Nori always had to fight the urge to pull on the springy coils of hair that framed Hyssop's face. The rest of her hair was only mildly curly, but those two strands made perfect spirals that took everything in Nori's power to not tug. It took so much effort that she forgot to listen.

"Sorry, what?"

Hyssop covered one of her curls as if she could read Nori's mind. "I said do you want to walk to the keep together? Junie's sick so she's staying here."

"Oh no! Is she okay?"

"She'll be alright." Hyssop twisted her mouth in a betrayal of her words.

"She's been sick a lot lately."

"Yeah, I think it's stress. That kitchen is…not fun." Hyssop clicked her tongue repeatedly while looking around the lounge. "Anyway, you normally leave around now, right? I thought we could go together."

"Um, well actually, I haven't been in a while." Nori scratched the back of her neck. She didn't want to say it was due to Flambé's failing health, even if everyone that worked at the keep knew. "But yeah, I'll go. I'm sure he'd be happy to have me pop in for a minute. Worst case, I get some steps in."

"Well come on, girlie." Hyssop pulled Nori up from the couch and wrapped her arm around Nori's.

As they made their way up through the great hall and out into the street, Nori felt like she was Juniper. She could feel her outline hovering around Hyssop and slotted right in, receiving the friendly affection that had usually been reserved to Juniper. Hyssop's hands were all over Nori as she spoke, fixing her hair, tugging her jacket, rubbing her back.

"So what's the latest on Archie and Blanche? Are they over over?"

"Apparently so. He's over it, and she's mad about it."

"And so where does that leave you? When are you going to make your move?"

"What? Make my move?" A flush of warmth crept up Nori's neck.

Hyssop chuckled as she leaned hard against Nori. "Oh, please. I see you two."

Nori tried to shake her way out of it, but Hyssop's grip of friendship was unbreakable. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Okay, okay, hint taken." Hyssop pushed Nori away and pulled her back in immediately. "You don't have to be honest with me. As long as you're being honest with yourself."

Nori shook her head and kept her mouth shut. Anything she said would be used against her. They passed through the main gate of the keep and reached their critical juncture.

"Alright, this is me," Hyssop said as she finally let go. She sighed as she looked at Waldorf's quarters. "Hey, if you hear anything about a sponsor with an open spot, let me know, yeah?"

Nori nodded and made her way to Flambe's section of the keep. A familiar guard escorted her the rest of the way. She had come so many times that no one questioned her appearance, even when uninvited. But that still did not stop Hollyhock from being surprised when they ran into each other in the hallway.

"Nori! I wasn't expecting you. Did Flambé send someone for you?"

"No, I just thought I'd stop by. Is now an okay time?"

"Perfect, actually. He finished his morning meetings and has been reading at the table."

"So he's doing better?"

Hollyhock winced and shrugged. "In a manner of speaking. More energetic. Less pained. But erratic. Moody."

"I usually help with that, right?"

"You do. Here come on, let me take you the rest of the way." They walked down the hallway, and Hollyhock knocked hard on the door before entering. "Flambé! Look who's here to visit!"

Nori recoiled at the sight of the grand king. He had thinned out to half the person he was a month ago and aged to twice the years. His eyes seemed loose the way they moved slower than his head but then kept moving and wobbling around as they tried to focus on her.

But he smiled. "What are you doing here?"

Nori covered her mouth and coughed long enough to find the spirit to mirror his smile. "I just wanted to pop in and see how you're doing."

"Oh, I'm good, I'm good. How was the boat?"

"The…boat?"

Hollyhock stepped in. "Flambé, this is Nori Harper. She walked over from the Academy."

"Oh, of course, of course! Sorry, Nori, my eyes aren't so great these days. Come in, come in."

Hollyhock tilted her head at Nori. "Call me if you need help."

"I'll be fine." Nori smiled, and Hollyhock left them alone. Nori patted Flambé's shoulder as she passed him and took the seat next to his. "What are you reading?"

Flambé held the cover up for her inspection.

Flambé Puttick - A Childhood Spent as a Political Prisoner.

"A rather dramatized retelling from an old friend," he added. "Even if it tells no lies. I've been reminiscing a lot lately. I recently came to the conclusion that I might not live forever." He offered a feeble smile.

