I had barely made it three steps into the village before then running up to me.
"Cassian! Oh heavens —"
"Is it true they took you in chains? Is it true the princess 'erself —"
"I heard she kept you in a dungeon filled with serpents!"
"I heard she made you fight a bear! With your hands!"
"Let me see your face, let me — oh, you've been hurt, look at his poor face —"
Many hands touched my arms, my shoulders and my face, turning my head to inspect the bruises, pulling at my sleeves. An unfamiliar woman placed her palm on my cheek and appeared on the verge of tears. Another lady softly caressed my hair, while a third looped her arm through mine, pressing her whole body against mine, as if trying to fuse with my skin.
Cassian had been very busy before the palace. For fuck's sake.
I found myself in the midst of an overwhelming sea of women aged eighteen to thirty from the entire village. They all looked at me like I was a war hero. At least two of them touched me in ways that suggested Cassian and them were definitely not just gal pals. Back home, this many women being into me would have been the dream... but right now, I was just scared, not horny.
"Was it truly terrible? They say the princess is a monster; they say she turns men to —"
"I hear she feeds her prisoners to the wolves!"
"No, no, my cousin works at the mill and he says she makes 'em fight each other for sport, like dogs —"
"Is it true she never removes her veil? My nan says if you look upon 'er you turn to —"
"Okay — hey — everybody — I'm fine, I'm totally —"
The hands continued to appear, and one woman began to sniff my neck. I tried to move away from her.
"THAT IS ENOUGH." Mother's voice pierced through the throng. The women scattered, but not all of them. Mother pushed her way through. "Off! All of you! Have you no shame? Pawin' at him like cats at a fish market — get your hands off my child before I take a broom to every last one of you!"
"We was only —"
"I know what you was only. I've got eyes. Off!"
They backed away. Slowly. Some of them lingered, glancing back, but Mother's broom threatened with the weight of precedent. It seemed nobody wanted to test it. She grabbed my arm and dragged me toward the house, and I stuttered after her.
"Foolish girl," she whispered, low enough that only I could hear it. The moment we had passed through the door, she smacked the back of my head. "Getting yourself captured. Getting yourself taken to that palace. I told you to keep your mouth shut, did I not? I told you, at the ball, do not speak, do not draw attention, and what did you do?"
"I —"
She hit me again.
"Your father has arranged passage to the western ridge. From there —"
“Mother,” Wesley said from the doorway, his arms crossed as he leaned against the frame. "You may wish to save your breath. Our fox has other plans."
Mother shifted her attention toward me. "What plans?"
"She means to go back," Wesley said.
The following slap was immediate. She didn't hesitate for a moment.
"FOOLISH GIRL," she repeated.
"Ow —"
She turned and hit Wesley.
"Oi! What was that for? I'm not the one going back!"
"For bringing her here full of ideas instead of sense. You are leaving. Both of you. And I will hear no more of it."
I awoke to the scent of smoke in the air.
Before my brain caught up with my body, I was off the straw mattress. The house was dim, the fire smoldering, and outside, there was commotion. The door was already open. Mother and Wesley were in the yard.
The whole village seemed to be awake. People walked in the road, half dressed and pulling on boots, all looking in the same direction: east, toward the castle, where the sky had an unusual glow that wasn't the moon.
Two armored palace guards on horseback were in the square. One of them was yelling incoherently due to the commotion. The other soldier dismounted and grabbed a man by the shoulder.
I made my way through the crowd toward Wesley. He was standing near the well.
"Dude, what happened?"
"Ah, Sister." He turned. "It would seem the world has decided that our three days of peace were excessive and has corrected accordingly."
"Huh?"
"The castle," he exclaimed, opening his hands wide with the palms up. "Has been attacked. In the dead of night, no less. A force came from the northern hills; they breached the eastern wall where the stone has been crumbling since Father's father's time. The guards were overwhelmed. There was fire. There was steel. There was —"
Mother struck his head from behind.
Wesley rubbed his head. "The castle was attacked. Several guards were killed. The princess —." He paused. "The princess is gone. She was taken."
"Taken where?"
"North. Into the hills. By the rebels."
"Rebels? What do you mean REBELS?"
Wesley furrowed his eyebrows at me and exchanged a worried glance with Mother.
"What are we talking about here? Like an army? Like a militia? Are we talking terrorists? Is there a WAR? Is there a whole war happening that nobody —" I rambled on.
"Fox." Wesley placed his hand on my shoulder. "The northern provinces have been restless since before we were born. Every child in Tolamn knows this."
"Well, I didn't! Nobody mentioned it! Not once! I've been in that castle for weeks and nobody said hey by the way there are people in the hills who might come murder everyone!"
The noise of the village pressed in on us. Shouts, horses and soldiers barking orders filled the air. The eastern horizon was ablaze with light.
Cricket.
Cricket with her upside-down books and her terrible paintings, and the dead frogs. Cricket, who lied at the fountain for me. Who stole apples from the kitchen, and who has Lyra's face and Lyra's eyes? Cricket, whom I hated and stopped hating in the space of a few weeks.
I was standing here feeling... afraid. Actually afraid. I didn't know what was real anymore. I'd been telling myself this was a dream for so long that the word had lost its meaning.
"Wes." I grabbed his arm. "I need to talk to you."
"Fox—"
"Now," I stole a glance at Mother. "Alone. Please."
