The spot beside him on the pallet was empty but still warm, and Torsten’s absence was barely felt before he came coasting back into the tent, bringing a rush of cold air with him, as well as a mug of tea. He handed it to Felix and went about sitting at his feet. Felix shifted, sitting up and balancing the tea as Torsten lifted the warm blankets off his legs and pulled his ankle onto his lap.
“How does it feel?” Torsten asked.
Felix just glared at him over the steam of the tea.
“Give it a roll,” Torsten demanded impatiently. “Tell me how it feels.”
Hesitantly, Felix flexed his ankle and rolled the joint. “It’s a bit stiff,” he answered honestly, but when Torsten still looked at him as though he was due more answers, he sighed and continued. “It doesn’t really hurt anymore though. It’s much better.”
The bandit king’s face took on a pleased expression. He left on Felix’s wrappings and tucked his legs back under the warmth of the blankets. Then he moved up the pallet and held out his hands expectantly. Felix grimaced, but put his hands in Torsten’s. He looked away while his bandages were gingerly unraveled.
“Your hands are better, too,” Torsten assessed, forgoing a fresh bandage.
Felix stretched his fingers when he was released and looked down at the healing scrapes. They had been bloody and scratched from the tree, but now there were only a few pink lines cutting across his palms.
“Finish your tea and meet me by Dot,” Torsten ordered, and he was gone in the next breath, disappearing through the flaps.
It was only once he’d left that Felix realized Torsten had not been wearing his usual black pelt. He couldn’t, because it was still secured over Felix’s shoulders. He’d slept in it, nuzzled his face into it all night. It was no wonder he’d woken up with his mind askew. And Torsten, with his usual attire denied him, had donned the fur given Felix upon his arrival, the one that had been hanging on the clothesline to dry the day before.
The casual switch in clothing, with no obvious intent to switch back, made him uneasy, though he couldn’t quite place why. He was dressed entirely in Torsten’s clothes already, besides his shoes, but something about wearing the black pelt felt different, more personal. It felt particularly heavy on Felix’s shoulders when he finally finished his tea and hauled himself off the pallet.
He stepped carefully on his ankle, but was quick to discover he could put weight on it without pain. He even managed to reach the cook fire without falling down or crying out in agony, and that was a blessing, because Torsten watched the entirety of his journey.
Dot greeted him by thrusting a bowl of porridge into his hands. Felix sat down to eat and tried to ignore Torsten’s eyes on him, the eyes ringed in black charcoal, matching the black bandana tied around his throat. It could only mean one thing.
“There will be a raid today?” he asked.
Torsten nodded. Apparently, he had already eaten, probably so he wouldn’t have any distractions while he stared holes into Felix’s head.
“You said there was coin to be taken, didn’t you?” Felix asked, remembering the short discussion yesterday before he’d exploded into his fit. “So the Guardians’ Guild is corrupt for accepting pay, but your fruit bandits are, what? Heroes? Because you steal coin instead of working for it honestly?”
“How does your ankle feel now that you’ve walked on it?” asked Torsten with a dastardly smile.
Felix was really beginning to be annoyed with how often his questions were dismissed. He shoveled a heap of porridge into his mouth and took his time swallowing, not overly eager to answer any of Torsten’s questions when his own often went ignored. When he was finished, he slammed his spoon defiantly into the bowl. “It feels great. I might be up for dancing, after all, to celebrate you being gone for the day.”
Torsten’s smile evolved into a smirk, and that wasn’t a good sign. Apprehension coiled in Felix’s stomach, right before Torsten announced, “You’re coming with us.” He was all nonchalance, perfectly casual.
Meanwhile, Felix’s heart was puttering to a slow death in his chest. “Coming with you?” he repeated carefully.
“That’s right. You’ll join us on the raid today, Flautist,” Torsten clarified, and Felix felt an aberrant urge to slap the smugness off his smug bandit face, a far cry from his usual temperament. But then he remembered it wasn’t clever to slap bandits, especially the King of Bandits, and so he concentrated on squeezing his bowl really hard.