Nori slipped back into their old dynamic. "I thought you weren't going to live through that dinner."

"I considered it, but I ultimately decided I didn't want to ruin the boy's birthday."

Nori giggled. "Did they find the assassin?"

"No. Wally doubled his security. He's sure it's for him."

The question echoed in Nori's head.

Why don't you kill him?

But she kept her mouth shut long enough that he decided to fill the silence. "Tell me about your Winter's Blossom."

"It was good." Nori sat back and put the events in order. "Head Chef Pomona made hot cocoa for everyone. And then we ended up having a sort of impromptu class with her where she showed us how to make it her way. And then Archie and I went down to The Gift to see the blossom. Rowan tried to teach us how to make gingerbread golems."

Flambé smiled. "Golems are a tough magic for your level."

"Yeah, we didn't achieve much," Nori laughed. "I could get the legs to wiggle, but only if I was touching it. Archie was pretty good, actually. He could do it from a few feet away. Not make them stand or anything like that, just the wiggling. But that was enough to make Chandler laugh. Of course, then she ate them all."

Flambé looked up, trying to place the name somewhere along the ceiling. "Chandler…"

Nori sucked in her bottom lip. Even amongst friends, she was meant to keep her mentions of the girl at a minimum. "Rowan's niece. She started living with him before last summer."

"Hm. I don't think I ever met a niece." Flambé thought hard for a while and then shrugged. "My memory failing me again, I'm sure."

Nori continued, eager not to dwell on Chandler. "And then on our way back up, Archie and I got cold—I guess the hot cocoa had worn off—so we stopped at this place and had some cider. And then we got back to the Academy where Oliver made us his version of hot cocoa."

"Ah, reminds me of my youth." Flambé rested his chin on his hand and explored those memories for a bit.

"What were you like as a student?"

"Well, that depends on who you ask. Most would say I was a bit of a troublemaker. Tarragon would say I was too serious. But I think I was…focused. I had a goal, you know. A mission."

"And what was that?"

Flambé grimaced. "To bring the five kingdoms closer together."

This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

Nori couldn't make sense of the man's expression. He had succeeded where no one ever had. Maybe he saw that his life's work was about to come crashing down in a single succession. The question danced on her mind again.

But Flambé sidetracked her before she could find the courage. "So are Archie and Blanche still together, then?"

Nori couldn't help but to laugh. "I thought your memory was bad."

"I remember the important stuff."

Nori sighed, and Flambé raised his eyebrows knowing he was about to get something good.

"They broke up."

"Aha!" Flambé slapped the table. "I didn't think she'd let you two grab cider on Winter's Blossom. Well, that's good for you, then."

"Why do you say that?" Nori blushed from embarrassment compounded by a nagging anger. Why was everyone so set that she would be celebrating?

"Because I'm an old man with a lot of wisdom. And I see how you look when you talk about him."

"We're just friends."

"And you're happy with that? You don't ever think about whether or not life might be better if you were more?"

Nori rubbed above her nose. She wanted to leave. Flambé was fine. She had checked in on him. She didn't need to talk about this.

"Alright, alright," Flambé said. "I can see I struck a nerve. I just—you just remind me of myself. Maybe I'm wrong about you. But if I'm right, well…I wasted…I don't know, more than ten years not acting on that feeling. And if I had done so sooner—"

Flambé took a deep breath and curled his lips around his teeth. Whatever joy had held on his face faded away. He started to come undone. He looked away. He looked guilty.

And that made Nori pick apart his words. More than ten years. When had he gone to the Academy? Age twenty-three? And he was married to Grand Queen Crosnee at age thirty…

"I've been thinking about memory a lot," Flambé blurted out with enough volume to flush away Nori's thoughts. "And truth. I wonder if a memory is ever true. I wonder how different my recollection of things is compared to reality. It's strange to me that you can experience something—experience a truth—and then with every passing moment, it becomes less true. As you change, your memory of a thing changes. So all these new truths are eliminating the truth of the past."

Flambé's face drooped. His eyes glistened. "And I wonder about my truth. The truth of my life. Did I do a good thing? A few years ago, my mind would have said yes, I did. Now, with the new truths of the present, I doubt that. I think that when the truth happened, it was a bad thing. But no one thinks that about me. They think I'm great. Not just great. Good. And once I die, new truths will continue to override the past truths, and maybe people won't think that I'm a good person anymore. Which has maybe always been the truth."

