The first ten minutes or so of walking just brought them through more woodlands, but then the trees thinned and Fanner saw the first of the wooden cabins. This was not a tiny or ramshackle settlement. They were fully established here.

They even had flowers growing in little rock lined flower beds in front of the cabins. There was a man and a young girl crouched down, working on one of them in front of the cabin nearest to them.

“Hamish!” Yore called out, and the man looked up. Fanner had heard that name before. Lucas had called him the resident whore.

The man grinned as he stood and dusted his hands off on his pants. He had dark, curly hair. Definitely not a mage. “Yore! I’m glad to see you’re okay. Some of your people came by looking for you.”

“Yes, I got a little waylaid,” Yore said, nodding in Fanner’s direction.

Hamish turned his attention to Fanner and offered him a smile. “Hello, my name’s Hamish, and welcome to Magic Town!”

“That’s not the actual name of this settlement,” Yore said.

“It is if I say it enough times and nobody comes up with anything else.”

“Thank you,” Fanner said, the word ‘sir’ on the tip of his tongue. As far as he could tell, Hamish was human, but he wasn’t sure that really mattered here. “I’m Fanner.”

The playful smile fell away from Hamish’s face as he looked between Yore and Fanner. “Shit. Not…?”

Yore nodded.

“You found him? How?”

“I’ve told him we have a friend of his here, but not who. I think this story would be best told with his friend here so that I only have to tell it once. Is he around?”

“Yeah, he’s at home with Jassy.” Hamish leant down and whispered something in the little girl’s ear. She nodded and ran off. “She’ll get him.”

Fanner found himself slowly drifting closer to Yore’s side. Why did everyone know who he was? Why had there seemingly been some great search for him? They hadn’t seemed to know anything about his unusual magic, but he couldn’t imagine why else they might care.

The little girl came running back with a strange, furry child bounding after her. He had ears like a dog that stuck up from the top of his head and a wagging tail protruding from a hole in his pants. His entire body was covered in a layer of fine, brown fur. He had hands, sort of. His fingers were about half the usual length and tipped with small, blunt claws. His feet were long, narrow, and bare. He had run over to them on all fours, but now that he was with them, he stood up on two legs like a human.

“Fanner,” a voice that stirred feelings of familiarity deep in Fanner’s gut said, and Fanner looked up. For a moment he didn’t recognise the man standing in front of him, or perhaps his brain just refused to believe it. His hair was shorter and he was a few years older, but it was undeniably Danya.

A moment later they were wrapped in each other’s arms, clinging to one another. Danya’s embrace felt so much firmer, so much stronger than it had used to.

Danya lifted his head from where he had buried it against Fanner’s shoulder to look at Yore. “How did you find him?”

“Accidentally, actually,” Yore said. “I just found him in the woods. He escaped on his own, or at least I assume he did. He still hasn’t told me the whole story.”

Danya leant back to look at Fanner. “Where were you? We looked for you, but you had just disappeared.”

Fanner didn’t want to answer that question, so he countered it with one of his own. “How are you here? They told us you had died.”

“Oh, yeah, we did this thing called lying,” Hamish contributed. “It’s extremely useful.”

“Essentially,” Danya said. “I’m sorry I put you through that. I’d hoped they wouldn’t bother to tell you.”

They had bothered, though hardly. Fanner remembered that morning. They’d been lined up outside, being told which lessons they would each be attending for the day, and the warden had just casually mentioned it as an aside.

Fanner hadn’t been the only one who had been shaken. They had all known Danya, had been helped and supported by him, though none of them were nearly as close to him as Fanner and Duran. They’d cried together that night, wrapped in one another’s arms. They had hoped that after so many years of being rejected, Danya would finally find somewhere he could be wanted, but he hadn’t survived more than a few weeks.

But of course that was how things really were. This idea of finding a master who would treasure you forever and keep you safe was pure fantasy. Surviving only a few weeks after being purchased was a particularly grim fate for a Companion, but at a certain point was living longer any better?

And yet, a new reality was standing in front of him. One in which Danya looked alive and healthy and far more confident in himself than he ever had been at the House.

Fanner dropped his gaze as he did his best to wrangle his emotions back in and his eyes landed on the strange, furry child. He was clutching at the hem of Danya’s shirt, watching Fanner with reserved curiosity. “Who’s this?”

“Oh, yes!” Danya placed an arm around the boy’s shoulders. “This, this, is Jasper. My son.”

“Oh!” was all Fanner could think to say to that.