“I’m not going to help you raid,” he said. “You can punish me for being useless, but I’m not going to help you steal from innocent people.”
Dot turned around to shoot him a surprised glance, and a few other dining bandits looked amused by his refusal, but Felix ignored their stares. He stood up, passing his breakfast bowl to the cook, and made to stomp away, but a hand grasped his wrist and spun him back around.
“I don’t need you to help,” Torsten said, holding Felix’s wrist firmly, but not tight enough to hurt. “I need you to see.”
“See what?”
“What kind of bandits we are.”
Felix entertained the idea of refusing more ardently, until he considered the possible outcomes of absolute rejection. There was always the chance that Torsten was a liar, that they killed people all the time, including Merric, and that Felix would also be killed once he’d proven his insolence one too many times. He reminded himself that the only reason he was still alive was because the bandits were entertained by his flute playing and general presence. He decided not to further test the patience that could—and probably would—end at any time.
So when the time came for Torsten and a select few to mount their horses and ride from camp, Felix was with them. He even had his own horse, though it was tethered to Torsten’s and the man watched him religiously as they embarked upon their journey.
With them was Selon, another woman with lots of freckles named Marilyn, and Jossy. All of the bandits, Torsten included, wore their bandanas over their mouths and noses, and their eyes were smudged in thick black rings. Felix wore no such decoration, even if he briefly thought the bandana might be nice for keeping the chill of winter from numbing his nose. He burrowed into the fur pelt instead, trying not to breathe in the familiar musk embedded in the fur.
Strapped over the backs of the bandits were bows and quivers. The sight of them made Felix increasingly anxious. All he had with him was his satchel with the flutes inside, the old and the new. He supposed he could use one as a weapon, if he needed, whether by beating someone over the head with it or trying to lull an enemy to sleep, preposterous as the idea was.
As they rode, Felix further pondered the possibility of his flute being a magical instrument that made magical things happen, and then he pondered, more thoroughly, whether his lack of instant dismissal of the idea was a sign he’d gone mad. Maybe, when he’d been taken by the bandits, he’d received a vicious knock to the head and was experiencing the consequences in the way of vivid hallucinations concerning flutes.
He hoped that, were anyone to stumble across them in the woods, no one would think Felix was with the others. He hoped he looked like a captive and not another bandit who had forgotten his bandana and eye makeup at home. Just in case, he wore his discontent on his face like a uniform, even when Torsten furrowed his eyebrows at him in disapproval.
They rode their horses at a sensible clop for the better part of an hour before stopping. Felix had tried his hardest to take note of their path and pay special attention to landmarks, but when all the landmarks were identical trees and snowy patches of ground, he’d given up. He was pretty sure they had traveled north, so that was something he could keep and use later.
There was no road in sight yet, and he glanced around the quiet woods before slipping from his saddle. They formed a circle, of which Felix was an unwilling part, and an awful thought crossed his mind.
“Have you taken me out here to kill me?” he asked, an embarrassing tremor in his throat making his voice so
und small. He could remember a time, not too long ago, when his heart hadn’t suffered nearly as many harrowing thumps and skipped beats. He was trying to decide whether he missed that time or was bored by it when the bandits began laughing. At him. Again.
It was disturbing, being the subject of laughter for evil bandits, but it was even more disturbing for said bandits to ignore his question utterly and, having secured the horses, start creeping through the underbrush. It took Torsten’s guiding hand on his lower back to get him moving along with them, and Felix clutched his satchel firmly, ready to reach for his flute at a moment’s notice.
“Are you going to explain anything or is this just an exercise in terror and suspense?” he asked, his words hushed in the snowy white forest. “Why are we leaving the horses?”
“We can’t have them right by the road,” Torsten said. “They would be seen and give us away.”
“Oh,” said Felix. He recalled being jostled over Jossy’s shoulder. They’d needed to run a bit to reach the horses then, too. He wondered if there would be more running today and his ankle throbbed sympathetically. “And when we finally reach the road,” he ventured, “I’m guessing you cut down a tree.”
Torsten cocked an eyebrow. “Not today. Marilyn?”
