Chapter 4: Foolish child

Another beat. Then Lady Merivelle finally spoke in full, her voice calm and dry as a bookshop in a drought.

“Let’s adopt him.”

The nobleman turned so fast his chair creaked like a ship in a storm.

“What?”

She sipped from a goblet. “We’ve adopted stray cats with worse temperaments.”

Kaz bowed deeply, flourishing a nonexistent hat.

“I am housebroken and respond well to praise.”

“And cheese,” he added after a pause. “Just in case.”

The nobleman looked around the chamber. Advisors were shaking their heads, nodding, whispering, scribbling frantically, or doing all four at once.

The court had ceased being a court and had, somehow, become a stage , one with Kaz at the center and everyone else following his cue like it had been in the script all along.

“You,” said the nobleman at last, pointing a ringed finger at the boy like a magistrate about to sentence a pie. “Are absurd.”

Kaz placed a hand over his heart.

“Absurdity, my lord, is just honesty in a funny hat.”

And so the nobleman leaned back, finally, with a sigh that tasted faintly of surrender.

“Very well. You shall stay. On probation.”

Kaz’s eyes lit up.

“Oh! I love probation. It's like being in trouble, but with snacks.”

The gavel came down, metaphorically.

And in that moment, the court didn’t so much agree as realize it had already agreed some time ago, probably around the bit with the goose.

Because Kaz Swindleton was no longer simply a boy before the court.

He was the court’s main character now.

And heaven help them,

They liked it.

Just as the court began to recover its sense of dignity, dusting off its metaphorical wig, its great oaken doors burst open with the force and grace of someone unfamiliar with subtlety but very familiar with kicking.

In stomped a woman in a weatherbeaten cloak, with the look of someone who had personally fought bureaucracy and come out mostly victorious, though slightly tea-stained.

She was broad-shouldered, iron-voiced, and carried the weary energy of a woman who had once tried to corral forty-seven orphans with nothing but a tin whistle and raw determination.

Miss Lorrimere had the distinct aura of a woman who had been through far too much nonsense to tolerate even one additional ounce of it, and yet here she was, standing ankle-deep in it, because Kaz Swindleton had once again helped himself to destiny.

She planted her boots squarely in the marble floor, took in the high-domed ceiling, the tapestry of some poor sod being beheaded with artistic flair, and then fixed her gaze on the nobleman’s chair with the determination of someone who had absolutely no time for furniture with titles.

“Lord Feathermoore, is it?” she said.

“Yes,” said the nobleman. “Unless you’ve come to tell me otherwise.”

“Good. I’m here to beg for the life of Kaz Swindleton.”

Lord Feathermoore pinched the bridge of his nose. “No one is executing him.”

Miss Lorrimere looked nonplussed. “He’s still alive?”

“Against all odds,” he muttered.

“Legally, I must attempt to prevent his execution once a month,” she said. “It’s in his orphanage file. Section E: ‘Likelihood of Public Hanging: Moderate to Concerning.’”

Kaz beamed. “I’m trending toward ‘beloved rogue,’ Miss Lorrimere!”

“You’re trending toward strangled in your sleep, if you don’t shut it,” she snapped.

Lady Merivelle, who until now had been sipping wine and delighting in the unfolding scene like someone watching a favorite opera where the soprano is also a sheep, leaned forward.

“I’m quite fond of him,” she said.

“You’ve known him fifteen minutes.” Lord Feathermore muttered

“Precisely,” she said, smiling at Kaz. “That’s all it took to realize he’s dangerous in the best way.”

“I have aspirations,” Kaz agreed. “Mostly horizontal ones, involving featherbeds.”

Lord Feathermoore groaned.

“I cannot, cannot,have it getting around that I adopted a street rat with a glint in his eye and a warrant in three districts.”

“I prefer urban entrepreneur,” Kaz offered helpfully.

“I prefer not being publicly mocked at court luncheons,” said Feathermoore.

“Adopted children should be in vogue,” Lady Merivelle said airily. “It shows generosity. Humanity. Warmth.”

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“It shows we have no control over our own front door,” the nobleman said. “We were one goose prophecy away from a scandal.”

Miss Lorrimere perked up.

“You heard about the goose?”

“There is a file,” muttered one of the advisors, flipping pages. “Several affidavits. A song.”

Kaz placed a hand over his chest.

“It was a musical misunderstanding.”

“Someone ended up married,” the nobleman said flatly.

“Yes, but happily!” Kaz protested. “Which is statistically rare in poultry-based unions.”

Miss Lorrimere sighed.

“Look, Lord Feathermoore, I don’t care what you do with him. Just don’t kill him. I’m running out of sympathy cards, and last time he died he got better, and then there was a funeral I had to cancel, and,”

“Wait,” Lady Merivelle cut in, setting down her goblet.

“Last time?”

