Sonia drove it, of course, since she was the only one among them who wasn't supposed to be in a prison cell. Siles and the rest hid within the carriage, the window curtains hiding their faces from passerby. He didn't need to push the curtain aside to know when they had escaped from the city. The horse's hooves no longer clicked against cobblestone; they thudded against dirt. And he could smell the cow manure.

The farmland stench seemed to stick with the carriage even after they reached the strip of forest separating the two kingdoms. Siles felt ill, but it was nothing compared to the nausea he had felt in the Southern Queen's dungeons. He was okay, now. Everybody else had recovered just fine, so he had to be fine. Besides, he hadn't seen the strange lights since they had reunited with Sonia.

Halfway through the forest, the horses slowed, then stopped. Siles placed a hand on the hilt of his stolen sword. Knuckles rapped against the carriage door. "We're across the border. Someone swap with me. I'm tired," Sonia complained.

August, Penelope and Brigitte all looked to Siles. He resisted the urge to sigh. He was tired, too, but none of them cared about that. He opened the door, stepping out as Sonia shoved past him to step in. He took her place at the front of the carriage and whipped the horse back into motion. Their journey would have been quicker if their carriage had had multiple horses, but a grander carriage would have been tougher to steal. Siles breathed in the fresh air and searched his surroundings for a distraction. In the carriage, he had watched August. The view outside wasn't nearly as interesting.

However, about an hour after they had left the border forest behind, Siles saw soldiers. They were training. And it was pointless. Rivers of fire, shards of ice, and twisters of wind all pierced the air as the soldiers prepared for battle. Even though their powers were nothing compared to those of the Councilmembers, the soldiers still relied on their magic more than their swords. They were going to lose the war, and it was going to be terrible.

Except they were still training. Siles watched the soldiers, their unblemished armor shining in the afternoon sun, their faces unscathed by enemy weapons. They still laughed. Their smiles still reached their eyes. The war hadn't started, yet. August still had time to call it off.

The joyous thought of calling off the war almost distracted him from the light. It was harder to see with sunlight subduing its effects, but it was there. Taunting him. Siles tried not to stare at it, as if pretending it wasn't there would make it leave. He didn't want to consider what it could mean. He didn't want to be sick. But it was irresistible. He couldn't help but watch it in the corner of his eye. And he noticed a pattern. Every time an element burst from a soldier's hand, light flashed around their head. In fact, the light began before the magic burst forth, as if predicting it. Siles thought of August's light. It had risen every time he had mentally spoken to Sonia. It fit the pattern; August's light had come when he had used his magic.

If his theory was correct, then he had developed a power, and the Southern Queen's poison had triggered it. Siles chuckled to himself. The Southern Queen had tainted the very person she had believed to be pure. Though the humor didn't make his newfound ability any less pointless. Magic was already visible through its results; he didn't need a light to tell him about it.

By the time the night had reclaimed the horizon, Siles had decided to ignore the light. It wasn't a hallucination, and that was all that mattered. He was sane. He was home. He rushed the horse along the Royal City's cobblestones and stopped at the iron bars of the castle gates. The guards stared at him with wide eyes. They looked as if they had seen a ghost, and in a way, they had. Siles wouldn't have been surprised if the Southern Queen had claimed that he and August were dead.

"Open the gates," Siles whispered, his voice still hoarse from the bygone fever.

The guards obeyed, straining to push the heavy gates open as Siles knocked on the side of the carriage. The girls leapt out first, embracing the crisp night air as they stretched their limbs. August tumbled out last, yawning and latching onto Siles for support as if he were too exhausted to walk on his own. Siles didn't need the power to read minds to know that it was an act. August's arm fell a little too low to be searching for support.

"You're going to release my friends now," Sonia said once they had stepped through the arching castle doors. Penelope raised her eyebrows behind her, as if her opinion meant anything.

August waved his hand. "Of course. We'll bring them up from the dungeon and you can all spend the night in some spare quarters. But first – " he turned to the royal alchemist as he dug through the pockets of his coat. The second pocket turned up what he was looking for; a biscuit. "There's a chemical in this that blocks magic. I need you to find a way to reverse it, and I need you to do it fast. This could lose us the war, but you can make it win us the war."

Brigitte took the biscuit and cradled it in her hands as if it were gold. She grinned as she turned away from them, rushing down the corridor. She rarely had anything interesting to do. Siles imagined August's command was more of an exciting challenge to her than a matter of winning or losing the kingdom. But at least he knew that she would take the challenge seriously.

