I gaped at him.

"Did you just-"

"Yes." He was staring at me, taking careful note of my expressions. "Let's."

No. No, no, no, no.

This couldn't be it.

I gulped, staring straight into Reynard's sea-green eyes. No way he could mean what he had just said. Not after we had come so far.

"Let's what?" My voice was barely a whisper.

His eyes didn't leave my face. "I'm proposing that we let you die."

I scowled. "As in, literally? You're not serious, are you?"

He leaned back and stretched his hands behind his head and then stood up. He exhaled, slowly.

"Of course, I'm not serious," he said, smiling his usual, mischievous smile.

I stood up too. "You do know that we aren't in a position to joke right now, yes?"

His smile grew further, the glint in his eyes dancing around in a frenzy. "But we are in a position to propose a good plan, right? I'm saying that we fake your death."

I was stoked. I opened my mouth to speak but no words came out. Was this guy crazy?? Faking the princess's death? Even Yvonne would scoff at that.

"I'm sure hiding under the floorboards is a much more reliable option."

Reynard started walking. "I disagree."

"So you're really serious?" I said as I caught up to him. "Seriously serious?"

"Yes. I'm sure we've established a good plan. A good enough plan to ensure your life past these few couple days, at least."

Reynard was whistling a merry tune as he walked. I didn't like it.

✿

2 Days went by.

I stayed in my room at Faustine's most of the time in case anyone at the house starts to realize who's the boarder at their residence. Faustine would knock at my door for breakfast, lunch and dinner and would ask me to join them... but eventually, I'd always have my meals in my room.

I have to admit, I was scared. I was so scared that Faustine or Lennard would match the pieces and hand me over to the palace guards. What would happen to me after that? Would I be kept in captivity…?

Just like that, the day came by.

Almost 5 days had passed after my disappearance and today was the day the guards were going to inspect the street where Faustine's house was located. I was all nerves today while I heard Faustine bustle here and there, trying to clean up her house a little so the guards wouldn't think her house was a pigsty of some kind.

I was biting on my nails when I heard a knock on my door.

"You okay, dear?" Faustine peeked in. "I'm gonna dust your room a little, okay? So why don't you go out and look after Cael for a while. Come on now."

Hesitantly, I shuffled outside and paced around the living room, my eyes shifting towards the door every minute or so.

This was killing me.

Reynard had promised he'd come by and escape with me so the guards won't find me in the house, but wherever else could we go when the streets were swarming with guards as well?

Cael was sitting on the floor and staring at me while I paced.

"You look worried," he said quietly.

I glanced at him, biting my thumb. "I'm not worried at all." I'm sure I couldn't have sounded any more unconvincing.

Cael bit his lips. "Is it because the guards are coming by today?"

"I-It's not that," I replied quickly. Took quick.

"Don't worry; they won't take you away," he muttered as he lowered his gaze towards his toy horse. "Unless you really are the princess."

I laughed awkwardly and wished that Faustine could hurry her dusting.

That's when the knob turned and the front door started creaking on its hinges.

I panicked and looked around for somewhere to hide because I had thought the guars had come sooner than expected. In my hurry, I ran towards my room, pushed open the window and jumped out. Literally.

I'm sure Faustine's back had been to me so she didn't see me but I heard her mutter something about a loose latch. I kept my mouth shut and didn't even dare breathe as Faustine closed the window. What had I just done?

I had landed in a bush facing the back of the house. Now that my adrenaline was dying down, I started noticing the pain. I looked at my wrists and saw several cuts. My ankle had been twisted with the landing and my legs were up against piercing spikes in the bush. It hurt so much.

Gulping, I broke a couple of my strands and dropped them all over the injured places and in no time, I was fully healed. Thanking God for this gift, I focused my hearing towards the window and heard a lot of distant voices. I prayed that these weren't the guard because Faustine was to surely tell them about the freeloader in their house.

But then the window above me opened up and I heard the voice closer to me. Right above me. My eyes widened and I flattened myself against the wall, hoping that whoever had opened the window wouldn't look down.

That's when I heard it. "Why don't you let some fresh air in, Aunty?" the voice said. Reynard's voice.

I sighed as relief washed over me. I found myself looking up and saw Reynard leaning on the ledge of the window, his arm hanging out by the side of my head. I smiled and wondered how he had known I was here. I pinched the side of his palm to let him know I was okay. He tightened his fingers around mine and squeezed. A sign of reassurance.

I didn't feel my lips curling further up.

Faustine asked Reynard something to which he said "Sure," and then I heard footsteps, an indication that Faustine was walking away.

Reynard turned his head to look down at me and smirked.

"Mistook me for someone else?" he said, bearing down over me, his blue-green eyes staring into my greens.

"You bet," I grunted as I stood up, the bush rustling around me. "That scared me for a second. How did you know I was here?"

He held up a piece of cloth the exact same color of my current dress, black. "Your dress must've caught a loose nail on the window ledge. You must learn to be more careful."

"Haha," I laughed silently. "This really was reckless of me, wasn't it? But I didn't know what else to do in that split second."

