"I have no idea what you're thinking," Jack broke the silence. They had found a cave where Espin started a fire just outside of the cave using his flames and some miraculously dry enough wood. He'd just shed a scale and turned it into a towel. 

Jack stared at the strange shimmering blue and green towel. It was absorbent. He'll give it that. But it was a part of a dragon fairy.

"It's clean."

Jack shook his head. "Not about that. How can you go from loathing me to helping me?"

"It's called humanity."

"Dragons aren't humans."

"Dragon fairy."

Jack narrowed his eyes at Espin. The firelight bounced off his hair making it glitter with orange and purple sparkles.

"Margorie wasn't my sister to begin with," Jack sighed, "but didn't expect that to come out. So, Serena is her mother. Mary C. is mine. That makes us related somehow? Dungshit, don't need another of me."

A crow called in the distance. The dark sky held no stars, and the scraggly trees were near invisible. Fire crackled, eating the wood hungrily. It wasn't a big fire, but enough to warm his hands and feet. Jack leaned back on his hands.

Margorie's father is Ogswold. Jack sat up. "Wait, then who is Jack Ogswold? The one I killed?"

"He's a bastard."

Jack was about to make a remark of him not just being a bastard but a 'dungshit idiot' when he realized what Espin meant. He whistled instead. Jack Ogswold was the son of Serena, son of Emmett Ogswold. True older brother of Margorie. Whether the castle folk realized or not, Jack had killed a Prince Jack.

"Two Prince Jack Plantagenets?"

"One. You. The other is Jack Ogswold. Serena hid him in the peasantry so the king wouldn't kill the boy. Serena and Mary C. were fighting to get their child up in the top."

"He would have died anyway?" Jack groaned. Well then, now he didn't feel too sorry about killing Jack Ogswold if the boy was in competition to getting the throne. Serena had been trying extra hard to get her family into the throne. Sibling hate. Serena Mary must have despised Mary C. to the core. But she probably had no idea that Jack Plantagenet and Ogswold would switch places.

Recalling his encounter with Serena, it was unclear if she knew or even believed he wasn't her biological son. But in the end, none of that would matter. Who he was, is, or might be, Serena was going to die. No question about that.

"Gray told you this?" Jack turned to Espin.

"Half and half I knew about. Even when you're a stone, you see everything going on around you and hear everything, too."

"Damn." Jack warmed his hands near the fire. "Sounds frustrating."

Espin gave a dry laugh. "Annoying, mostly. Do you even know how ugly it is in that pretty castle? Uglier than a village of bullies."

"And I know ugly," he added, "because I was human once."

Human? Him? Was that how dragons and dragon fairies worked?

Espin was poking the flames and adding a bit more fire. An aura of purple glow surrounded his body and his long hair framed his face or pushed itself back like it had a mind of its own. And those scales coming up from his neck and reaching his cheeks or receding down below his loose-fitted pale blue shirt. This was a magick being. Not anywhere near human and if he once was, Jack couldn't imagine what he might have looked like.

Little by little Espin's cheeks pinkened until he was full-on rosy. He gave Jack a side-glance and bent one leg to rest his arm. "Have you ever had men fall in love with you?" he asked, staring into the flames.

"Oh, I think so," Jack shrugged, "when I touched their left side." He wished he had a mirror now. He knew he must look like such a mess. Maybe a few smears of dirt were still on his face? Although Espin's magically made clothes did get clean, Jack found dirt in his nails and twigs in his hair.

And here's another little one. He pinched it between his fingers, pulling it out.

"You have another," Espin pointed at somewhere on top of Jack's head, "right there."

As if that direction will help. He ruffled his hair. "Better?"

"Nope."

Jack gave a loud sigh and bent his head down. "You get it then, Mister I'm Horrible At Directions."

Espin chuckled. "Alright, Mister I Can't Do Anything On My Own."

Jack felt nimble fingers teasing away twigs from his hair. He caught sight of the Lormink on the other side of the fire, curled up, but eyes open, staring at him. What did Lorminks think about? And how did it happen that Hazel changed her shape entirely? He'd never heard of a Lormink that could morph their body to make like a parachute. What kind of creature was that?

Or maybe I just don't know enough about them. He decided then that if he lived, he would study Hazel and write a book about her. That would make him rich and famous and maybe even help repopulate wherever Lorminks originally came from.

The fingers teasing twigs out gradually began to pet his hair. Jack was about to pull away when a memory of all things decided to set in. It was a time when his father, the king, pet his head praising him, saying, "You are the perfect son."

Jack jerked away, furrowing his brows. Espin had his hand raised.

He frowned. "I'm sorry, I was just trying to fix your hair."

"Memories got linked. Apparently, I had deliberately tried to forget what kind of man the king is or was." His chest tightened as he said those words. 

His father's face was suddenly there, telling him how he was nothing but perfect and that any wrong was the fault of others. If Jack broke something, stole something, hurt someone, the servants, the guards, or the butler would be punished. That was the way of the house. When he switched places with Jack Ogswold, Ogswold's father scolded him. As a prince, he had never been scolded.

At that moment, Jack remembered the truth. He was happy for the first time. Someone to scold him for things he did wrong was here. With the knowledge that the world outside home was normal, Jack Plantagenet decided he would change the system. He would learn how people worked together in the peasantry and apply that to royal life.

The life of Jack Ogswold, of a peasant, that was my escape. To learn, to study, and then when it was time to return, and when I took the throne, no more innocent people would die.

The years of hiding the truth rushed back to him.

* * *

"Ogswold!" Plantagenet hissed. "You promised. Just one more week. It's time to go home."

Ogswold grinned. "I like it here. I can do anythin' I want. Father king would always call me perfect. I can never do anythin' wrong!"

Plantagenet gritted his teeth and took out the knife. "You killed Gretchen! I can't have you—"

"Oh?" Ogswold played with the tassels on the chair he sat on. "Did you adore her? The fat pig. Even the servants here are fat. She's an object, Plantagenet. You, we have the authority over that. And they were surprised how well I do in all subjects now. I think we should trade permanently. Was my goal, anyway."

"You never break a blood pact." Rage boiled in Plantagenet's chest. "I thought we were—"

"Friends?" Ogswold smiled coolly. "Oh, no one can break a blood pact, unless you're me."

Plantagenet rushed at Ogswold. They fought, knocking things over, tearing up the bed.

"You knave!" Ogswold shouted. "Guar—!"

The knife had sunk in the boy's throat. It was Plantagenet's first time slicing open flesh. It was ugly. So ugly. The room that was once his, the place he used to call home—all filled with a black fog and the powerful scent of blood. On the floor was a pack of playing cards scattered. One soaked in blood, the Jack of Diamonds.

He fled. The princely crown he took to sell.

He carved his name in the hall as 'Knave Diamondo'. It was an alias he created on the spot. Knave Diamondo was rage and a cold-hearted killer. He would move on to perfecting his craft and teaming up with Knave Heartetto later on, lying that he was the peasant Jack Ogswold, that the prince tried to kill him, and that royalty could never be trusted ever again. 

Plantagenet forever hid himself from all. Knave Heartetto would never suspect. The two would make horrifying history later.