What was that about?" Henry's voice came out higher than he would have liked.
"Shh." Peter's eyes shifted around the square.
"I thought you cared about her," Henry said, careful to steady his voice this time.
Peter rubbed his eyes and hen opened them, hoping to find that Henry had gone. He hadn't.
"I do care." Peter sighed, seeing that we would have to give a genuine answer, that Henry wouldn't take anything less. "But" —Peter nodded in the direction of the tavern, where the Captain was— "I'm trying to be smart about it.

The wedding doesn't feel like mine. It feels like I'm being sold.

Take it easy, friend," siad Peter, regaining his balance, quickly understanding the condition Henry was in.
"Friend? You left us. In the caves." Henry's muscles tensed.
Peter stepped back cautiously. Henry didn't look like himself.
"Seems someone can't hold his drink," Peter said. He didn't go further, sensing then that Valerie might be thinking of her father.
"And now," Henry continued on his own track, stepping closer to meet him, the smell of alcohol on his breath, "my father, too is dead."
Valerie moved to Henry. "Please, don't do this," she said, stepping in. "It's not worth it."
Henry pushed past her, not realizing his own weight. The force knocked her back. Peter grabbed Henry's arm and twisted it. Overreacting, Henry reared back his fist and landed a punch in the hollow of Peter's eye. The crowd laughed as Peter fell hard to the ground.
Henry scrambled on top him, held him by the collar, forced Peter to face him as he'd never done. He looked into the eyes of the man he wanted to blame for his parents' deaths, because it was a shelter from the terrible thought that everything could be lost to a simple slip of fate. "You filth," he spat out.
This really got the villagers going. But Peter didn't laugh. He pulled a knife from his boot and leapt up, thrusting it viciously in Henry's face.
"Keep your hands off her or I'll cut them off!

She never even told me how she felt," Valerie thought aloud, feeling the betrayal in her gut. How had she been so blind? Her sister had loved Henry silently. Did she know about the engagement? Did she overhear our parents planning? Valerie supposed it was possible, but it seemed unlikely since they were always together. Would it have broken her heart?
"Don't worry, you poor child," Madame Lazar said, seeming almost disinterested in the subject of Lucie's death. "I know you're worried about your sister, but Henry always had his eye on you. You are—were always the pretty one.

Henry...your father was a brave man."
He continued attacking the metal with a sledgehammer, brutally hacking at the anvil. She wasn't sure he had heard her. Then, he stopped short, the hammer hanging heavy in the air, the fire snapping in front of him.
"I was close enough to smell it," he seethed, not turning. "But I was afraid. I hid from it."
Clang!
I didn't do anything.
"I should have done something."
Clang!
"I should have saved him."
Valerie saw that he was destroying all of their half-finished projects. They would remain that way forever.
"I've lost someone, too, Henry—I know how it is. Please, come away from the fire."
He didn't.
Clang!
"Henry, please."
One of the fiery specks spat out of the forge an landed on Henry's arm, searing his flesh. Punishing himself, he did not stop to remove it until finally, with one quick motion, he gestured violently towards the door, shaking it off.
"Valerie, leave," he snarled. "I don't want you to see me like this.

Peter..."
He straightened, his back to her like a wall. Then, slowly, he turned his face toward her and met her eyes. His gaze sliced through her like a knife.
Before she could stop herself, she asked, "Do you remember—"
He took a step toward her. She felt the hear flare up between them.
"How could I forget?