He looked at my face. Whatever he saw there made him stop the jokes.
"Lead on, fox."
I pulled him into the house. I checked behind the door and the window. I leaned out and made sure that Mother was still in the yard and that nobody was nearby enough to hear.
"Okay so I need you to shut up and listen because I'm about to sound insane and I need you to just... not talk. For once in your life, just listen."
"Silence is a blade I have never learned to wield."
"Wes. I'm serious."
"As am I. I am physically incapable of —"
"I'M NOT FROM HERE. I DON'T BELONG HERE DUDE!"
"...got used to lavish living at the palace?"
"No. I don't mean I don't belong in the village. I don't belong HERE. Not Tolamn. Not this... world." I was pacing. The room was barely large enough to pace in, but I was doing it anyway, back and forth, four steps each way. "I went to sleep in my apartment in my bed with a book on my chest and I woke up in a barn. I'm not Cassian. This is NOT my body! Sometimes she possesses me and it's really creepy! My name is Cas. Cassandra. I was born in Illinois to a woman who liked meth more than she liked me. I grew up in foster homes and I eat McDonald's three times a week and there are NO FUCKING REBELS. You can kiss girls and there's AC and cars, not fucking mules. And yeah, there's probably war and stuff but not where I live—"
Wesley's brow curled slightly.
"My my," he said. "The birth in Ill-I-noise is a fine touch. Is that meant to be a province? Your pacing needs work, if I may say. You began strong: the mysterious land, the sleeping, the waking in a barn, very compelling. But you rushed through the middle. A bard must make the listener feel the cold floor beneath the orphan's feet. I did feel for this Cassandra already. Though the name could use work. It lacks music. And you eat — forgive me... The Donald's? What is that? Is that a creature?"
"McDonald's. It's a fast food restaurant. You go there and they give you food."
"A man named McDonald feeds you?" He tilted his head in puzzlement. "Is he a cook? A benefactor?"
"There's no actual McDonald. I don't think. It's like a... it's a building. With food in it. You pay for the food. Can we focus? I had a life, Wes, I had a whole life before this. I am not Cassian."
I halted, then gulped.
"I have a best friend who looks exactly like the princess. I went to sleep angry at her because we had a fight and I woke up here. I don't know how to get back home. I thought it was a dream but it feels so real, Wes. And if it is real, then that means Cricket was kidnapped by fucking rebels and I don't —" I was out of breath.
"Best friend? I believed I held that title. I have fed you, sheltered you, lied to a princess for you, wept at my own reflection for three days to rescue you, and you tell me some woman in Ill-I-noise holds the position I assumed was mine." He was quiet for a moment, stroking his chin, "This friend. The one who wears the princess's face. Or rather... the princess who wears hers. Why were you fighting?"
"That's... complicated."
"The best quarrels are."
"Wes, I need you to focus. The princess was taken. This is real. That's what matters right now. You believe me, right?"
"I believe you care for this woman in a way that goes beyond what I have seen from you before, and I believe that whatever truth lives inside your strange story, it has brought you to this moment, standing in our father's house." He pushed off the wall. "Tell me plainly. This body... you say it is not yours. The moments when you speak and the words are not your own. That is... what?"
"I don't know. It just happens. She-- Cassian... takes over sometimes. Says things I didn't choose."
"And you are saying my sister is..."
"I don't know if she's still in here or if she's somewhere else or if she is... I don't know. But right now, none of that matters because Cricket is gone and we need to find her."
Wesley locked eyes with me for several moments while rubbing his chin.
"I do not believe you, fox. Not a word. But I believe you believe it. Whether your tale is true or the finest fiction I have ever heard, it matters not in this moment." He stood up straight. "What would you have us do?"
"We can't go back to the castle, obviously," I mused, glancing around the room. "So maybe we could go to the hills? Follow the soldiers? Track them somehow?"
"Track 30 armed men through the northern hills? The two of us? With a lute and your fists?"
"Okay, maybe not that. What if we... we find other people? Like, raise an army? Go door to door, village to village, hey do you guys want to rescue a princess —"
"A recruitment tour, with no coin, no banner, and no authority?"
"What if we sneak in? Wherever they took her? Just us, in and out, grab her, run —"
"We do not know where they took her."
"We set a trap? Lure them out somehow —"
"With what bait? Your personality?"
"What if we — okay what if we just — I don't know — what if we get a really big rock and —"
“Or,” Wesley proposed, "we could go to the Guild."
I stopped. "The what?"
"The Guild. It is where men of certain ambition go when they seek work that involves danger, discretion, and a high likelihood of death." He plucked a piece of hay from his boot. "If the princess has been taken, there will be others seeking her. Knights, mercenaries, fools with swords and more courage than sense. The Guild will know who is mounting a rescue. What forces are gathering. What paths the rebels may have taken." His gaze met mine. "It is the place where desperate people go to find other desperate people."
"Why didn't you lead with that?!"
"Because watching you suggest a large rock was far more entertaining."
"Let's go now! Where is it?"
"A day's ride east." He moved toward the door. "We leave at first light. We will tell Mother we are leaving west."
"Wes."
He stopped.
"Thanks."
He pivoted, and for a brief instant, his mask slipped, and his perpetual grin disappeared.
"You are my fox," he said. "Where you go, I follow. Even into madness." He smiled, a smaller version of his usual grin. "All great stories begin there," he said as he opened the door and stepped into the night's haze.