Danya laughed. “Adopted, of course. It’s a long story. Jas, this is your Uncle Fanner.”

For a moment panic flooded Fanner’s gut because how did he know that and what else did he know and… and… and then he realised that Danya hadn’t meant ‘uncle’ literally. They had always considered themselves like brothers.

Fanner hesitated. Should he tell Danya the truth? Fanner had thought Danya was dead. He hadn’t had the chance to think this over yet. But… Danya should know this. Maybe other things as well, because he was also a part of this whole mess in a way, but for now Fanner wanted him to at least know this one thing.

“Um, we are, actually,” Fanner said. When Danya looked confused, Fanner clarified. “Brothers, I mean. Real brothers. Or, well, real half brothers. We have the same mother. Mr Burrows told me after we thought you had died.”

Danya let out a slow breath and took a moment to just look at Fanner. “You know, I always would have told you that it doesn’t matter whether or not we’re related by blood. That I love you like my brother regardless. But now that I know… it does matter. Not in making me love you any more or less, but… it matters.”

“That maybe explains some things,” Yore said. “He has some unusual aspects to his magic. Although, we always thought yours came from your father being a Soldier, didn’t we? But you share a mother.”

Yore’s eyes cut to Fanner and he frowned slightly. Could he hear the sudden increase in Fanner’s heart rate?

Fanner should have kept everything to himself, because he knew the answers to these questions and now he would have to deliberately withhold them or tell them everything and he wasn’t ready to tell them everything.

Danya looked at Fanner. “Unusual aspects? You never told me anything about that.”

“W—well you didn’t tell me about yours, either.”

“I know. I was in the same situation so I don’t blame you one bit. Being different at the House was a scary thing. Will you tell me about it now?”

“Well, I—” How little could he get away with revealing? Yore already knew some things. “I have this thing. It’s called energy shaping. I can control energy — move it around — so I can keep myself balanced.”

“It’s a bit more than that,” Yore said. “He pulled energy out of me and knocked me out for a few minutes. He didn’t know I was trying to help him at that point, so I don’t blame him for it, but it certainly was something.”

“Huh,” Danya said. “I can’t do anything like that.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Fanner said. “I’m not going to do it ever again. I don’t need to be balanced, so you don’t have to worry about me, but that’s all.”

“You’re much more assertive than you used to be. That’s good. And I don’t want to undermine that, but…” Danya heaved out a sigh. “I feel like you’re in the same place I was when I first got my freedom. I felt like I could only be a Companion, that I only wanted to be a Companion, that everything else I could do was bad and shameful. You can be whatever you want to be now, Fanner.”

Fanner stared straight ahead at the side of one of the cabins. “I want to be a Companion.”

“Ultimately, that’s for you to decide, but we’re going to keep talking about this, okay? I don’t want you to make that decision out of fear, and I can see that you are scared.”

Fanner wanted to say no, that he didn’t want to talk about it or even think about it, that he wanted to push that part of himself deep inside where it couldn’t hurt anyone else or be used to hurt him. Instead, he nodded.

“Fanner,” Yore said, and Fanner looked up. “I really need to get going. Will you be okay?”

“Yes, I—Thank you for…” There were so many things Fanner wanted to thank Yore for, but none of them were materialising into words in his mind. “Thank you.”

Yore gave him a gentle smile. “You’ll be fine.”

Fanner nodded, though he didn’t feel so sure.

“Oh, before I go,” Yore said to the others, “there’s this strange creature that we met at The Inn that’s been following Fanner around. Grey, hairless, generally unpleasant to look at. She has no eyes, ears, or nose, but somehow has sharper senses than I do. She’s harmless and her name is Cookie. Fanner has made friends with her and she seems to be quite protective of him, so make sure if anyone sees her, they don’t scare her off or hurt her.”

“You know, when you started telling us that there’s a scary monster that’s been following Fanner, that’s not where I expected you to end up,” Hamish commented.

“I’d hope everyone knows not to initiate violence against any creature that doesn’t start it, regardless of how it looks, but I’ll make sure everyone knows,” Danya assured Yore.

“Thanks. I’ll try to come and visit in a few days, Fanner.”

“Wait,” Fanner said as Yore turned to leave. As soon as Yore turned back around, Fanner wrapped his arms around him in a tight hug. “Thank you.”

Yore hugged him back and pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You’ll be fine.”

As Yore started to walk away, Hamish called out to him. “Hey Yore, can I get a kiss on my head too? Or anywhere, really. I’m not picky.”

Yore didn’t acknowledge him.