"But that was good of you too," he said as he pulled me in. "Though I'm not sure it would've helped you hide from the guards, Your Highness. They would've looked out of the windows for sure."

I clicked my tongue at my mistake.

"So what now? I heard from Faustine that they're already done searching Mrs Earle's house. Her's is only 12 places up from Faustine's so we must make haste. What's the plan?" I was desperate to get past this obstacle.

"Alright," Reynard muttered as his eyes darted around the room. I could see that he was nervous. "Alright, come on."

He got a hold of my hand and we ran out of the house. Reynard shielded me with his body and we slowly walked to the main street. From behind his back, I peeked and saw that there were a lot of guards roaming the streets and holding posters of some sort. When we got closer, I saw that these were my portraits.

In alarm, I shuffled behind Reynard and tried to stay out of the guards' sight.

Reynard squeezed my wrist. "It's okay," he kept saying. "We'll be okay."

I doubted it. My eyes darted from guard to guard and from the corner of my eye, I saw a couple of them approach us.

"Reynard," I hissed and pulled him into a dark alleyway. I looked around to see if the guards had noticed us and it seemed that they didn't because they turned around the corner and left.

I sighed as relief washed over me but when I looked up, Reynard was looking at me with an expression that clearly said 'WTF'.

"Guards," I said distractedly as I looked past him. "Coming our way."

He muttered something which sounded faintly like a curse word and looked beyond at the main street, making sure no one else was there.

"Okay, princess, hear me out," Reynard said, talking quickly. "I'm just gonna go and get some pig blood from the butcher's real quick, okay?"

My face screwed up in disgust. I remembered how some of my classmates happily chewed on blood sausages once...that was a different story though. And a different world as well.

"What would you want pig blood for?"

"We need to fake your death, remember?" he said as he gave me a meaningful look. Then he looked out once again and slipped onto the street, leaving me alone in the dark alleyway

I waited for a while till Reynard came back with a jar of something black. Upon a closer inspection, I saw that it was not, in fact black, but red. Blood red.

"Is that the blood?" I whispered, my eyes on the jar.

"No," Reynard whispered back, a hint of amusement on his face. "It's a cocktail."

I frowned while Reynard brandished a black cloth from somewhere and thrusted it at me.

"Hide your face with it," he said distractedly as he looked for guards on the street. "Come on! Quick."

As soon as I had wrapped it around my face, we were off.

I don't think I ever ran as fast as I did at that moment. We ran and ran and ran. I still had no idea where we were going. I looked up at Reynard and wondered what this guy was thinking, because you never knew. Either his plan was going to be an absolute spark of genius or just plain ol' sh*t.

We ran through the crowd, for once not caring about barging into people and then after almost 15 minutes, we reached a warehouse. At least I thought it was a warehouse.

I collapsed on the ground and caught my breath while Reynard peeked in.

"Where are we?" I asked mid-wheeze.

Reynard mustn't have heard me because he had disappeared inside the warehouse. There weren't many people around but I could still see a few guards scattered here and there. Careful as not to get caught, I stood up and followed Reynard inside the dark, dark warehouse.

I saw nothing.

"R-Reynard…?" I called out into the void. The slight ray of light from the parted door aided me in figuring out what lay beyond me. Was this a barn…?

There was a lot of hay around me and beneath my feet, but the smell of barn animals wasn't wafting around. It was safe to say that this was a storage area for hay.

I called out to Reynard once again, my voice breaking, and thankfully, I received an answer this time.

"I'm here," Reynard called out, his voice a hoarse whisper. "Your Highness, do mind your step now."

He wasn't too far from me. I started walking in the direction of his voice but stopped when I heard a trickle of liquid.

"R-Reynard," I called out once again, looking around frantically.

That's when Reynard lit a match and with it he lit a lamp. Suddenly, I could see much better. Like I had said, this was a storage area for hay. Reynard was standing a few steps to my right and had blood all around his feet.

I was going to ask if he was okay but then I was reminded that this was but pig blood.

I saw as Reynard spread the blood here and there with his feet and then brandished a few white hairs from his pocket. As my eyes focused in the darkness, I was able to recognize the strands because they were from my very own head.

"What's that?" I still asked as I cautiously stepped away from the blood.

Reynard's face was eerily lit by the lamp which hung on a hook in the barn wall. "Remember when we broke a few strands of your hair to test them with dye? I kept the spare."

I pretended that it wasn't strange of him. "So what are you going to do with them?"

Reynard threw the strands on the floor where the blood was thin.

"When the guards come by, they're going to notice the smell of blood and will surely inspect further. Upon closer inspection," he said as he held his chin like a world-class detective, "they will notice that the hair belongs to you because they are clearly lilac. Then," he pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket with some sort of inscription on it, "they'll find the note."

I tilted my head. "Note?"

Reynard flailed the piece of paper around. "A supposed letter from your kidnappers, this will be. Though I doubt the guards would be much interested in the truth. So your kidnappers have declared in their note that they have killed you off and burned your body to remove the evidence. This is the very place of your death and the hairs are evidence enough. After the killing, they fled far away."

I shivered. "Does the note also mention why they would do such a morbid thing?"

"Yes." Reynard smirked. "Yes, it does."