I told my brother not everyone found his stupid pranks funny. He didn't listen...

He never listened.

I fiddled with the sleeve cuffs of my coat.

The late afternoon sun hung low, cradled in the peach blushed sky. A dense shadow of thick pine trees obscured the remainder of our path, and the River Om beneath us thundered like the rhythmic thump of a thousand and one drums.

We were only supposed to go as far as the outlining village wall, but Pas had said he wanted to visit the bridge, chisel his name into its stone and see if he could glimpse the great city beyond the trees.

He hadn't, and he couldn't, and now it was getting dark.

“Mama said we have to be home by sundown.”

“Ma said, blah, blah.” Pas’ feet momentarily left the ground as he inclined over the top of the bridge. When he turned back, a tinge of pink tickled his cheeks. “You’re just like her, so pigeon-livered.”

“Am not!” I was. A cold breeze pinched my skin, and I shivered. “And neither is Mama!”

Pascal had always been better than me in bravery smarts. Better DNA.

Pas could transform into any sentient being as a Guise, a shapeshifter. Whether it be the baker's daughter or one of the mice scurrying under the floorboards, he could change, but only visually. Under the disguises, he still had my older brother's strength and childish mind.

And to add, even despite the constant, sometimes nerve-wracking pranks, everyone still liked him best.

“Are too.” Pascal screwed up his nose and squinted his eyes as though he was about to sneeze. On his face, his nose started to grow, fading in colour to a pale, storm-cloud grey. His nose—beak—hardened over the top of his mouth, and its tip ended in a pointed hook. “You're a boring pigeon,” he screeched, his beak snapping. “Coo, coo! Such a bore is little Emery, coo, coo. All she does is draw and whine, whine and draw—coo, coo.”

“I don't!”

His beak vanished, moulding once again into the brown, familiar features of his face. His arms crossed, and by the slight hitch in his left eyebrow, I knew his following words even before his tongue had time to form them. “Prove it.”

Those two words. Those two poison dripped words—what a frenzy they sparked inside my chest, what a blindness they caused.

Looking back now, I realise I should have utilised that anger differently, more effectively. My hand should have clamped tight around his elbow and used that rage to drag him all the way home.

But I hadn't because I had been naive, and Pascal had said those two words.

Prove it? Fine.

“Fine,” I had said.

“Seriously?” Pas blinked, and a sharp-edged smile cut the corners of his mouth a second later. “Alright, but no takebacks. Whatever I say, you have to do.”

“Fine.”

“That’s everything, Emery.”

I crossed my arms, my hands hidden, jittering under my armpits. “Fine.”

“Fine.” Bending down, Pas scooped up a handful of sloppy mud. The globular, brown sludge oozed from between his fingers. It stunk of musty peat and mould, and before I had the chance to stop him, he smeared it down the front of my coat.

“Pascal!”

“Shush!” He poked his tongue out. “I’m getting you ready.”

“For what?”

But I had heard it, the steady drum of a stupid idea. The silhouette of a horse and carriage appeared from behind, galloping away from the wall of trees.

The sky had turned a deep bruised plum, the last of the golden raise fading, and that carriage was chasing the last of the sun's gift—which was precisely what Pascal and I should have done.

Pas grinned, and a swirl of anxiety rippled in my stomach. He rolled up the sleeves of his coat.

“That,” he said.

Screwing up his face again, I watched as the skin on his arms began to blacken and crack. Narrow, smouldering, orange veins bubbled between the crevices, and his body grew.

“No,” I gasped. “You can't. There's a horse!”

“One scare won't kill it, Em. And now,” Pas shoved my shoulder, and a sprinkle of charred ash flittered to the stone. “Stand in the centre and look unassuming and plain but exciting enough to make the carriage stop.”

“I don't think we should do this.”

“Pardon, did you say something?” Pas wafted his blackening hand towards his ears. “I wasn't listening.” He disappeared down the side of the bridge. “Stop that carriage,” he shouted.

I glared at where my brother had been standing, and a second later, a grey horse snorted to a halt.

