After much debating, the village, through their spokesperson Gladys, decided to grant the former prince of Castle Bartack temporary asylum — in spite of Avanis vocal opposition. Somehow, she didn’t see Mallory’s intrusion into their lives with a good eye and she made it known. No one said a word. They listened and weathered the storm until Avanis had said her piece and returned to her cottage. It was still early, most people would be going back to bed. Only the grain collectors would stay up to start the day: Ducus, Parrus and Meis. Merrus was the grain master, but he usually joined them on the field after his morning inventory.

Delys was a glena collector, and as such she had a more relaxed schedule, especially since the stock of glenas was healthy, even after this morning expenditure.

“I’ll show you to your new home,” she told Mallory.

“Temporary home.” Gladys held out three fingers. “He can stay three days and then you must go. During this time, you will be fed and enjoy our hospitality as if you were one of our own. We will simply ask that you do not break anything whilst you are with us. Can you do that?”

“Yes. Yes, thank you. I-I’m very grateful.”

“Good. I like grateful.” Gladys pointed at the vacant cottage that was once Errus’ as the edge of town. “You can use this cottage. You’ll be a bit exposed there, but if your… friends or guards, I didn’t know which, if they come back the alarm will ring. Someone will come to help you disappear.”

Mallory bowed respectfully and thanked his saviors once more. Being here was not at all what he had imagined when he set out to leave the castle. He thought he would be on a coach by now, somewhere, riding fast to put some distance between his past life and himself. Instead, he ended up only a few leagues off Castle Bartack, but a few leagues inside Cozy Forest was equivocal to a hundred leagues on the plains. In all his years in the castle, Mallory had never heard of such a village inside Cozy Forest. He’d never heard of people turning themselves invisible. This was magic like he’d never suspected.

Yeah. Maybe this is a safe place, afterall. I mean, the guards went away. There’s nothing here that would have made them suspicious. They won’t come back here, surely. Would they?

“Make yourself at home.” Delys pushed the cottage door open and let Mallory in. “Errus is gone now, so… he’s taken what he needed with him. Feel free to use his linen and tunics, if you need to.” She watched his long luthier apron dubiously. Her eyes locked themselves on the white marks over his chest. “What’s that?” She swiped a finger over his apron and smelled the white powder.

“Chalk. I think.”

“What’s chalk?”

“It’s, huh, chalk. It’s some kind of white… I don’t know. Something we use for drawing, or writing, or some other uses. I’m not too sure. Come to think of it, I don’t know what the luthiers were doing with chalk. Maybe they used it to mark the wood before cutting it to to make instruments. I don’t know.”

Delys stared at Mallory as if he was speaking a foreign tongue. “What’s a luthier?”

“It’s… somebody who makes music. Or musical instruments, to be more exact.”

“Music? You mean songs? You don’t need any tools for singing.”

“Well, you do if you want to accompany the song, the singers.”

“Huh?”

“You don’t have any musical instruments here?”

“I don’t have any but Linckus has some king metallic flutes he plays with at the festivities. Oh, by the way, talk about good timing to visit the village, tomorrow is Parran Day. Make sure you come. The entire village will be there.”

“Parran? Is this some kind of celebrations?”

“Yes. It’s the fifth village celebration of the month. You don’t want to miss that one. Only two more to go after that!”

“Two more to go and then what? What happens?”

“Then a new month starts and we celebrate Erewen Day.”

Mallory scratched his head, trying to figure out how many village parties these people indulge themselves in. “Do-o you people like to gather and sing songs, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes. But, eh! Not as much as we want to, really. We’ve got to be reasonable. We don’t have infinite resources. Couple of seasons ago, we went through a terrible drought. We skipped on twelve celebration days in a row. It was awful.”

“You didn’t have anything to eat?”

“Oh, we did. But, you know, just the daily grub, hugh.” She grimaced and shivered. “Alright. Make yourself at home, and we’ll see you for lunch.”

“Where?”

“Just come to the town hall when the sun is sky high. Alternatively, you are free to roam the village as you please. But as Gladys said, don’t break anything.”

“I won’t. Thank you.”

Delys left with a smile that truly warmed Mallory’s heart. All he could think of for the next fifteen minutes after her departure was how lovely she was, how they nice they were to offer him a place to stay until he got himself organized.

Fine. I’ll stay here. Let some time pass, hoping mother will call the guards back. And then, I’ll be on my way. This bed looks fairly decent. Surprisingly decent. Right now, I just want to sleep. I’m exhausted.

Princes habits die hard. However tired he was, Mallory didn’t just slide under the covers with his dirty clothes. He carefully removed his boots, then his cloak, his apron, his pants and shirt. When he was down to his undergarments, he did a smell check. They did not pass the test. All this running had made him sweat like rarely before. He searched for some water inside the cottage to wash up but found none. He was yawning, struggling to keep his eyes open. So he lay on top of the bed and wrapped himself inside the cover, staying above the sheets as to not soil them. Sleep took him before his head hit the pillow.