“I know you didn’t finish it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Lee feigned, head bobbing to ambling hooves.

Donovan rolled his eyes, “Then you’ll be having more later.”

Leilani’s face scrunched up, unwilling to admit that he had, in fact, poured out half of his medicine into the grass as they packed. It was just so bitter when it was cold.

As though reading his thoughts, Donovan scolded, “Maybe if you drank it when it was hot last night, it would have been more bearable.”

“Yes, mother.”

Same as before, they arrived at the manor over the hill and bickered as they knocked on the door. When no bubbly children came to let them in, they knocked again. Lee told Donovan if he liked the medicine so much, maybe he should take it. One more knock.

Their argument stopped cold.

Lee ventured to attempt to open the door, and sure enough it swung wide with a simple push. A new feeling of unease prickled their napes, the already gloomy place now cast with sinister possibilities. Lee called out to the black hall,"Callum? Callum! Lord Eduin?"

No answer. They looked to each other, then back at the shadows. Donovan stepped forward, but stopped short as they heard a shrill, heaving wail.

The crying persisted and echoed over itself in the long hall, nailing their feet to the floor as it crashed over them. The fall of clumsy footsteps cut through the cacophony, urging Lee’s instincts to action as he rushed forward to stand between Donovan and their fate.

Callum burst from the dark, barefoot and tear streaked through puffy, red eyes. He was still wearing his nightgown- a frilly, collared thing- but it was smeared with spackles of blood, along with the crumpled paper gripped in his hand. A knot closed on Lee’s throat as he dropped to his knees to console the weeping child.

"What happened, Callum, where did this blood come from?"

Nothing could be made out of his hiccups and sniffles, his attempts at words too pitched and garbled to be recognizable. Lee bristled as he abruptly was hugged tight around his neck, his shoulder immediately damp with tears. He hesitantly rested a palm on the child's back, "Callum, I can't understand you like this."

Lee soothed to the best of his abilities, but after a short burst of fresh sobs, Donovan wordlessly leaned over and plucked the wrinkled parchment from Callum's grasp. While his expression was cold since the dramatic entrance, a deep frown grew with each line his eyes scanned of the note. By the end, he looked as though he'd eaten something sour.

"He's gone."

"You don't mean he-?"

"No, he left."

"He left," Lee's face dropped.

"He left," Don affirmed.

"Then the blood?" Lee pried Callum from his neck and looked into his bleary eyes.

"Use your words," Donovan instructed the moment Callum's lip began to tremble.

His voice still wavered as he whimpered, "I woke up when you knocked, but when I went to get my dad…" he brought the back of his balled up fists to his face, "he wasn't there! He wasn't anywhere!"

Before the brim of Callum's eyelids could well up again, Lee softened his tone to ask again, "Where did this blood come from?"

With another sniffle, Callum lifted the skirt of his garment up, revealing scratched, bloody knees. "I fell on the stairs."

Lee puffed out a relieved chuckle, ruffling Callum's bird's-nest of a head as he rose back to his feet. The child clung dearly to his hand.

"Let's get you cleaned up. Prince Donovan is a world class doctor, you know!"

"Really?" Callum's cheeks finally started to dry.

"Yeah, see?" Lee untucked the front of his shirt, revealing linen bandages around his waist. They hardly came up stained when they were changed at night anymore, but he wore them as a precaution for his new, white shirt.

"Wow!" Callum exclaimed, his sorrows temporarily forgotten as he led them through the dim lighting, "How did you get that?!"

Lee tilted his chin, chest puffed up like a rooster, "I got into a knife fight with a dozen bandits, one against twelve! They all had swords ten feet long, and if it looked like they were going to lose, they weren't afraid of using dirty tricks. I was able to take them on, but their leader was especially sly."

"Oh," Callum said glumly, "so you lost?"

Donovan snorted from where he walked behind them as Lee scoffed, "Wh- of course not!"

"Then how did you win?" Callum gasped. He opened a new door, revealing a powder room with a large russet and gold vanity mirror taking up half the space.

"So there I was, nobody left in the fight but me and their nefarious leader!" Lee hoisted Callum up so he could sit on the table top, "Did I mention I did this all with my hands tied behind my back?"

"No way!"

Lee spun a stupendous tale to his eager audience of one as he bandaged the knee, all the while Donovan wordlessly took his leave to further investigate the manor. Callum kicked his legs to and fro as Lee finished up and dipped his hands in the stale water to rinse.

“Lee, where do you come from?” he piped up.

“Syna,” Lee said, “isn’t it obvious?”

“But you’re so good at stuff!”

“Synans can’t be good at sword fighting?” he mused, drying his hands on his trousers before helping the child down from the vanity.

Callum shook his head, “You said you’re a farmer, but you’re not a farmer.”

Lee led the way this time, walking with Callum’s hand in his as they sought out Donovan in the dark corridors.

“Oh? How so?”

“You’re best friends with a prince!”

“I think ‘best friends’ is pushing it, kid.”

“But he’s only nice to you,” Callum mumbled.

“I think ‘nice’ is also pushing it,” Lee remarked, “besides, didn’t he let you take care of his sword last night?”

The reminder did nothing to ease Callum’s jealousy, and in fact, dropped his face to a new low, as though his full name had been yelled out by his long gone mother.

‘Geez, don’t take it so personally. He doesn’t like me, either!’ Lee wanted to say, but Callum pulled him to a dead stop.

“I don’t have the sword.”

“A-ah...as in, it’s in your room, or…?” A pit settled in Lee’s stomach. A single tear spilled out from panic-stricken eyes as Callum looked up to Lee, that pitched whimper back to tremble his voice.

“My dad said he’d put it away for me.”