His hands shook as they covered his face, knobby knuckles brushing past spotty skin.

Nori tried to swallow it, but seeing this man so sickly—knowing how little time she had to ask it—the question slipped out. "Why don't you kill him?"

She clasped her hand to her mouth, eyes wide. But for as surprised at herself as Nori was, Flambé just dropped his hands to reveal a twisted frown.

"I—I mean—" Nori tried to recover with a desperate breath. "You have to see that he's a problem, right? And like you said, you won't be here forever. And no one else can do it. Not really. So, if anyone could...it'd…be…you."

Flambé clicked his tongue and sighed. "I tried once."

Nori froze.

Flambé sighed again. "Twice, really. The first time was poison. The most sinful form of murder, I know. I thought it'd be the easiest way to get away with it. For every second of that boy's life, he ate. It made sense that at some point he'd eat something that had gone bad. He was, I don't know, ten or so, but his nature was clear. His nature was always clear. And I thought…"

Flambé rested his mouth in the palm of his hand and stayed like that for so long that Nori wondered if he'd ever speak again. She couldn't break the silence. She had no clue how to respond to such a thing.

"The boy had such a constitution," Flambé said. "His nature probably neutralized the essence in the poison. And he knew. He never said it outright, but he knew. He had always been nasty, but after that, he never acted ambivalent toward me again. Nor toward anyone. The only thing I killed was whatever miniscule goodness was left in him."

Nori bit her fingernails as she digested the confession. "Do you believe in the wendigo?"

Flambé perked up. "What do you know about it?"

Nori tried to think of the Glutton from Jakha. She couldn't remember his face, just the way he had cried once he had been saved. "We saw the Bhantla when we were in Khala. We helped exorcise a Glutton. Did you know you could do that?"

Flambé nodded. "A godly power. One that I wish had been given to me. I tried to get the Bhantla to exorcise Wally. But she said it wasn't time yet. That…oh, what did she say? Something about cutting off the wendigo's toe versus cutting off its head."

"You said you tried twice."

"I had the will to do so, at least. I figured if essence and poison couldn't do it, a knife could. I was just outside his room when I was told not to do it."

"Told? By who?"

Flambé stuck his tongue in his gums and breathed heavily through his nose. "You mentioned the wendigo. If the theory is true—if a Glutton is a body possessed—then I'm afraid that when I poisoned that boy resembling my son, that maybe I did kill him. Maybe I killed my Wally, and the wendigo is all that's left."

He covered his eyes again, and this time Nori could tell he was hiding tears.

Nori put her hand on his shoulder. "You can't blame yourself. You were doing what you thought was best for the kingdom."

"Ha!" Flambé shrugged her off and glared, his self-hatred having redirected to her. "Listen to you! Just what a Harper would say."

Nori returned the hateful look.

Flambé folded. Anguish became him from his scrunched up expression to his exasperated groan to the way he stood and walked and waved his hands around. "I'm sorry. That wasn't right."

Nori hadn't swallowed her sourness yet, but she played nice for the vulnerable old man. "It's fine."

"No, Nori, it's not." Flambé paced around the room. "You did nothing to deserve that. You've been nothing but kind to me. I'm sure you have your own life you'd rather be living than sitting here with an old man day after day listening to his regrets. The truth is, Nori, I was a bad person long before I ever tried to kill my own child."

The room buzzed. Flambé twitched as he walked around the table. Essence sparked off of him. Wildly. Dangerously. Nori circulated her own essence through her body in preparation of defense, unsure how the essence of a White Jacket with a failing mind might behave.

"Everything I've ever done, every bit of good," Flambé clenched his teeth hard as he spoke. "It all came at a price that I never had to pay. No one ever came to collect the debt. Maybe that's what this sickness is. Divine retribution. I put up my soul as down payment and my body over time. And no one knows. No one—this!"

He scooped up his biography and threw it across the room. Nori jumped to her feet as the spine broke and pages scattered across the floor.

"Glorification. Obfuscation. Half-truths, and always the bad half missing."

