A scream wrenched out of Griffon's throat as his eyes snapped open. He paddled his arms in front of him, but they refused to obey his commands. His bedsheets clung to his skin with sweat as he writhed.

He sat up and braced his hand against the wall closest to him. The rough brick felt cool in his hands, and his heartbeat slowed a bit. A light flickered in the corner, and his eyes trained on it for a moment before he decided he was being silly. Everything was fine. His parents were asleep in the next room over, his younger brother sleeping in his crib. He'd just need to call for them. There were no monsters here.

The light flickered insistently, then grew a bit bigger. He locked eyes with it again as it crept across the edges of his room, then up the walls, like a living thing. Griffon's mouth went dry. A smell crawled up his nose. It singed the hair in his nostrils as he breathed it in. The room shifted in and out of focus.

A scream from the next room pierced his wall. Griffon bolted upright in bed. His chest tightened as the bad smell filled his lungs. He coughed it out, again and again, before pulling the front of his shirt up over his face to keep it out. Smoke. He scarcely felt his feet hit the ground as he scrambled out of bed. He rushed to the doorway and flung open the curtains. The flames consumed them as they tumbled to the floor.

A deafening roar of smoke and hot air filled his ears as he stepped out into the hallway. The smell and heat crawled down his throat. He gasped, desperate to fill his lungs with air that didn't burn. Instead he got great gulps of ash that set his chest ablaze. He covered his face with his arms in response, then ducked to the floor where the air wasn't so thick.

I can't leave Armand.

Griffon took a step forward, but his feet sank into the floor. The panic made his head swirl until he could scarcely tell which way was up, or where the door was. He paddled with his feet, but the world moved around him in slow motion, swallowed up by the flames. Griffon struggled to his feet as the fire grew around him, raging like a rabid dog, breathing hot breath in his face.

It bore down upon him, then grabbed at his ankles and ripped him backwards. He fell, hard, onto his stomach and coughed out another lungful of soot. The fire crawled across his wrists and held them in a vice grip. It lapped at his arms and kissed his chest. Griffon screamed. The smell of burning flesh crawled up his nose. He looked down at himself and retched. The skin across his left arm split like the skin on a roast pig.

He bolted upright and screamed loudly enough to wake the people in the adjacent tent. He flailed wildly at the pile of blankets that covered him before his surroundings shifted back into focus and he saw that he was alone, and not on fire. He took a deep breath, then pulled the covers off himself. A river of sweat fell into his eyes. The wings on his back readjusted themselves as he rubbed a hand across his face. No fire, just the lingering taste of a nightmare.

Armand's bed laid unmade on the other side of the wagon. His cloak and sword were both missing. Griffon supposed he'd find him at some point after breakfast. Not surprising he would have fled before Griffon awoke, considering the boy was in trouble and they both knew it. He grabbed his weapon from a peg on the wagon wall and tucked it away in his belt. Their talk could wait until later.

Outside, there were still ice crystals along the tops of the carts and across the straps that held the camels to their burdens. He still had a few hours to go before they'd be moving out to scout ahead of the caravan, and clear their path if necessary. He yawned and tried to rub the fatigue out of his expression.

He didn't have to ask if Armand would be back before he went out, he knew the answer was no. Griffon would have to come for him, which just complicated his morning because it meant he'd have to spend precious time trying to find the boy, who could be hiding in any one of hundreds of places. He had better things to do than waste his time playing hide and seek with a seventeen year old.

"Good morning."

Griffon whipped his head around when he heard the voice, and his stomach sank. Aegan's steely eyes stared back at him. Griffon's heart dropped into his stomach. He grabbed the pieces to his bedroll and began folding them to give his eyes something else to do. Looking at the man for too long always made his heart race a little, even when Armand wasn’t in trouble.

"Morning," Griffon said.

"Mmm, I've had better ones." Aegan unsheathed his sword and began fiddling with it idly. He glanced up at Griffon. Griffon looked away again. A shiver ran down his spine. He tied a thick strand of leather around the bedroll and got started on Armand's as well.

"The new boy, what was his name? The one that came in from the sweltering sea—"

"Rannok," Griffon cut in, though he knew Aegan already knew what Rannok's name was. "He's been working with me, he's doing alright. I haven't seen him the last few days." Griffon swallowed the growing tightness in his throat.

"Yes, well, that would be because he has a broken rib. You wouldn't happen to know how that incident occurred, would you?" Aegan's voice dropped in pitch, and suddenly Griffon was reminded of every single time he’d ever gotten in trouble as a child. He swore to himself without letting the words leave his mouth.

The string for the second bundle slipped around in his hands. His fingers shook as he tried to tie the knot. "Is he okay?"

Aegan's gaze was so unnervingly calm it made Griffon worried he might explode at any moment. "Don't play with me, Griffon. He'll be fine. That's not why we're talking about this, and we both know that."

Griffon closed his eyes, then opened them again slowly. Of course he knew. Aegan kept eyes on everything. Not that it wasn't obvious by the way Rannok winced when he walked that he was hurt. It wouldn't take much to determine the cause, given the fact that apparently Rannok had a big mouth, and liked to run it.

"I'll talk to Armand."

"Hmm, that's not really good enough. He's got no wings, so he’s fairly useless as a caravan guard. He's been eating my food and wasting my time, which I can deal with for your sake. But now he's causing trouble. If you can't find a way to keep him in line, I'm going to need to take care of it myself."

Griffon's heart sank into his stomach. "What do you mean, Aegan?"

He didn't want to hear the answer, even though he already knew what Aegan considered the solution to be. Griffon's head hurt even thinking about what might become of Armand if he left him to his own devices.

"One more problem, and he's gone, the very next time we go through Agatine. I will not have troublemakers in my guard, especially ones that don't do any work. He is here as a charity and if he continues to abuse it, I don’t need to continue extending the offer. Take care of it."

Griffon opened his mouth to speak, but Aegan had already turned his back to leave. He knew better than to try to discuss the subject any further. Griffon rubbed the bridge of his nose with his fingers in an attempt to dispel the ache growing behind his skull. Armand couldn't be expected to train Rannok anymore, not after he'd beaten him half to death. If he didn't train Rannok, he'd be right back to taking resources he didn't earn, which made him far more justifiable to get rid of.

The thought of letting him go, though, was far too painful for Griffon to bear. Armand had never been to a big city. He'd never been outside the caravan, even, not since he was a toddler. How was he going to understand how money worked or how to get a job or how to interact with people who you needed to have stick around? How was he supposed to understand that he couldn't just be friends with marked ones?

The entire thing made him feel sick. He could still feel Aegan's eyes on the back of his skull, and it made the crisp morning air feel even crisper. What had he done wrong to make Armand think it was okay to act like this?

He finished tying off the leather and tossed Armand's bedroll into the corner of the wagon. Griffon sighed deeply. He'd have to put a stop to this. He didn't know how yet, but it needed to be done. Armand had no concept of the danger he was putting himself in, and that was a problem.

He might as well make himself some breakfast before Armand returned. The longer he put it off, the worse it was going to be.