue from cold.

Chaos, a mere few steps ahead of Quin and unaware of his presence, sighs—and slips on ice toward deathly cold canal water.

Quin turns his hand. Wind pockets Chaos and helps steady him, giving Quin time to grab him by the arms. Chaos turns his hooded head over his shoulder to see his saviour. He blinks and then laughs. “Maskios! ”

“That’s not my name.”

“Who are you then?”

“What are you doing down here?”

Chaos finally shifts out of Quin’s hold and faces him. “Did you follow me?”

“You looked like you’re up to something you shouldn’t be.”

“That’s not an answer. Are you here to stop me? Or help?”

Quin looks from Chaos to the people huddled beyond. “Why not. I’m a criminal, after all.” Laughing, Chaos lifts up on his tiptoes, grabs Quin’s hood, and pulls it up for him.

“Follow my instructions.”

He takes Quin’s hand and drags him along under the bridge. There, he puts Quin in charge of his apothecary pouch and moves down the long line waiting along the wall.

“Why not use a medius spell rather than all these simplex ones?”

“Have you not heard how sharp the blade of a guillotine is?”

“I’ve seen... I mean, you’ve never used medius spells before?”

“Only when I’m sure I’ll get away with it. The local luminist loves to—”

As if summoned, glowing white robes appear at the other end of the underbridge, a spiritual bell ringing accompaniment .

“Live virtuous, modest lives. Follow the rules of the linea, and be reborn as linea. Pay homage at the luminarium.”

Chaos grabs Quin with a yelp and crouches out of sight, huddling in the dark behind a brazier.

“Why are we—”

A palm stops Quin’s mouth. Quiet .

Finally, when the luminist is gone and the sound of his bell has become faint, Chaos lets out a long breath of relief and drops his hand. He pauses upon catching Quin’s gaze. “He and I don’t see eye to eye,” Chaos says. “If he sees me, he’ll tell Father.”

When they return to their work, the next in line is a child—a young girl, thin and weary, with a rash of red rings over her pale skin. Her mother holds her close. “Is it plague? Is she going to—”

“It does look fearsome, but I’ve seen this before. Do you play in the woods?” Chaos asks the girl. “Did you touch a plant that looks very similar to strawberry vine?”

She nods, and Chaos smiles.

“She’s touched thistleweed. Harmless—it’ll fade on its own eventually. But...”

Soon after she absorbs his spell, the rash is gone and her skin is restored.

By the time Chaos reaches the end of the line, it’s past midnight. As they move back up to the street, Chaos sags suddenly, exhausted. He shivers in Quin’s arms when they catch him. “Windy. ”

“Let’s sit a moment.” They rest, and Quin subtly ceases the wind supporting his leg.

Across the canal, the luminarium glows brightly with magic under a sky full of stars.

Quin’s gaze fixes on the sight for a long moment, until Chaos’s bow towards the glow draws his attention. “The way you were with the luminist, I thought you didn’t care about the Arcane Sovereign.”

“I distrust the idea that if we follow linea rules we’re reborn as linea, and I have definitely—repeatedly and shamelessly—broken linea rules. Bowing seems redundant. And yet...” A shrug. “Just in case . ”

Quin takes this in. “I’ve told myself over and over that I shouldn’t do certain things. And yet, I keep doing them anyway. Telling myself not to seems pointless, but still. I keep trying and failing.”

Chaos nods. “Are you trying and failing to reform your criminal ways?”

“As successfully as you are.”

This, Chaos finds amusing, but he soon sobers. “I wish I could practice as a vitalian. There’s so much I don’t know, so many spells I’ve only heard about. Even more I haven’t.” Then, abruptly, Chaos springs off his perch and races off.

Quin watches him slip and slide down the curve of the icy bridge and into the shadowy streets. He shakes his head, smiling, as the luminist from earlier appears again, approaching at his measured pace.

The next door opens to the clearing in the woods and Quin on horseback—dressed for drakopagon, his drakopala strapped where his cane had been before. A scarred aklo shifts nervously on a horse next to him.

“Must I practice with you, your highness?”

“I’ve no one else.”

“Your brother—”

“It’s his mother’s birthday. I can’t bother him.”

“What about the redcloaks?”

“Half would use the opportunity to break my neck.”

The aklo reluctantly steers his horse alongside Quin’s and stalls.

He points to a rustling overhead, and Quin sneaks his horse closer, looking up through the branches of a honey-tree.

There are two figures in the tree, mostly hidden by leaves.

Small flashes of magic light up the foliage. “Take this one, Akilah.”

“Must we really collect syrup here? There are trees in the city.”

“Not this kind. This tree is rare. It makes the best taffy.”

“Great. We’re not just pilfering royal syrup; we’re pilfering precious royal syrup. Have you not heard the phrase ‘off with his head’?”

“Look at all those stains, that’s years of syrup gone to waste. Years of delicious taffy that never came into existence.”

“You and your taffy!”

“Let the whole world know: I love taffy!”

“The difference between syrups is barely noticeable. Are you sure you didn’t come back here for other reasons?”

“Ha!”

At this, Quin folds his arms and clears his throat. “You love taffy more than life?”

Akilah yelps and Chaos finally makes his appearance, tumbling down a few branches only to catch himself by planting a foot on Quin’s shoulder and propelling himself back to relative safety. “Arcane Sovereign!” he gasps as he rearranges himself more securely on his branch.