The freckly bandit puffed up when it was her turn to talk. She was quite small, shorter than Felix, with a bob of blond hair and a scar across the bridge of her nose. “Today we’re using this.” She pulled a contraption from a large bag, which looked to Felix like a rope with menacing thorns growing out of it.
“What does that do?” he asked, his curiosity rivaling his concern.
“I roll it out over the road, we cover it up, and when the wagon goes by, it pops the wheel right off.” She looked proud.
“And then you … raid,” he concluded, both impressed and disturbed.
“And then we raid,” Selon answered, her grin wicked.
“By shooting innocent guards with arrows and stealing all their supplies,” Felix finished.
“They’re not all as innocent as you think. And we don’t shoot if we can help it,” Torsten said, puffing out his chest righteously, as if he had any moral ground to stand on.
“That’s funny,” Felix quipped, “because when you raided my carriage, you shot one of my guards before you’d even made your presence known. What was the point of that?”
“That was a distraction, little flautist,” Jossy laughed, and Felix wanted to give him another nosebleed. “Once we saw there might be a princeling in the carriage, we decided we were going in for you and had to get the guards looking in the other direction.”
“How clever,” Felix spat. “Well done catching yourself a flautist and shooting three innocent men.”
“Oh, don’t be such a curmudgeon,” Jossy said, and then, outrageously, he ruffled a hand through the curls on Felix’s head.
Raw instinct had Felix slipping out from under that uninvited hand and pushing up close to Torsten, putting his back against his chest. But when the bandit king looked down at him in alarm, he darted away with a horrified squeak and quickened his pace to walk beside Selon instead.
“Don’t ever touch me!” he snapped at Jossy over his shoulder, his hands flying up to smooth at his curls, trying to brush off the unwanted touch.
Jossy just shrugged, but as Felix was turning his head away, he caught a glimpse of Torsten’s hand shooting out to grip Jossy’s elbow, hauling him close to whisper something in his ear. Felix didn’t care what was being said, he only cared that the bandits kept their hands to themselves.
Much too soon, they arrived at the road, which Felix recognized as the road he’d traveled with Merric, Scorch, Vivid, and Audrey on their quest to save the queen. It was the main road that connected the Royal Quarter to western Viridor. If Felix took that road far enough, he’d wind up back home in his little village. He wondered how far along it he’d be able to run before he felt an arrow in his back.
Torsten stood at his side while Marilyn and Selon worked together to pull the rope of spikes across the road, Jossy coming behind them to kick snow and dirt over the top. With the trap set, the group slinked further down the roadside a few hundred feet.
“How do you know the next wagon coming will be the one you’re after?” Felix asked Torsten as they all hid themselves within the covering of trees. They would be able to see the wagon when it hit the spikes, and by the time the wheel came off, it would be stopping close to their position.
“Because it always comes at the same time, on the same day,” he explained.
“You look very sure of yourself.”
“Because I’m sure.” Torsten still had his bandana pulled over his face, and his eyes popped from the dark charcoal lining, making his irises unfairly hazel, the dashes of icy blue prominent in the dappled sunlight.
Felix tried to imagine his own appearance, and it brought a frown to his face. His cheeks were probably chapped, his nose pink from the cold, his curls an assaulted mess, and his eyes big and misty from the constant undercurrent of fear that had been coursing through him since the moment Jossy snatched him from the carriage window.
He shivered. “What happens now?”
“We wait,” answered Torsten quietly. “And you will stay hidden and watch.”
Felix eyed him suspiciously. “You’re not afraid I’ll scream? Or run out into the road and warn them?”
Torsten shrugged, unworried. “If you do, they’ll pull their swords, and violence will need doing. Is that what you want, Flautist?”
Felix looked away and wrapped the pelt tightly around his shoulders, hating Torsten. “You know it’s not.”
