Placeholder Family Man Pt III

[Caspian]

15 Spring 523

The dripping of dark blood onto the floorboards and Caspian’s shallow breaths are the only sounds in the room.

Hanging from his stepfather’s dining room ceiling is a rope, at the end of which is a hook, said hook latched into the left shoulder blade of a dead man, the rest of the body left to sag.

As grim as it sounds, he sincerely hopes the man is dead; any other physical condition would be a terrible one indeed.

The face is bruised and crusted with dried blood and split in some places, all dark red and purple, like a fruit crushed under a wagon wheel.

What had the man done to deserve his stepfather’s ire?

“Hollered the wrong way at yer ma,” gruffs out Skubbs, one of his stepfather’s lackeys, who had just entered the room.

“She’s not my ‘ma’,” Caspian retorts immediately.

“She’s yer pa’s woman, ain’t she?” Skubbs says.

“My stepfather has women all across town, I expect, so by that logic I must have twelve mothers. Or more.” Caspian thinks of his new baby sister swaddled in the crib upstairs, in what was once his own bedroom.

Skubbs chuckles. “Well, don’t let yer ma hear that.”

Scowling, Caspian crosses his arms. The metallic tang of blood pervading the room is unpleasant enough, and the addition of the opinion from someone as lazy and illiterate as Skubbs makes the present situation fairly intolerable. As such, Caspian makes to pivot sharply and exit the room – but a hand lands on his shoulder.

Even through his shirt, he can feel the heavy callouses across his stepfather’s palm.

Even without looking, he can sense his stepfather’s permanent glower, the predator’s focused and imposing stare.

“Did you call me here just to get rid of the body?” Caspian says.

“You really think you could lift it?” Taaldros replies, snorting.

Skubbs laughs openly, revealing somewhat less than half the teeth an adult ought to have.

Caspian schools his face into one of neutrality. Always with the petching comments about his size, even now, when he’s practically thirty years old. Sure, Taaldros isn’t wrong – the man hanging from the ceiling has – had? – a much heavier build than him, and at least half a head in height. But it would have been nice, he thinks, if for once they could start off their day without any reason for animosity.

Perhaps from the chatter – or simply the excruciating pain he must be in – the man hanging from the ceiling grimaces, letting out a groan. Eyes fluttering open, they lock right on Caspian.

Unprepared, the neutrality cracks, and now it’s Taaldros’ turn to laugh at him.

“You can finish the job if you want,” Taaldros says. Ribbing him yet again, this time for the penchant he’d had when he was younger, his – natural and justifiable – aversion to torture and excessive violence.

But he’s older now, and out of a practiced numbness, and simply not wanting to be involved, he turns the other cheek. “I’d rather just get to whatever it is you actually need me for.”

“Suit yourself.”

He follows his stepfather out of the dining room and into the parlor, where a map is spread out on a collection of crates serving as a makeshift table.

Word count: 541

[Caspian]

Also waiting in the parlor for him, along with the map, is Zhassel.

To his surprise, she, for once, isn’t gnawing on something. The compulsion had died down the older she became, which was a welcome development for his recent return to the city. So many of his conversations with her as he was growing up had involved her with a greasy chicken leg in hand, or the shredding of a stick of dried beef. But today she is meat-less, slobber-less, and staring with boredom out the window.

How the woman could ever be considered his mother by Stubbs, or anyone, frankly, is beyond him. She may have been in proximity to him for so many years of his rearing, but simply being around does not a mother make.

“What’s she doing here?” he asks anyway, out of habitual animosity.

Taaldros doesn’t react. The man has seen plenty of this attitude from Caspian before. Though Caspian has always privately felt that perhaps his stepfather really should get angry - out of respect for Zhassel, who’s been his partner for so many years. Does Zhassel even notice her lack of a defender? Has it ever bothered her how apathetic Taaldros can be?

“Something caught her eye when she was down by Baroque Bay,” Taaldros continues evenly. “We’d like you to go and fetch it.”

Caspian glances at Zhassel. The expression on her face hasn’t changed, her interest more captured by the fly buzzing against the panes.


“What, is her schedule already full for the afternoon?” Caspian replies.

Still nothing from Zhassel. The fly has taken to the air, hovering around her head and buzzing loudly.