Quin watches him, with pressed lips and a muddy boot-print on his cloak, as Chaos peers down from his perch and his grip on the branch falters. He steers his horse a step forward, closing the distance to barely a foot, and flicks his finger lightly against Chaos’s nose.

A laugh. “Maskios! We meet again.”

“Not my name.”

Chaos leans precariously downwards. “Who are you then? Are you really a criminal?”

He twists out of reach when Quin tries to flick him again.

“You can call me . . . Calix Solin.”

“Sure, Maskios. I’ll do that.”

“I travel here a few times a year to study,” Quin says, glaring. “From Hinsard. ”

A hand reaches down to lift one of Quin’s braids. “A scholar from Hinsard.” Chaos breathes in the scent of magic. “Why hide your true appearance then?”

Quin holds Chaos’s gaze, unabashed. “I have trouble with unwanted attention. My magnetic beauty becomes problematic. Like Skeldars.”

Chaos drops Quin’s braid and bursts into a laugh. “I’m part Skeldar, does that mean I have this magnetic beauty?”

Quin regrips his reins and looks away. His horse backs up a step.

“What do you think?” Chaos says, looking up through the branches to Akilah. “Am I handsome?”

“No. You’re extremely pretty.”

“Why don’t I have trouble with unwanted attention?” he asks her.

“You scare all the girls off by ‘testing’ spells on me in front of them. They’re afraid of their own faces coming to ruin.”

“Huh.” Chaos’s brow furrows. “I haven’t even noticed any girls.” Quin shifts noticeably on his horse.

Chaos looks back at him and his aklo. “You play drakopagon? Are you any good?”

Quin scoffs. “Of course I am.”

“Veronica is forever urging me to practice,” Chaos says. “Come forward a few steps?”

“Why?”

“Three steps should do it. I can drop in front of you, or behind. Take your pick.”

Quin grabs his drakopala, moves his horse out of dropping range, and smartly taps Chaos’s rump. He looks like he’s about to stop all this in its tracks, but he pauses, glances at his aklo, and relents. “Give him your horse,” he says. “Go back.”

Chaos looks smug as he drops into the empty saddle; Quin, clearly a little bewildered by his own choices, looks apprehensive but resigned.

Chaos grips and regrips his reins. “Syrup’s a bit sticky.”

Quin flicks a lazy finger and Chaos sighs at his now-clean hands. He lifts a knuckle to his mouth. “What a waste. Should’ve been licked clean.”

Quin turns away, eyes closed, and moves his horse forward.

The hollering and laughing can be heard long before they reach the drakopagon pitch. Over the rowdiness of a half-dozen young men on horseback, tossing a tied-up bundle from player to player towards a large hoop goal at one end, comes the distinct sound of panicked meowling.

Quin’s eyes narrow. Chaos hisses and urges his horse over the low fence; Quin catches his breath, curses, and hurries after him.

“Give me that cat.”

The players turn towards Chaos, scowling. “Get off the pitch. It’s ours.”

“You’re torturing it.”

“No one wants to drop it. It adds stakes to the game. Better for practice.”

“How’d you like to be tied up and thrown around for fun? ”

When Quin pulls his horse to a stop at my side and demands the cat’s release, they snicker. “Who do you think you are, the king?”

Chaos bites back. “Who do you think you are, rich bullies with nothing better to do?” He ducks the swipe of a drakopala from one of them as another puffs out their chest.

“We’re all first-born sons of high-ranking officials! We’ll be running court someday!”

But in short order the youth carrying the bundle collapses onto his horse under a sleeping spell, and the cat is safe in Chaos’s hands.

He turns his horse, but he’s met with a barrage of nasty spells from the rest and Quin is kept busy blocking each one. “Get to the woods.”

While Chaos makes his escape, Quin faces the fight.

Six against one, all well-trained in sentinian magic, spell after spell.

One slices through his sleeve—his shield blasts at them, but they keep coming.

He becomes a challenge; someone who must be taught a lesson.

He sweats as he holds them off until, finally, redcloaks interfere.

Only when the young linea are gone, escorted to their homes, does Quin sag into his saddle.

He gnashes his teeth as he spells the cut on his arm.

By the time he emerges into the clearing, Quin is calm and collected. At least, on the outside. He moves his horse forward and faces Chaos tightly, the flash in his eyes hinting at what’s roiling inside.

Chaos shifts his horse until he can nudge Quin’s foot from its stirrup. He slides his own foot in and puts weight on it as he leans over, carefully tucking the sling he’s fashioned for the cat to lie in around Quin’s neck. “There-there. Maskios has money. He’ll take care of you.”

When he’s resumed his seat and his own stirrups, he cocks his head at Quin and pats the bundle at his chest. “Why are you still glaring at me like that?”

“That was dangerous. You risked your life. For a cat .”

“They might’ve killed it!”

“You can’t save everyone!”

Chaos turns his horse so they’re facing the same direction, side by side. “I can try.”

“Sometimes you shouldn’t. Sometimes, you just have to make hard choices. Not everything can be saved.”

“How defeatist.”

“They’d have spelled you from your horse. You’d have been trampled. Killed. And in the end, it wouldn’t matter. You’re just par-linea.”

Chaos’s horse shifts with him as he recoils. “Just par-linea.”

“That is the truth.”

Chaos slides off his horse and hands Quin the reins without looking at him. Leaves rustle, and the cat against Quin’s chest gives a faint meow.

The expression that Chaos doesn’t see is one of yearning—yearning to explain, to make him understand. But Quin has no words. He grits his teeth and watches as Chaos leaves.