After an afternoon or two spent practicing in the mirror, Cecil approached Madam Wyntrop about a lesson. And she agreed to do one the day after.

  Cecil Entered her tea room as prompt as possible and bowed just inside the door.

  Today the long windows of the room stood open, letting in a breeze that stirred the sheer curtains and carried in the distant smell of water and things that grew.

  The summer had finally dug in its claws, and the breeze was a blessing. Every day the heat became more and more unbearable.

  Cecil walked across the room and silently picked up a pale blue fan that had been in the high-backed chair he usually sat in. It was painted with silver lilies and had been selected specifically for practice.

  It looked delicate.

  Across the table, the Madam spoke up, “That is a practice fan. It is meant to teach a gentle touch, and will break if too much force is used.”

  Cecil instantly loosened his tight grip, and held it with a softer hand.

  Across from him, Madam Wyntrop stood up, adjusted the lace at her wrist and winked at him.

  “Now,” she said, her voice and posture clipped and refined, “you’ve memorized the positions?”

  Cecil nodded. “I think so. Lips mean privacy, left cheek means yes, right cheek is no, fluttering—”

  “—Suggests agitation or flirtation,” Wyntrop cut in, “depending on the speed and context. Faster flutters for panic. Slower if you wish to lead some poor soul to ruin.” She arched a brow. “Which, for today, is unnecessary.”

  Cecil grimaced at the thought of acting like one of those girls that hung off of Arron’s every word at parties. He knew that if they could, they would hang off of his arms as well.

  “Yes, Madam.”

  “Very well. Let us begin a simple conversation. No speaking. Fans only.” She opened her own black and silver fan with a snap that made Cecil flinch.

  He fumbled his open, just a bit clumsy for fear of ruining it.

  Wyntrop's smiled with her eyes.

  She tapped the edge of her fan to her lips. I wish to speak in private.

  Cecil mirrored her, albeit slower. I wish to speak in private.

  Wyntrop tilted her fan to her left cheek. Yes.

  Cecil blinked, then did the same. Yes.

  She fluttered her fan slowly. At ease. This is not a test.

  He pressed his fan to his chest—carefully. You honor me.

  This earned a nod. Then she moved her fan to shade her eyes. Who watches?

  Cecil hesitated, then flicked his gaze toward the window. Then he tilted his fan toward it, edge outward. No one.

  “Good,” she said aloud. “Now you say something, and I shall respond.”

  Cecil took a breath. He lifted the fan, tapped the edge gently to his wrist. I’m nervous.

  Madam Wyntrop’s posture softened.

  She fanned herself slowly. You are safe.

  Then, with a flick to her right cheek: But that was a poor gesture. Try again.

  Cecil flushed, but he smiled too, hiding it behind the painted lilies. He repeated the sign with more care, the motion smoother this time.

  “Better,” she said. “Now—let’s see how well you can insult someone without them noticing.”

  His eyes widened, and she laughed at his expression

  “I was joking.” she said. “Not really. But that can wait until later.”

  She fell silent and continued the conversation with slow deliberate fan movements. Cecil watched her intently, and responded with the stilted language of a toddler.

  But he was learning.

  And to learn, was to live.

  For a month there had been no hint of rain. The sun beat down indiscriminately, and the earth returned its attention with a wavering mirage of heat. The air lay listlessly upon the land, heavy with humidity.

  It was the height of summer, and everyone had found a place that was reasonably cool. Even the cool rooms and cold boxes the engravers had made had been dismantled in fear that the displaced heat would kill anything in the vicinity, or start a fire.

  Eriss had gone with her friends to a private tea party that had a permanent breeze off of the lake next to the house.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Arron and his buddies had commandeered the cool grotto down by the river Cecil and Oakley had swam in just weeks prior. Now it was just a sad trickle of muddy water and a wide swathe of dried and cracked earth.

  No one knew where Tavv was. But Cecil had his suspicions that the rats in the cellar were being chased from their usual haunts.

  This had left Cecil free to do what he pleased, and Oakley had suggested one of the tallest trees in the palace gardens. By now, Cecil had climbed enough trees for calluses to form, and a confidence to traverse the canopies.

  Their most favorite tree was a huge thing that took a small ladder to even climb into.

  But this was no problem.

  They had long since climbed it, and tied a hemp rope with a knot every two feet of its length, to the lowest branch. In order to get the rope down and back up easily, Oakley had gone to one of his friends in the city who was an apprentice engraver. The boy had been bribed with several bags of cookies. And in return, had given them three engraved rocks, one to tie to the end of the rope, and two that it would be attracted to. One of these was placed in an old squirrel hole up in the tree, and the other was placed on the ground, and activated with three taps. Then, the rope would uncoil and rush to the attracted rock.

  All they had to do was avoid getting hit by the rock on the end of the rope, and make sure that the rope didn't knot up terribly.

  That day they decided to go up the tree because of its immense shade, the spying ability, but most importantly, the wind that swayed the tallest branches.

  Cecil leaned against the trunk while straddling a branch, and looked at the flying drakes flitting in the branches. As they spun in intricate looping flights Cecil sighed. Were these actually descendents of the crying princess? Or was it just a tall tale?

  “Do you ever wish you could fly?”

  Oakley rustled above him “huh?”

  “Wouldn’t it be cool to fly?”

  “Course. That's what horses are for y’know? Closest thing man can get to flying.”

  There was more rustling, and Cecil watched the boy climb further up.

