When he had spent his days watching the Queen drink, he had occupied his time with arguments. She had been everything he hated about himself, so she had given him a route to vent without damaging his own ego. Of course, those arguments had always been imaginary, since he was a coward even if August's shy demeanor made him feel confident by comparison. But bravery was irrelevant. What mattered was that loneliness and anger were mutually exclusive, and he couldn't find a way to be angry at August.

So he was lonely. August didn't speak to him, to Siles' relief. He stayed in his room all day, his continued existence confirmed only by the glimpses Siles saw of him when the servants delivered his food. Siles spent his days outside the door, watching the sun dance through the corridor windows and across the stone walls until it dipped below the horizon and the candlelight rose in its place. The servants who carried August's food glanced at Siles with curiosity each time they passed him; they recognized the change in routine. Each time they looked at him Siles hoped they didn't recognize anything else about their relationship. Not that there was anything else to see.

Siles left after a week. He hated the silence, but as the King's Shadow he couldn't speak to anyone but the King. Speaking to others would make him human in their eyes; he had to be seen as an indomitable force. The King's Shadow did not have emotions.

But the bookbinder did. He could argue with Bart, laugh with the commoners, sympathize with the plight of the rebels; he was free to act as he wished, so long as it worked in the kingdom's favor. So Siles removed his mask and departed from the castle walls. He knew he was running away from his problems, but the technique worked. The moment Siles stepped from the Royal City cobblestones to the dirt road, the anxiety that had weighed down his shoulders drifted away. Only a sliver remained, weighing no more than a songbird. It tweeted in his ear about August's safety, but he assured himself that he had nothing to worry about. August wasn't like the Queen; his magic was much more powerful. He just had to remember to react quickly.

Siles drifted through the commoner towns, speaking to the teachers at the new schools, listening to what they had to say without remembering their words. He patched a few books as he traveled, though he didn't remember advertising his skills. Word had traveled; the man in the green coat heals broken books.

A woman with hair the color of rust was the first to ask him to repair a truly considerable collection of books. Siles met Georgia at Amery's new school, where she taught reading and writing. She kept her books in her classroom, filling shelves which themselves filled every patch of wallpaper.

"I had to work on a farm after the old school burned down," she explained. She opened a book, cringed as a chunk of pages threatened to come loose, and placed it gently upon the growing 'to-fix' stack at the back of the classroom.

"I can assure you that the new King will not burn any schools during his reign," Siles replied, separating the stack into two before it could collapse.

"I hope so." Georgia pressed her lips together and scanned the classroom's shelves. Nearly all of the books had found their way to the pile at the back of the room. "I think that's all. My daughter can help you carry the first batch to your room at the inn. You can deal with the rest once you're done with those."

Siles nodded, though Georgia didn't wait for him to respond before lifting her head and yelling towards the doorway, "Gillian! Get in here and help this man carry the books! Have Sonia help!"

Two girls shuffled into the room, Georgia's daughter immediately apparent with her muddy red hair. The girl who followed her was recognizable too, but for an entirely different reason. Siles stared and Sonia stared back, her eyes still wide and dark just like August's. Their expression was disinterested, now, and he hoped it would stay that way.

Except she squinted the moment Siles made eye contact. "You look familiar. Have I met you?"

Siles flashed a smile that he hoped looked genuine. "I think so. I've passed through here before, back when I was first setting up the education program. You asked if I had an evil plan."

"Right." She nodded, still skeptical. "You're the one who the King entrusted with the entire school system. Without any soldiers to accompany you."

Siles lifted a stack of books. "As I told you when we first met, the King doesn't care much about this program, so I don't get any help with it. But if you and miss Gillian could help me carry these books to my room at the inn that would be wonderful."

Gillian had begun to mirror Sonia's suspicious expression, though she seemed more curious than malicious. Sonia's glare was unmistakably hateful, especially as it became apparent that carrying heavy books from the school to the inn was a physically exhausting task. Siles didn't care how much she hated him as long as she didn't figure out where else she knew him from.

They stacked the books along the walls of his room, avoiding the table after it creaked suspiciously under the weight of just one stack. The trio of stacks reminded Siles of the castle spires, but made of paper instead of stone. He reminded himself that he would return to the castle soon enough. August would ideally pretend nothing had happened and they would continue with their lives as they had before. Everything would be fine.

"Thank you both for helping." Siles stepped towards the doorway, not-so-subtly ushering the girls out.

Sonia ignored his attempts to make her move, instead stopping in the doorway with her arms crossed. "Where does your loyalty lie?" she asked. The edge of her mouth twitched into a smirk, though Siles couldn't imagine why.