“As a matter of fact it is.” Taaldros has begun to glower now, and this makes Caspian dial his snottiness a notch back. It’s not to do with his insulting Zhassel, that much he knows; at this point any resistance from him is making Taaldros’ life more inconvenient. And naturally, that cannot stand.

Looking away from Taaldros, whose anger emanates permanently just beneath the surface, he concentrates on the fly instead. “What’s down by Baroque Bay, then?”

“Set of combs.”

“A set of combs,” Caspian repeats. There’s at least three hairbrushes scattered around the house. They may not be in the best condition, missing some of their teeth, but they get the job done. ‘

“They’re magic.”

This is enough to give Caspian pause. “…in what way?”

“Whoever uses them will make their hair impervious to fire. If we use them on Zhassel when she’s in her Hound form, she could walk through – well.”

The fly dives through the air, weaving between Caspian and Taaldros, the whine of its wings rising and fading as it goes. Eventually it makes its way to Zhassel again. Unsurprising; he’s seen her, in her Hound form, snack on carrion, and though it may pass through her system he imagines it sticking there anyway. It lands on the back of her palm, dancing between her knuckles.

“Are you in?” Taaldros asks.

The objects themselves are interesting enough. And to begin with, his entering the house in the first place meant he was as good as locked in.

He nods at the map. “What do I need to know?”

Taaldros answers – and Caspian misses the first part, attention diverted instead to Zhassel opening her jaws wide and snapping up the fly.

Word count: 559

[Caspian]

Maps have always been a bit tough for Caspian to decipher at first glance. The handwriting usually isn’t too legible, and the rough scratchings depicting doors, windows, and walls often aren’t easily distinguishable. Then there’s the map’s legend, and the symbols the author cobbled together to denote the finer details of the situation. The lack of consistency is the main issue here, he maintains, and not some supposed defect in his comprehension skills. At the very least, it isn’t helping.

For this reason – along with knowing any of his snarky reflexes aren’t going to help anyone – he stays quiet as he watches Taaldros explain the layout of the storage unit he’s meant to break into this week.

“Tonight,” Taaldros corrects.

Wisely, Caspian holds in his sigh. But his stepfather had already seen the faintest twitch of his expression turning to disappointment, and the two of them lapse into an uncomfortable silence. When Caspian was younger, this would have been enough cause for his stepfather to send his hand swinging, and Caspian down to the floor. But the blow doesn’t come, and his stepfather turns back to explaining the map.

Caspian feels like he’s been hit anyway, and he glances briefly at Zhassel, who’s picking the wings out of her teeth. Normally when Caspian earns his stepfather’s ire she takes it as an opportunity to openly sneer, but at this moment she finds him less interesting than whatever’s out the window.

When all the information is relayed, Taaldros rolls up the map, hands it to him, and leaves to handle whatever business he has that he’s determined Caspian still isn’t capable enough to join.

He has never had anything important to say to Zhassel, and the years haven’t changed that. With one more look that she doesn’t bother meeting, he sticks the map in his pocket and makes to leave.

The screams of the man hanging from the ceiling echo through the house as he heads out the door.

--

“Want to come with?” he asks Taalviel, who’s perusing a book at the dinner table.

No response.

“Taalviel?”

Nose practically buried in her book, she makes a noncommittal grunt, with a twirly shooing gesture.

Scowling, he crosses his arms. “Seriously? You’re more interested in – whatever that is, than heisting some magic combs? This is for the family, Taalviel, which you have made expressly clear you care very much for.”

Another grunt.

“What if I mess this up? What if I get this wrong? You love chaperoning me. Well, go on then. Have at it. Go ahead and assume I didn’t pay attention when dad was talking and I’m going to find a way to petch this up. And come with.”

This earns him no attention save for another shoo, this time more brusque.

First, Zhassel, then Taalviel? Is everyone going to ignore him today? And Taaldros, the man hadn’t even struck him for his flicker of insubordination, hadn’t even threatened to.

What the petch is going on?

“Fine, I’ll do it myself,” he snarls, stomping away. The dramatic departure is ruined when his stomach rumbles, and he doubles back to snatch a roll of bread from the table.

Taalviel, still engrossed in her book, doesn’t bat an eye.

Word count: 519

[Caspian]

As Caspian huddles beneath his cloak, perched on the second-floor landing of a flight of stairs bolted to the outside of a building, he wonders why Taaldros hadn’t asked that Taroko be involved.

