“You are such a know-it-all. Do you even know where assistants disappear to in magic tricks?”

Little Margaret rolled her eyes at the feeble challenge presented to her. “They don’t ‘disappear’; the magicians hide them somewhere. It’s the same way false bottoms work on rabbits. Also, I’m not a know-it-all.”

The little boy could have laughed at the way Margaret enunciated ’disappear’. He would be instantly annoyed by her in an ordinary day, but today he was amused by her comebacks. “Sure you are,” he said, and he looked on in the distance, “And I’ll try disappearing too.”

Margaret stared at him. “You’ll become a magician’s assistant?”

The little boy smiled, and shook his head. “I’ll be a magician, and make an assistant hide me.”

“No, you’ve got it backwards,” the little girl cut in. “Why would you be the magician if the assistant does the hiding trick?”

The boy smirked. “Oh, but the hiding won’t be the trick at all.”

The girl paused and regarded her friend warily for a moment. She turned away in a haughty manner and said, “Hmph, strange and uninteresting.” But she glanced at him again and added, “I suppose I can be your assistant.”

The boy saw right through her act. “You’re not good at lying, so you can’t be my assistant.” He laughed.

Margaret blushed, and she cried, “Suit yourself! It doesn’t really matter to me.” She mumbled, “Why should I even be a liar?”

“Hey, I’m not done talking,” the boy said. “I’m showing the magic trick to you, so you can’t be a part of it.”

Margaret was appeased after hearing the boy’s reply. She made no effort to hide the grin on her face. “That is fine, then. You better do it well and impress me.”

The boy smiled. “…I will.”

Her violet eyes stare at his in wide-eyed shock.

“What?” she croaks.

Steven’s blue eyes meet her stare unflinchingly. “Live with me.”

She scoffs once more. “My goodness. Do you realize you are crossing the line right now?”

Steven glances at the floor. “I probably am. But I want to help you.”

Marigold shakes her head. “You don’t have to do this. You don’t even care about me.”

“I did not say that,” Steven reasons.

“Then what is it?” the girl cries in frustration. “Tell me now, or you leave.”

Steven pauses for a moment to collect his thoughts.

“I do care about you. Though it’s not in the way you expect.”

Marigold waits for his words with bated breath.

Steven sighs. “Do you want to know how I got into the Merchants’ Guild?”

The girl furrows her brows. “Yes, but what about it?”

His blue eyes fix themselves to a vacant spot in the room as he tries to recall. “I once helped solve a crime in this town. The case is about a group of criminals abducting children to sell them off to slavery.

“I knew a lot of people here, thus I was able to gather information about the operations of the abductors. I reported what I learned to the guild officials, and the information I gave contributed to the abductors’ capture.”

Steven stops for a moment. Marigold says nothing—she is not ready to compliment him yet.

He continues. “Most of the children abducted were from the orphanage. One of them was a four-year-old little girl—the youngest of them all. After the children were rescued, I took it upon myself to educate that child. She was like a little sister to me, and out of all the orphans, she was the closest to my heart.

“Though the main perpetrators of the crime were imprisoned, some of the members of the criminal group remained at large. They learned of my involvement in the arrest of their companions. They wanted to take revenge. So, they took the child.”

Steven lets out a shaky breath. Marigold watches him intently.

“That was three years ago, and I still haven’t found her. To be honest, I think she is already dead, and I’ve accepted that.” Steven shifts his focus to Marigold’s eyes. “You remind me of her.”

Marigold is trying her best not to falter from Steven’s look. She can see that peculiar depth in his stare again, and Steven may have given her the explanation for it. Her eyes sting somewhat—must be the onions. ‘Now that I have the answers, I find myself with a rather anticlimactic closure.’ She thinks. She forces a tight-lipped smile.

“I believe you for now,” she says. She pulls her chair away from the window and sets it to face the side of her bed. She beckons Steven towards it. “Have a seat.”

Steven sits down, and Marigold plops down on the bed, facing him.

The boy crinkles his nose. “Did you use garlic to fake your fever?”

The girl opens her mouth in offense, and crosses her arms in a defensive stance. “Hey, watch it! I’ve barely forgiven you, if you’ve forgotten.”

Steven chuckles. “That’s a pretty ingenious move. Truly commendable.”

Marigold scowls at him. “Quit making fun of me.” She lets it go anyway and says, “I wanted to leave by disguising myself, but if they give chase, I will have a hard time evading them.”

Steven turns serious again, and looks at Marigold straight in the eye. “You need a decoy and a place to run to.”

The girl sighs. “That is true.”

“You should tell Henrietta,” Steven replies. “She might be able to help, too.”

Marigold bites her lip. “I don’t want to get her involved.”

Steven leans closer. “She will find out soon enough. It’s better that she hears it from you as soon as possible.”

Marigold’s jaw tightens. After pausing for thought, she gives Steven a tight nod.

Fortunately, Marigold is able to come down because the shop is already closed, and only the lights in Henrietta’s house are lit. Etta is initially fraught with surprise and worry at seeing Marigold up, but Marigold wastes no time in explaining the true situation to her.

“Foolish child! You should have told me!” Etta instantly scolds the girl.

“She did not want to involve you,” Steven explains in Marigold’s defense. The violet-eyed girl is moved by the small gesture.

Henrietta sighs. “And here I was thinking that she was actually afflicted by a severe case of lovesickness.”

“It did seem that way, didn’t it?” Marigold jokingly agrees, oblivious of the young man’s awkward reaction.