“I wish you were here,” Dalliance said.

  The springtime woods hummed with life. Trillium poked pale green shoots through the carpet of fallen pine needles. Beetles flitted from place to place with the snapping sound of their wings.

  “I don’t know if I’m still a good person,” he said.

  A pointed bit of metal sat in his palm. The light filtering through the trees reflected off it, playing on his youthful face, making him squint.

  “I don’t know if I did the right thing,” he admitted to the forest.

  He wished Topaz were here. Maybe she would wake up soon. Maybe she’d hear him. But he didn’t know.

  And he was scared.

  Of the consequences, a little. He didn’t know what would happen if Mister Best told someone what had happened. He didn’t know whether Lackey would leave it be as the "best" solution.

  He didn’t know if Circe was going to be okay.

  Gripping the spearhead-shaped metal fragment between thumb and forefinger, he scratched at a tree, dislodging bits of bark and exposing the green xylem beneath. He wasn't doodling anything in particular. And yet, what he’d drawn displeased him.

  He wrapped up the blade again and put it back in his pocket, taking out his sword instead.

  He slashed his drawing and the tree. It jarred his hand, and it hurt.

  He did it again.

  He pictured her face, two-toned, dead.

  And slashed again.

  What’s the good of knowing what’s going to happen if you can’t stop it?

  And slashed.

  Or tell anyone?

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  He hit at an angle, the blade ringing with the rebound.

  Stupid Lackey.

  Stupid Sterling.

  And everyone knew.

  He hit the tree again, this time losing hold of the sword entirely. He didn't care.

  He punched it with his knuckles instead.

  The shock of pain made him feel better, for some inscrutable reason.

  He deserved it.

  He had slept badly last night.

  He had come "home" to find someone doing paperwork in the one room he was allowed to sleep in, so he wasn't going to sleep.

  His knuckles hurt. He watched the blood run down his hand and drip to the forest floor. He wondered if Circe would have healed it, if she were here. He wondered if Charity thought he was a bad person now.

  “I wish I could see them,” he admitted. He wished he could see anyone, get some sort of sign that not everyone thought he was a bad person. That they still liked him. He would even accept Earnest.

  The idea of walking to Galton sounded impossible, even though he knew it would only take a couple of hours.

  The really frustrating thing, he thought suddenly, is that he should have been able to celebrate—fly for the first time—and instead he had to feel bad about everything he’d done.

  How was that fair?

  He’d saved Circe. He’d cast a spell in combat and saved someone. If you looked at it that way, maybe, after everything, he should feel good about it.

  But he didn’t.

  The breeze was almost non-existent, wandering among the windbreak, but he felt it. Zephyrus, bringing him the warmth of a spring midday.

  Wait.

  He had cast magic. He could fly now.

  He could go see them.

  From sixty-three points of Mana now, instead of the thirty-three he'd had before the battle, he still had more than half left, even before it had begun to trickle back over the hours he’d been walking.

  This time, when he became the wind, it wasn’t a forceful thing. It was more like he’d released his hold on himself and allowed what should have always happened naturally to happen. He flew apart, blasting pine needles up in a cloud of dust, dirt, and twigs. The suspended particles caught in the sunbeams of the suddenly empty place between the trees. Beetles were swept from the air. The tree with the gashes in it stood alone.

  And he went up and out, toward Galton, and hopefully, toward the relief of the pangs of his conscience.