It’s pretty conspicuous – his stepfather had taken an unnatural and unnerving shine to his ex as of late. Professionally speaking, that is. And he had made a point of insisting that Taroko come along on nearly all of Caspian’s assignments. Trying to bring Taroko into the fold, allegedly. Caspian supposes that makes sense. Pragmatism ranks amongst Taaldros’ positive qualities, though the man can take it to the extreme. And pragmatism tells Taaldros that Taroko is awfully useful, in most ways more than Caspian, his own son. Who’s Caspian kidding, though – it’s not just most ways, it’s all. Where Caspian is flimsy, Taroko is rigid and muscled; where Caspian hesitates out of momentary moral quandary, or simply not processing a solution fast enough, Taroko is already in action. As has already been proven, Caspian can’t even wring a chicken’s neck without pause. He’s less anxious about violence than he used to be, but that divide between them, the one that has his own stepfather favoring a stranger over him, is still there.

And yet – Taroko isn’t here, and Taaldros hadn’t mentioned him at all.

There has to be a reason.

Had Taroko done something to fall out of Taaldros’ favor?

The landing is made of wood, rotting from constant barrage from the ocean gales just steps from where he crouches, and it creaks as he shifts his weight. As his mind turns over the possibilities, he’s got his eyes trained on the ware house where he was told the combs would be.

The combs –

Hmm.

If they’re magic, that makes them particularly valuable. And anything valuable, perhaps, isn’t something to be widely shared.

Could it be that Taaldros simply doesn’t trust Taroko around something with an ability that anyone would covet?

And, following this line of pondering – does this mean he then trusts Caspian?

It’s possible. But the idea fills him with a sense of satisfaction that dissipates as easily as it had come. It’s not saying much about his stepfather’s opinion of him; his stepfather knows well enough that Caspian isn’t likely to cross him. Family is family, after all, even if there isn’t any actual blood between them. And no matter how favor Taroko may engender, at the end of the day he is and remains an outsider. A set of magic combs would fetch a hefty price, the idea enough to tempt said outsider into mutiny.

Frowning at the late night-early morning chill – it must be four bells now, with dawn still some time away – Caspian squints at the warehouse door. Someone had been patrolling it for the duration of the night, and by his internal metronome he judges it takes them approximately three and a half minutes to circle the building. They’re not going particularly quickly – he suspects they must be bored of their mind, for every now and then they pause to stretch, lean against the side of the building. Scratch lazily at his parts.

Caspian could knock the man out, possibly. The warehouse must be locked, and that man might have the key. He doesn’t think he could pick the lock in time, say, once the man turned the corner.

There’s also a small window on the side of the building that’s facing him. From here, it’s hard to say exactly how high it is. Could he reach it without standing on something? Break the glass and pull himself through?

It could be done, maybe. He eases himself as quietly as he can down the broken wooden stairs and creeps down the cobbles closer to the building, his cloak swishing around his knees.

Word count: 631

[Caspian]

The closer he draws to the long guard, the faster Caspian’s heart beats. Adrenaline is a double-edged sword. It’s a helpful numbness, at times, a much-needed quickness; and other times it’s a clouding of the mind, a rising instigator of fear. Sometimes it’s fatal – he can recall, as can his scarred left knee, how adrenaline-induced dampness on his palms had once caused him to slip off a ledge he’d been trying to heave himself over at the age of fourteen. But he’s definitively twice as old now, which isn’t enough to dispel the shakiness of adrenaline entirely, but does at least provide him some perspective. This isn’t his first robbery, and he’s skulked around in dark places where he isn’t supposed to be plenty of times. And – as evidenced by his still being pretty much entirely intact and very alive – he can remind himself that he’s gained enough experience to believe that things will work themselves out. Perhaps that mindset is him getting dangerously ahead of himself, but in any case it keeps him from panicking, even when his next step accidentally sends a pebble rattling across the stones, in the direction of the guard.

He freezes and crouches behind the most immediate corner of the closest building. Any second now, steps might be heard, of the guard pursuing the source of the sound.

But none of it comes.

For he’s gotten very lucky, and a stray cat has just crossed his path, his fateful scapegoat for the loose pebble.

“Mangy runt,” he hears the guard grumble, the cat hissing angrily in response.

No other sound now, save for the guard ambling on the rest of his circuit around the warehouse.

Caspian allows himself a brief sigh of relief before peeking around the corner. The guard is completely out of sight, on the other side of the warehouse.