Strands of pure essence cast off of him like whips, stinging Nori as they passed. She backed away as he stomped on the pages. "Flambé? Why don't you sit down? Take a deep breath."

Flambé kicked the pages one last time before settling down. He breathed hard—and not the breathing of a healthy man. He broke into a coughing fit, prompting Nori to make a move for the door, partially to get help and partially to escape.

"No, no," he managed. "Don't get her. Don't leave. Just…give me a second. I'm fine, just riled up."

Nori kept her distance as he scratched the top of his head.

"I've been thinking a lot about memories," he said yet again. "Do you think I could burden you with mine?"

Nori didn't understand the question, but she knew what he wanted her to say. "Yes."

The answer brought great relief to Flambé's expression. His breathing calmed. "I'm sorry for my outburst. I'd like to cook something for you. I'll be quick, I don't want to keep you long."

Nori felt like she had no choice. "Okay."

Flambé stumbled toward the kitchen. "Would you mind cleaning those pages up? I'm sorry, I just don't want Hollyhock asking questions."

"Okay."

"Thank you, Nori." Flambé turned back one last time before entering the kitchen. "Thank you."

It took Nori half an hour to get the pages back in the correct order, and it took Flambé only a few minutes longer to come back with a single bowl of hot and sour shrimp soup.

"Did you not make any for yourself?"

Flambé shook his head. "I made this for you and you alone. Please. My gratitude."

With a single sip of the broth, the stress of the last hour faded away. She had always suspected that Flambé's white jacket might have been ceremonial, but one spoonful of liquid proved his authenticity.

Flambé seemed to read her mind. "I can't do flavor quite as well as Andy, and I can't provide an experience quite like the Juliennes, but I'll take any other White Jacket in the kitchen any day of the week."

Nori took a bite of shrimp and closed her eyes in bliss. She had grown up eating Palm Coast cuisine, but that had been the Urokan-island version. This was pure Palm Coast. A flavor that could only be captured by someone born there. Each sip reminded her of summer vacations on the beach. "What about fighting? Could you take the others?"

Flambé chuckled. "Well, in my current state, I think even the eldest Julienne, frail baby bird that she may be, could take me on."

"In your prime?"

"Well. Chieftainness Monarda would give me a hard time. But she'd lose. The Bhantla. That depends on if it's a fair fight."

"What makes a fight unfair?"

"Siphoning essence from others." Flambé smiled and watched happily as Nori ate. "No cheating, I'd beat the Bhantla with a mild sweat."

"And with cheating?"

Flambé raised his eyebrows. "She'd shred me easier than cheese."

Nori paused and waited for the next contestant, but Flambé never volunteered it. "What about my dad?"

"Well…" Flambé frowned. "He'd never allow a situation like that to happen."

"What if the situation did happen?"

Flambé's expression gave nothing away. "How's your soup?"

"It's delicious."

"Yeah…wait for the kick. I'm going to go clean up. Go home when you're done. Be with your friends."

Nori gave him her best smile. "Thank you for the dinner. Go easy on yourself."

Flambé nodded and left the room.

Nori did not spend the night with her friends. Instead, she sat in bed with a book, but she could never find the focus to get through more than a paragraph. Her conversation with Flambé swirled around in her mind like a maelstrom. And there was something else there. A foreign thought. A thread that was the wrong color. She directed her thoughts to it, but the closer she got, the sleepier she became. Her eyes would fall shut, and then she'd be in another room, but then she'd wake up, and Blanche would be settling into bed.

Sleep finally took her just as she grasped that thread.

But she was standing up. She knew she was asleep, but she was awake. And it wasn't her room. It was the room of a little boy, maybe eight years old. He was laying in bed reading by the late morning light.

"What are you reading?" Nori asked.

But the boy didn't answer. He didn't seem to know that she was there at all.

Nori thought she must have been dreaming, but everything was too lucid. She could feel the ground beneath her feet, feel the warm air, smell the salt from the ocean.

A voice called out from downstairs. "Flambé! Time for lunch! I made sour shrimp."

"Coming, Laksa!" The boy set down his book and hopped toward the stairs. As he left, the room grew fuzzy. Details bled away. Nori took a step toward the boy, and the details came back. So she followed him.

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