Kaz coughed delicately.

“Technically declared dead. There was a clerical error. And a minecart.”

“And a ferret,” Miss Lorrimere added grimly.

Lady Merivelle clapped her hands, delighted.

“He’s perfect.”

“He’s a disaster in trousers!” barked Feathermoore.

“He called my advisors emotionally compromised chess pieces ...... Indirectly !”

“They are, ” Kaz said. “The bishop nearly cried.”

Feathermoore turned to his wife.

“You are not seriously suggesting we bring him into the household.”

“I’m suggesting,” said Merivelle, rising with the sort of serene authority that made thrones feel self-conscious,

“that we have just been handed the most entertaining, infuriating, utterly ungovernable young man in the kingdom. Who, For all his chaos, he has gotten an entire court to listen. To laugh. To bend.”

She reached out and straightened Kaz’s scarf, which had somehow gotten tangled with a quill and possibly a breadstick.

“Someone is going to adopt him,” she said gently.

“And I’d rather it be us than the Guild of Reasonably Priced Assassins.”

Kaz looked up at her with wide, glistening eyes that could only be achieved by a combination of emotional sincerity and well-timed onion pocketdust.

“I shall do you proud, Lady Merivelle,” he whispered.

“I sincerely doubt that,” she replied fondly.

“But at least you’ll keep things interesting.”

“I could start small,” Kaz offered.

“Organize the library. Rebrand the family motto. Fill the moat with something thematic.”

Feathermoore looked at his wife. Then at Kaz. Then at Miss Lorrimere, who mouthed mercy, and then at the ceiling, presumably for divine assistance.

“You,” he said slowly, “will sleep in the attic. You will eat at the servant’s table. And you will cause no more than one scandal per quarter.”

Kaz bowed with dramatic flair.

“As long as snacks are included.”

The nobleman groaned.

“I am going to be remembered as that, lord. The one with the boy.”

“You’ll be remembered,” Kaz promised,

“as the man who took a chance on legend.”

“And as the man who banned geese from the premises,” Feathermoore muttered.

Lady Merivelle looped her arm around Kaz’s shoulder.

“Come, dear. Let’s find you something dramatic to wear.”

“I like her best,” Kaz whispered to Miss Lorrimere as he was led away.

“She understands branding.”

Miss Lorrimere pinched the bridge of her nose and muttered to the nearest advisor,

“Just you wait. Give it three months, and he’ll be hosting council meetings and charging admission.”

And the advisor, who had once chaired a committee on tax reform and now seriously considered hiding under a table, nodded and said only:

“I think He already has a seating chart.”

There was a long pause the type a mother exudes before her boy goes to war.

“...You’re really adopting Kaz?”

“Technically,” said Lady Merivelle, stopping mid-stride,

“we’re being adopted by him.”

The orphan matron’s face did something peculiar, it rearranged itself several times, as if trying on different emotions before settling somewhere between confusion and resigned affection.

“Well,” she said at last with just the hint of motherly sorrow,

“that tracks.”

Kaz stepped beside her and patted her hand.

“Now, now, don’t fret. You’ll still be allowed visitation.

I’ll need help organizing my loyal child army.”

“You mean the other orphans?”

“Precisely. The Swindleton Initiative for Wayward and Alarmingly Talented Youths is still in progress.”

The nobleman, against all odds, was still seated and still conscious. He rubbed his temples.

“You’re creating a guild.”

“A family,” Kaz corrected.

“With some light adventuring. And uniforms, of course.”

Lady Merivelle raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of uniforms?”

“Patchwork capes. No capes? Jury’s out. Depends on the fabric budget and how easily they catch fire.”

Miss Lorrimere turned to the court.

“He’s technically not lying,” she said.

“Most of the children at the orphanage now follow him around like ducklings who’ve been given lockpicks.”

“Do they have names asked Lady Merivelle?”

“Most of them. Some go by ‘Lefty’ and ‘That One’. But Kaz is teaching them poetry, fencing, and... well, creative escape routes.”

“I’m preparing the next generation,” Kaz said proudly.

“They’ll either be legends, or minor footnotes in very interesting scandals.”

There was another silence.

The nobleman opened his mouth. Closed it. Opened it again.

“I need tea.”

Kaz stepped forward with that grin, the one that had slowly but surely conquered the room.

“And I,” he declared, “need a room with dramatic curtains, a fainting sofa, and maybe a hidden door or two. Also possibly a cat with an eyepatch. For ambiance.”

Lady Merivelle laughed, not quietly this time.

Miss Lorrimere shook her head fondly and muttered,

“Just promise me you won’t start a war.”

“No promises,” Kaz said solemnly.

“But if I do, it’ll be the funny kind.”

And with that, Kaz Swindleton, age ten, formerly of the Brindle Ward, official probable orphan and unofficial chaos specialist, took his first step into his new life.