August didn't bother to go to the dungeons with Sonia. The light flashed at his temple and shortly thereafter a guard appeared at the top of the dungeon steps. "This guard will release your friends and bring you to your temporary quarters. I expect you to return to your town by tomorrow night."

Sonia and Penelope followed the guard down the staircase. A few seconds later, Siles heard the dungeon door click shut. "Is that guard really going to release her friends?" he asked August.

August smirked. "I was tempted to trick her and lock her up. But she actually trusts me right now. She didn't see it as a mind-invasion when she mentally talked me through the escape route."

"That's fair," Siles said.

"Are you disappointed?" August's brow furrowed and he glanced back down the staircase.

"No. I was just curious."

"Oh. Good." August laughed in relief. He began the familiar walk to his quarters and, out of habit, Siles followed. "So," August said. "Let's say, hypothetically, that I don't feel very safe right now. You could post some night shift guards outside my door. They'll be better rested than you. But you could be in danger, too. You can't protect yourself while you're sleeping."

Siles squinted at August. His tone of voice sounded strangely upbeat, as if he was preparing to admit bad news. August avoided his gaze as he continued, "So, hypothetically, we could kill two birds with one stone. If you sleep in my room, the night shift can guard us both."

August finally looked at Siles, his eyebrows raised. He was smiling, but it wasn't a joking smile. He looked hopeful. Siles looked away. He continued to follow August as he considered the proposal. The logic was sound, even if August was wielding that logic with personal intentions. And they had technically slept together every night they had spent in the Southern Queen's prison cell.

Siles considered the alternative. He could spend the night in his own quarters, as he always had. He could drag several more night shift guards to stand outside his quarters. He had never needed guards in the past, but nobody had ever sought to capture him the way Queen Thalia had. It wouldn't take much effort. There just wasn't any reason for it. He liked August. Despite all the terrible memories of sickness in the Southern Queen's dungeon, he still smiled at the memory of falling asleep every night with August's arm wrapped around him.

"Hypothetically, I say we kill the birds," Siles said.

He didn't bother to look for August's grin, since he doubted August was grinning now that they had reached his quarters. Amanda waited for them outside the door, her eyes wide and her foot tapping against the floor like a rabbit's nervous tic. She opened her mouth the moment she saw them, her words tumbling out in a flood, "I thought you were dead. Queen Thalia said you were dead. So I declared war, since she had killed the King – she had killed you. Or she said she had killed you. It was the only logical thing to do. It wasn't just because I wanted a fight. I promise. I'm not lying. You can read my thoughts." Her voice rose in pitch with each new word.

August raised a hand and she stopped speaking. He yawned then offered his explanation of the events, "Thalia kidnapped us because she wanted to start a war. She has a chemical that makes her soldiers like Siles. Magic doesn't affect them. So, if we fight this war, we're going to lose." The light flashed and Siles heard distant footsteps. "For now, I'm going to call it off. That will buy us some time for the alchemist to figure out how to counteract the chemical, or at least for our soldiers to train for magic-less battles."

Amanda's foot stopped tapping. She stared at August in horror as she recognized the true stakes of the situation. Behind her, the footsteps grew louder until a woman skidded around the corner in racing boots. She handed August a blank paper, on which August wrote a note. Siles looked over his shoulder; he was calling off the war. August passed the paper back to the messenger. "Bring this to the Southern Queen and bring me her response. You have my permission to take the fastest horse from the stables."

The messenger nodded and ran back down the hall. August rubbed at the ink on his fingers and yawned again, but Amanda's panic had returned. "What do we do? What should I do?" Her tapping foot renewed its beat.

"Sleep. We'll deal with the rest of this tomorrow." The light flashed and Amanda's anxiety faded. The wrinkles in her cheeks flattened.

"We'll deal with this tomorrow," she repeated. She smiled at August, though it didn't reach her eyes, and walked away. Siles found that he was grateful for the light, now. Its warning made those creepy, command-following smiles a little less unnerving.

A group of night shift guards followed the next flash of light as August mentally called them into position. Siles stepped into August's quarters before they arrived to avoid the rumors they might spread. The whole castle would know, eventually. Servants were like chattering mice; they didn't keep secrets. But the impending war weighed too heavy on his mind to add another weight to it. The rumors could wait for another time.

Siles collapsed onto the bed's silk sheets and breathed in the smoky smell of the fireplace. No more hard dirt floors, no more of the damp mold that turned wooden doors into mush. He heard the guards assemble outside the door with their clinking armor, then the door clicked shut. August fell onto the bed beside him and Siles felt his warm breath on his neck. Even with war on the horizon, it was good to be home.

~