Should he wait for one more rotation?

Maybe it’s adrenaline – maybe he simply wants this mission to be over so he can go home and spend a few hours not thinking about his bastard of a stepfather and his family’s demands – but he skulks forward, as swiftly as he can manage without making excessive noise. He’s counting on the building muffling his approach; hoping very much that the guard will attribute any noise to other stray animals or perhaps the usual wandering vagrant.

In the shadow of the building, sliding along it, he suddenly makes up his mind – for he can’t pick the lock to the front door fast enough. That much he can be sure of, for it still takes him a few moments too many even when he’s practicing on old chests with Taalviel at home for fun. What matters now, he knows, is decisiveness.

What he decides is to stand very, very still, his hand clutched around his Obfuscate dagger inside his jacket.

It takes an excruciatingly long time – for the guard isn’t walking very quickly, had probably stopped at some junctures to blow his nose or scratch at his arse. But eventually he does round the corner, and Caspian, cloaked in invisibility through the powers of the Obfuscate dagger, holds his breath.

The guard suspects absolutely nothing. As he passes, just an inch from Caspian’s nose, Caspian pounces. Wrapping one arm around the guard’s arms, pinning them to his sides, he presses the dagger against his throat.

“Don’t scream,” Caspian hisses. “I swear to petch if you scream, I will slit your petching throat.”

Word count: 576

[Caspian]

Quite understandably, the guard’s response is to scream anyway. Cursing, Caspian clamps a hand over the man’s mouth. Unfortunately, that hand had been the one he’d been using to pin the man’s arms, and said arms now being free proceed to windmill and slam right into Caspian’s face.

“Oh petching hell,” Caspian snarls. He’s not trying to stab the man, and he can practically hear Taalviel now, pointing out flatly, stabbing would have been the smarter way to go – but in the mess of scrabbling and kicking, he ends up breaking skin anyway. The man howls as – not so improbably – Caspian stabs him in the gut. Caspian can’t come up with a proper excuse – there aren’t really any parts of the body that are any more forgivable. It had happened all in a split second, his body just – moving of its own accord.

“Look what you’ve done,” Caspian snaps in exasperation, the man now collapsed at his feet, hand pressed against the blood streaming from his abdomen. It pools into the dirt and creates a sickly mud, slips between the cracked cobblestones. Will the next rain be enough to wash out the stains? “Oh my petching hell, can you please just stay quiet?”

But having been gutted before himself, Caspian has to admit that this is a tall order.

So he helps the man, by clamping his hand over his mouth once more, and dragging him up. (Another tall order – Caspian isn’t the largest nor strongest person on the block, and the man has about half a head on him.) Furtively, he glances around. They’ve made a lot of ruckus already, and what he doesn’t need is anyone coming to the guard’s aid, or simply being nosy. But nothing comes, and the night remains dark and still save for the muffled curses of the man and the occasional cricket.

But back to what he’s here for in the first place.

“Come on,” Caspian growls under his breath, dragging the man towards the warehouse door. When the man struggles, he drops the man with a heavy thud, hand still over his mouth, boot on his neck, and tip of his dagger pressed alongside. “I am being entirely serious,” he says as forcefully as he can muster, “about that thing I said, about you being quiet. I don’t want to hurt you, you know? So let’s make this easy on both of us. Let’s let me do my thing, and I’ll let you do yours.”

He knows he isn’t very intimidating, but he hopes that the steel against his jugular speaks for itself.

It appears that it does. For, not wanting to be stabbed again – an entirely reasonable desire – the man eventually calms enough to angrily nod at him.

Sighing, Caspian lets him up, though he’s got a fist in the man’s collar, and the knife still at his throat. Together they march towards the warehouse door.

“I know you’ve got the keys,” Caspian hisses when the man doesn’t do anything right away. Petch, is this tiresome. “Open it up.”

Word count: 508

[Caspian]

With the shaking hand that isn’t the one futilely attempting to stoppering the blood flow, the guard pulls out a rusted ring of keys and inserts it into the lock. There’s a heavy metal click as the lock is shunted to the side by the key’s teeth, and deep groaning from the door as it’s shoved open. Caspian has to help him with that last part, for the door is heavy, and it’s an awkward configuration, trying to remain intimidating and in charge while he’s bracing against the door’s weight. Even without the help of the guard, he would have visibly strained and flailed, and all he can do is hope the main is too preoccupied with how much pain he’s in to notice how pathetic this looks. It’s another set of a dozen awkward seconds once they’re inside and he’s got to strain again to pull the door shut.