He slowly closed the door as he responded, "I am loyal to the King, of course."

Sonia's smirk became a grin. "That's why your voice is familiar." She backed away, grabbing Gillian's arm to pull her down the inn's staircase when she didn't move fast enough.

Siles almost chased them, but stopped himself. He would leave the town soon enough. He wasn't going to kill a couple of teenage girls and hurting them would only make them angrier. He doubted they could do him any harm. Sonia knew who he was, that much was clear. She had recognized his voice from his response, somehow. But that didn't change the fact that she was nothing more than a teenage girl, incapable of convincing anyone important that he was who she said he was. Nobody would believe that the King's Guard was a bookbinder.

And yet the last rebellion he had quenched under the Queen's rule had begun because of the influence of a teenage girl. Siles shut the door and stared at the stacks of books. He had a job to do, so he was going to finish it. Then and only then would he leave the town, just in case the girls managed to convince anyone important that their stories were facts.

So he set to work, beginning when the sun paused at the peak of the sky. He should have stopped for lunch, or at least dinner, but the more he thought about Sonia the more concerned he became. She had snuck into the castle, pretended to be a servant, and then escaped again. Nobody could have accomplished such a feat without the help of someone who already knew the castle's inner workings. She probably had a group of followers or was part of a group of followers, which meant there were others who would readily believe her when she claimed that Siles was the King's Shadow.

But even with the help of others, there wasn't much that she could do that she hadn't already done. She had already spoken to him at the castle and it had led her nowhere. The question now was whether she and the others in her cohort were desperate enough to try to attack him. Magicians feared Siles because they only knew how to fight with magic, but to commoners Siles was nothing new – though he had more combat training than a mere commoner.

Siles thought through escape routes as he worked, recalling the basic layout of the inn and the placement of each window. The window in his room couldn't fit a small child, let alone an adult man, but the one at the end of the hall was his shoulder width and a half. He couldn't remember what waited below it, but ideally it was a dirt road he could roll onto to absorb the impact of a second-story jump.

The anxious thoughts passed the time, even if they returned weight to Siles' shoulders. By the time he finished mending the books, his nose burned from the glue fumes and the moon had replaced the sun at the sky's peak. His stomach no longer grumbled at the missed meals; it now stabbed at his sides with piercing pain. He had almost resolved himself to sleeping through the pain when he noticed a plate of muffins on the table by the door. The innkeeper must have been the kind that provided food in addition to lodging. Siles ate the muffins. They were small and did little to compensate for a day of skipped meals, but they kept the pain at bay.

Some nights when he traveled through commoner towns, he worried that the straw beds would keep him awake all night with their prickling and crunching. Tonight was not one of those nights. He fell asleep before he felt his head touch the pillow.

And awoke when a floorboard creaked.

Sun flickered through a hole in the window curtain, so he had absorbed a couple of hours of rest, but he wasn't going to get any more. Shadowy figures surrounded him on every side, blunt and sharp weapons clutched at their sides. He had been right. The teenage girls were part of something bigger.

Siles hadn't opened his eyes all the way when he had woken, so he surprised the man approaching him when he swung his legs off the bed and into his groin. The element of surprise lasted just long enough for him to slip past their weapons and into the hallway, but more armed men and women awaited him there. He hadn't expected Sonia's group to be so numerous, especially given the size of the town.

Unfortunately, the commoners in the hall weren't as surprised as the ones in his room. The nearest one swung at Siles with a hammer, so Siles ducked and pulled her arm forward, snatching the hammer from her loosened grip. He swung the hammer at the next attacker, knocking him out cold before he could raise his mace. He dodged past the next few as they paused to reach for their fallen comrades, making it a few feet closer to the window.

Then someone grabbed his coat. Siles spun out of the coat and threw it towards his attacker, distracting them and allowing him to swing the hammer. He missed. He never missed. Siles was shocked until the world lurched underfoot, black spots dotting his vision. He realized too late that he shouldn't have accepted the innkeeper's food. It must have been poisoned.

He hit the ground. He knew how to fight his way out of such a weak position, typically grabbing the legs surrounding him to force others to the floor and cause enough chaos for him to be able to stand up. However, such a technique required a quick reaction time. His reaction time in the dark-spotted, lurching world, on the other hand, allowed for the tip of a sword to find its way to his throat. The owner smiled at the other end.

"You're coming with us," she said.

Siles looked at the point of the sword, watching as other weapons joined it, blocking him in on every side. He sighed and let his head rest against the floorboards. At least they weren't going to kill him.

~