The bandits let him sulk, their attention now focused wholly on the road. The tree line was dense enough that they would be masked from the wagon until it was too late. Felix wandered a few steps from them, aware he was being watched closely. He was sure his ankle wouldn’t allow him to run far, but he was still tempted. Merric would have run for it—or limped, maybe. Scorch and Vivid would have escaped days ago. And Audrey probably would have gotten along with the bandits fine and joined up with them for fun. But Felix? Felix was on a raid with them, with no rescue in sight. With a burst of hopelessness, he plopped down beside a skeletal, snow-covered bush.
It was fifteen minutes or so until the echo of horse hooves sounded, and he shifted forward on his knees to better peer out at the road. There was a wagon, a big one with a canvas cover, with two horses leading it. Two royal guards were seated in front with the driver, and one was in the back, hanging from the side of the wagon.
The bandits readied themselves. Marilyn and Jossy’s bows were drawn while Torsten and Selon knelt low in the shadows, watching. Felix felt a rush of adrenaline as the wagon came closer and closer to the spikes. He held his breath, waiting.
The wagon came closer, and then the horses stepped over the rope and the wagon wheels rolled directly between the spikes, escaping harm or hindrance. Felix watched as the wagon carried on, free from damage. To his side, he heard rushed rustling and saw that Torsten and Selon had nocked their arrows. Felix hurried quickly to Torsten’s side and whispered harshly, “What are you doing?”
But Torsten paid him no attention, his eyes following the wagon as it drew near.
“Torsten, what are you going to do?” he tried again, but Torsten didn’t answer, and Felix supposed he didn’t need to. It was obvious what their backup plan was. Jossy had said it himself. They would shoot at the guards for a distraction.
And Felix couldn’t let that happen.
He reached into his satchel and grabbed his flute, and then, after a final, severe glance at Torsten and the others, he ran into the road, just ahead of the wagon.
He had no idea what he’d intended to happen, and hadn’t thought more than two seconds about doing it, but once he was standing in the middle of the road, with the horses neighing and the wagon coming to an abrupt stop to avoid running over him, he realized that a flautist suddenly appearing from the woods might co
me across to some as terribly suspicious. The guards glared down at him, their hands already teasing the pommels of their swords.
“Get out of the road!” one of the guards seated in the front yelled.
“What’s going on?” yelled the guard from the back. The driver’s hands were tense on the reins, his eyes darting nervously to the tree line.
With no reasonable explanation available, Felix pursed his lips and blew the opening notes of a song into the mouth hole of his flute. The silver was cold on his lips, but he was hot from the exertion of his mindlessness. He bowed to the men on the wagon, letting his hair fall playfully over his eyes—something he knew previous patrons had enjoyed—and broke into a brawling song, riding a hunch that the guards would be fans of the melody. His hunch proved correct, and even as the guards continued to glare at the flautist in their path, they began tapping their feet. Once Felix reached the first chorus, the driver stopped glancing at the trees.
“He’s good,” one of them murmured.
“He’s a peasant,” called the guard from the back, jumping down from the wagon and stalking his way to Felix, his fingers flexing over his sword’s grip. “Look at the state of him. Look at his clothes. He’s up to no good. He just wants our coin.”
Just stop and listen to me play, Felix begged inwardly, focusing all his energy into the pleasing liveliness of his music. The guard approaching stopped abruptly, blinked a few times, then cocked his head.
“I love this song,” he sighed, dropping his hands to his sides.
Felix winked at him, his fingers continuing to fly over the keys. He kept his eyes fixed on his audience, even as, in his periphery, he saw figures creeping from the woods. Look at me, look at me, he prayed.
“He’s miraculous.”
“Lovely.”
The guards and driver wore dazed expressions as they listened to Felix’s song, not paying a single glance to the back of the wagon, where Torsten and Jossy were now pulling back the canvas to look inside. Felix kept his performance steadily flirtatious, a difficult feat when Selon and Marilyn were pointing arrows at the guards’ backs. They, at least, didn’t look dazed, but they weren’t entirely unaffected by Felix’s playing either. They shot him confused glances even as Torsten and Jossy disappeared from sight inside the wagon. Felix ignored them and continued to push all his wishes into the strength of the tune. Watch me, watch only me. Let me be your distraction.
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