  “Where are you going?”

  “Hey, come lookit this!”

  Cecil stood carefully and tested his weight on each branch as he climbed up to the place that Oakley was pointing at. And there, in a hole in the trunk was a small nest of blue eggs with white speckles.

  “What kinda bird laid these eggs? Think we could hatch one and see what it is?”

  “We’ll never know til we try. But what if it's some sort of snake?”

  Oakley laughed as he reached in and grabbed an egg, “we’ll add logs to the fire after it's blazing.”

  Then a woman cried out nearby. They turned slightly and saw a dark blue streak dart towards them.

  Oakley grabbed for more eggs, even as he yelled, “Duck!”

  Breath came quicker than thought. The hot air sluggish in the lungs. Bark scraped the palms of his hands slipped from limb to limb as he barely controlled his descent. Oakley’s weight behind him caused the limbs to move, and leaves showered down around him.

  The first lizard had been joined by two more, nipping at his exposed skin with teeth and claws.

  Scrapes from bark.

  Hand over hand, panting heat and humidity.

  Just as they reached the final branch and Cecil shimmied down the rope, eyes tearing up from the skin he left behind on the rope, a lizard stared him in the eyes. It looked mournful, with a diamond pattern shining under its eyes. Then it bit him on the wrist.

  The hot, sharp needles raced up his arm in agony.

  To his horror, his limp hand no longer held the rope. For one wonderful moment, the cool breeze held his body in a blessed cocoon. The clouds above creeped by in ponderous motion, while the little drakes zipped by.

  He was flying.

  His pain was far away. He spread his arms, suspended weightless in the air.

  Then the earth came up and smacked his body. His lungs collapsed and gasped out a pained breath. White hot points flared in his numbed body. He needed to go to Mecine. Cecil panted in shallow even breaths as he slowly got to his feet. The lizard was no longer bothering him, and he was glad of it. Medicine would fix him.

  The heat that they had tried to escape seemed to have doubled with the trip back down, now being siphoned from the surrounding air into his body through his arm and other parts of his body, which pulsed with each heartbeat like the black smith hammering hot metal.

  Just then he ran headlong into his sister.

  “Oh dear! What has happened to you?” but then she started tugging him with her, “never mind for now. Whatever it is, you need the healer.”

  The air in the healers wing of the palace was listless as the beams of light weighed Cecil down. He had been given a drink that made him feel insubstantial as moonbeams. Which he had been very glad for on two accounts. The first wasn’t too bad, but he was certain, in some fuzzy distant way, that the healer setting his arm should have hurt.

  A lot.

  The second and much worse was his mother. Her stare was the only cool thing in the room, but did not alleviate any of the heat. If anything, it made his cheeks burn hotter, and his headache. She asked where he had been, who he was with and threatened to send whoever caused this so far away that he’d never see them again. It was that last bit that stuck in his mind as he drifted away. To a blissful unawareness.

  “We’ve already been over this. There is only one, and you can’t convince me otherwise.”

  “But look at the texts again Mecine. They can’t all be coincidences.”

  “That’s what you keep saying, but every time I read it, I don’t see any conclusive evidence.”

  Cecil struggled to understand the conversation drifting in from the room outside.

  “You can’t just wait till the next calamity happens to accept this.”

  “I can, and will.”

  The argument felt… rote. Well trodden. A conversation that had happened many times before.

  “Sure. But we will know when it comes sooner if I’m right.”

  “Yes, but until that proof comes along, we are at an impasse.”

  Cecil finally convinced his eyes to open and looked through the open door. There he saw Mecine, the head palace healer sipping tea at a table across from her second, Branyn. He was relatively new, but they squabbled often over the oddest things. They both had dark hair tied up in a high bun, but Brynyn had a much darker tan the Mecine.

  As if she could sense his gaze, the older woman turned to smile at him.

  “Finally awake eh? How is our youngest patient?”

  She stood, her pale green clothes rustling. They were long sleeved, but were close around her wrists and ankles. Then she had a tunic over it with large pockets sewed into the sides.

  Cecil looked up at her, “Better than I was. Still not great though.”

  She frowned, “I don’t sense anything wrong. Brynyn, come take a look, maybe you’ll see something that I missed.”

  He stood from the little table and walked over, “oh I don’t know Mecine. I don’t think I could surpass your prowess.”

  She waved her hand, “keep buttering me up you old flatterer, I won’t convert, or give you my position early.”

  He shrugged, “It’s better to catch with honey and all that.” Then he put his right hand on Cecil’s forehead and frowned.

  “Huh. I can’t sense anything either. There’s nothing wrong. He should be feeling back to normal.”

  Cecil shrank back into his covers as the two healers gazed at him like he was an interesting anomaly to be studied. He made an effort and threw the blanket off, “I feel much better now. I just needed to wake up,” he lied.

  They looked at him skeptically, but watched silently as he went to the privy to change back into normal clothes.

  Strangely, as he left the room, he felt much better. Maybe he just needed to finish waking up after all.

  As he passed a window he noticed the sun was starting to set, and walked faster. If he hurried, he would be able to go see Oakley, then go back to his room and grab his stuff before waiting for the library to close. He hoped he was there, and the eggs had survived.

  (to the tune of "I'm Gonna Be (500 Miles)" by the Proclaimers)

  And I would write 5,000 words, and I would write 5,000 more,

  Just to be the one who wrote 100,000 words

  for writathonnn