The warehouse is pitch black. This should not have come as a surprise to Caspian, who would have registered all the way back at his lookout spot if there was any lamplight flickering within. But still, he isn’t prepared. It’s even darker in here than the streets, without the light of the moon, and though he had visibly taken into account the dimensions of the entire building, now that he’s in it and can’t see a thing, it seems to loom and stretch on before him into eternity.

How the petch is he supposed to find a pair of magic combs in this?

“Get the light,” he barks at the man, trying to shove away his growing trepidation. He assumes there is a source of light in here; he hopes that’s enough to get him results. Belatedly he realizes he’s keeping the man pinned and unable to fulfill his demand, and scowling at himself for his own clumsiness in the situation, he lets go and shoves the man lightly away.

Still clutching his pierced abdomen, the man stumbles to the side. Caspian watches his shadow in the gloom, knife at the ready. There’s the sounds of fumbling, the clinks of metal and glass, all things he knows to associate with a lamp. Hopefully.

“Well?” he barks out impatiently. Sweat beads in his palms.

Then, plaintively through the dark – “I need a sparker.”

Caspian squints through the dark. He can barely make out the man’s form, which is presently paused by the far wall. Is that the unlit lamp waiting in his hand? A chill runs through the warehouse, creeping in through the cracks in the planks, the glass, from up through the floorboards. It whistles, moans, even, sending an eerie feeling up his spine. Cursing, wanting this to be over, he hurries towards the guard’s voice, digging in his pocket for the striker he uses for his tobacco pipe. “Hurry up, you understand? I’ve got other places to go and people to – “

Pain explodes in the back of his skull, and he stumbles to the ground, knife clattering out of his grasp.

Word count: 503

[Caspian]

The guard is not a particularly agile man. There’s a lot of lumbering and huffing attached to each of his movements, and when he tries to land a kick to Caspian’s ribs, Caspian, even through his being stunned, rolls out of the way in time. Getting to his feet, he throws up his arms, blocking the guard’s attempt to knock him upside the head again with the unlit lantern. It hurts; no surprise there, as taking metal to the elbows isn’t exactly one’s idea of a good time. Nevertheless he holds his arms up, lets himself get pummeled one more time before deciding enough is quite enough. At the next swing of the lantern, Caspian’s ready, grabbing for it wildly. It’s not the cleanest movement, and he gets battered again on the chin and shoulder, but he’s got one hand gripping the handle, and the other scrabbling at the glass body. It would be really, really nice if the thing doesn’t shatter. The thought of that, and his aversion to being knocked upside the head again has him acting more desperately, and he kicks at the guard, stomping indiscriminately on his feet and ankles. The guard stumbles, and Caspian presses through his advantage, shoving him to the ground and finally wresting the lantern out of his hands. The guard shouts, punching upwards, causing Caspian to lose the lantern – which, thank the gods again, isn’t accompanied with the sound of broken glass.

But enough’s enough – and Caspian slams his fast downwards, right into the man’s nose. Viciously. Again and again, blood exploding against his knuckles. The guard goes limp, and Caspian, panting heavily, heaves himself onto his feet and stumbles away.

In the faint moonlight streaming through the meager windows, he can see the man’s body, lying still where he’d left him. He makes out the bulky shape of the lantern, lighting it with his striker. A yard away, illuminated now by the flickering flame, he spots his dagger. Just as he picks it up, the guard coughs. It’s a wet, gurgling sound, likely from the blood from his broken nose.

He isn’t moving, though, save for his head weakly turning ever so slightly.

There’s a stab wound right in his gut, and his face has just been pummeled in, and both of those things should be enough to keep him down while Caspian looks for the combs.

But there’s a sliver of possibility that he’ll muster the energy to prove an obstacle to Caspian, yet again.

The idea of needless death has never been attractive to Caspian –

But given the circumstances here, is needless really the right designation?

He blinks – and finds himself standing over the guard, the lantern held aloft in one hand, and his dagger in the other.

The guard squints up at him blearily, the blood streaming from his nose forming a dark mask that coats the bottom half of his face. Lower, across his abdomen, the bloodstains in his shirt grow before Caspian’s eyes.