The white carriage door swung open. Black boots crunched the dirt, and a plump, smartly dressed man stepped out. A lantern dangled from the roof of the carriage, and I could make out a reddened shock of a tailcoat and the stiff curve of a powdered wig.

“Jenkins,” the man snapped, and I glimpsed another shadowed man perched on the top of the cart. “why have we stopped? Does this look like my estate?”

“No, sir, but there is an intrusion.”

“Well, drive over it then. Or use those useless arms and move it.”

“It’s a girl... sir.”

“A gir—”

The nobleman finally seemed to notice me. He stepped closer, and his yellowed teeth pulled sharp through his sneer. “What are you doing out here by yourself, little girl?”

I couldn't speak. I felt like a rock at the bottom of the river rushing beside us. Stuck, trapped by the crushing weight of the current.

I picked at the soiled sleeve of my coat. Where was Pascal?

“Are you a lost thing of the woods?” the noble asked. “Can. You. Speak?”

“I... I...”

“Ah, apologies, sir,” the driver interjected, and I released a small sigh as the noble straightened.

“What?” he spat.

The driver pointed behind me. A troll stood at the foot of the bridge. The horse squealed, and the noble stumbled back, his shoulder thumping the side of the carriage.

Veins of burning lava lit up the dark, zig-zagging over the trolls singed skin like broken cracks across parched earth. His eyeless head tilted downwards, sharp and jagged like shattered glass.

I knew the troll to be Pascal, but that didn't stop my heart from missing a few beats. He looked so real, frightening, and I hated it.

At the sight of Pascal, I thought, I hoped, that the noble would simply hurry back to his carriage and order the drive to dive on, but he didn't. Instead, he retrieved a thick, cylindrical tube from his cart, his finger twitching against its trigger.

The noble heaved the device up to his shoulder, and with it pointed at Pascal, he fired.

With a shattering crack, a gleam of metal shot from the gun, looping itself around Pascal's neck. He stumbled back but didn't fall, his stalactite fingers clawing at his new collar. The angular crevices of his face furrowed, but nothing happened. He didn't transform; he couldn't transform. The band changed, turning a bright copper, signifying its dampening power had worked.

“You’re stupid little prank didn't work!” Spit sprayed from the noble’s lips, his white, pasty complexion redding, matching the shade of his coat perfectly. “Don't you think I can't recognise a Guise when I see one? Do you take me as a fool?” He threw the gun into the carriage. “Your name, boy?”

Pas tugged at the collar. “Pascal.”

“And you?” The noble turned to me. “Were you his accomplice in this?”

“No,” Pas said quickly, and he winced as the nobleman grabbed his tapered ear and twisted. “I've never seen her before. I would never associate with one so atrocious looking. But perhaps you should let her go; she's done nothing wrong.”

“Done nothing wrong?” He eyed me, greedily like a desired jewel in a shop window. His moustache twitched. “I suppose. Off you go.”

“Go.” Pas echoed, and his voice crumbled. “Shoo! You promised you to do whatever I said.”

I did promise. I did. But that didn't mean I had to keep it. I watched as the noble wrapped chains around Pascal’s body and forced him onto the roof of the carriage.

“Where are you taking me?” Pas asked. Even trapped in the body of a troll, he looked so small.

“Where the sun spends little of her time,” the noble hissed, “and the shadows burn like sulphur.”

Trolls, I realised with an abrupt heave of my chest. The monster was taking Pas to the trolls.

“You can't.” I blurted, and I scrambled for a reason in the dirt. “They’ll... They’ll eat you too.” I glanced at the driver, but his head was forward, firm like stone. “Both of you.

From the pocket of his jacket, the noble slipped a vial. It glowed, lighting his pale hand in an unnatural green: Eapra—a form of troll repellent.

Trolls were blind and notoriously cruel. They relied on their other senses, but the use of Eapra helped to disguise the human scent, and if you were quiet, you could sneak past the trolls virtually invisible. But Eapra was rare and highly expensive, so this noble wouldn't waste it on Pascal... Would he?