It’s the dead of night, and the soonest anyone will enter the warehouse is the morning.

It’s unlikely the guard will survive this.

And in addition to engaging in needless murder – Caspian has never been one for torture.

“You wouldn’t happen to know where a couple of combs might – ah, never mind,” Caspian says. “I know you don’t believe me, but I am sorry about this.” Steeling his nerves – willing himself to end all thought which is only unhelpful and invasive at this point – he grips his dagger tight and slashes clean across the man’s throat. There’s another outburst of gurgling, spurts of blood that splatter across Caspian’s nose – and the man goes truly slack, mouth ajar, more blood spilling forth onto the floor.

Striding away, Caspian faces the rest of the warehouse and its rows of shelves and crates.

Those magic combs are here somewhere, and now, unimpeded, he’s going to hunt them down.

Word count: 653

[Caspian]

The surge of momentum that had overtaken him when he’d finally rid himself of the guard – like sallying forth out of one chapter of a swashbuckling novel and into the next – dies on the vine almost immediately. For the warehouse is cold and dark despite the flame he holds aloft, and seems to loom before him like an endless cavern, and –

He squints at the meager windows. Are those the barest traces of pink and gold illuminating the panes, the beginning signs of proper dawn?

Soon it will be fully morning, which drastically increases the chances of someone entering the warehouse and finding the body he’s left behind him.

If only he’d committed to getting rid of the guard sooner, hmm - ? comes a snide little voice in his head. At this point he can’t tell if it’s his sister’s, or his stepfather’s reprimanding him. Or, finally, the culmination of experience and resignation to his way of living – his own.

Fretting won’t do him any good, he knows, and as far as he’s aware no one has ever willed the sun not to rise. He thinks back. What does he know? What had his stepfather told him when he’d first pulled him into this assignment?

The map, the one they’d rolled out – he can see it in his mind if he thinks back very hard. It had been crudely drawn, but straightforward enough. The way he’d come in, that door opens to the east – so right now he’s facing west. That means the left side of the map. And the combs had been –

He’s walking that way even though he hasn’t fully formulated what exactly he’s targeting. But the memories catch up with his strides all the same. His stepfather hadn’t been sure which shelf or crate the combs would be in, which isn’t helpful, but –

There has to be something. A way in, a clue. A crack in the wall that stands between him and the successful end to this mission.

What else had his stepfather said?

The shipment, the one that’s loaded in this warehouse before its items get sold or bartered or otherwise distributed –

It had only come in yesterday afternoon.

And their informant had told them –

It was the only stock that had been loaded into the warehouse for the past three days.

In the lantern light, he spots tracks on the ground. Sand, mud, dark slush, the imprints of boots. Near one of the shelves, a discarded apple core.

Making a quick circuit of the warehouse, he determines this is the only shelf surrounded by said tracks.

At this point, with the sky lightening rapidly around him, he’s going all in on that one shelf. Setting the lantern down, he hurriedly pulls crates from the shelves, tossing aside tarps, prying off lids. Some of the crates are far too heavy for him to drag far, and he has to yank them out by one corner, peering in with the lamplight to discern what he can. A lot of it’s weapons; bags with heady smells that he assumes are spices; at least three of the crates are full of glassware, much of which he indiscriminately shatters. He hopes very desperately that he doesn’t have to search the uppermost shelf, because that would mean hauling himself up and prowling across the top like an alley cat. And he doesn’t think he has the time. But thank the Gods, finally – there’s a small crate amongst the ones on the bottom shelf, and something about its size – something he could tuck under his arm – speaks to his intuition. Or, at least, his manically rising hope.

Prying the lid off with his fingers, tossing aside the hay that had been piled on in a shoddy attempt at protecting its contents – inside he finds a small velvet box on hinges.

Something shifts inside that velvet box, and already the sound and weight suggest –

Yes, it’s exactly what he’s looking for.

It’s impossible to tell what color they are in the absence of proper daylight, but from what he can tell with the lantern, they’re sort of umber, but in a gradient that turns brighter at the tips.

Unwilling to linger any longer, he shoves the velvet box into his pocket – finds it’s too bulky and made with too much friction to slip in smoothly, so he ditches the box and tucks just the combs away.

He keeps his distance between him and the still body of the guard, and beneath the yellowing light slips out onto the streets, headed for his stepfather’s home.

Word count: 763