Simple

It had all seemed so simple.
 
The young masters were playing a game under the kitchen window. They crept closer and closer, their footsteps crunching across the dry grass. They must have thought themselves masters of stealth, in the way only cubs could - with hurried whispers and muffled giggles they were sure no one could hear.
 
They were heard, of course. The cooks would glance toward the window, smiling or frowning at every sound. They'd wait until the last possible instant, when the footsteps stopped beneath the sill, when a small hand reached up over a tray of cooling pastries. Then one would bark a sharp word in one language or another, and the cubs would tumble away from the window in a fit of laughter. They'd scamper back into the bushes, hiding themselves with much to-do. And then the game would begin all over again.
 
The sun had already set, that day. It would still be several hours before the dinner bell, but this close to winter, twilight already held the estate in its shadowy grip. The boys ducked in and out of the darkness, enamored just as much with scaring each other as with their attempted heist. And Muse sat crouched, masked in the shadows of a hedgerow, watching. Waiting. Planning.
 
A quick breath of wind and flower petals through the open window had been enough to distract the cooks. They'd snagged two pastries off the sill and pressed their back against the wall, listening for any sign they had been noticed. When no alarm was raised, they slipped away along the side of the manor, satisfaction sitting warm in their chest.
 
It had seemed so simple.
 
The boys had come racing around the corner of the manor, Big Son chasing Small Son, his hands curled into false claws. Small Son, running full-tilt, had caught his toe on the edge of a raised garden bed. And Muse had leapt out of a shadow, catching him by the scruff before he fell, their stolen pastries forgotten.
 
The boys went shock-still. Even in the dim light of dusk, Muse saw the color drain from their faces and their eyes go wide as mushroom caps. And half a heartbeat later, Small Son began to scream.
 
They were surrounded in a matter of seconds. Small Son's fear had sent Big Son into hysterics, too. By the time the Mistri and New Mistress arrived, there was no consoling either of them. The uproar of crying and shouting was overwhelming, and Muse had already shrunk down to the grass, pressing their hands flat over their ears - but nothing could drown out the voices that cracked over them like a physical blow.
 
"Bad enough they sneak around the windows instead of working, but theft, now, too?
 
"And laying hands on the boys! I swear, they get worse by the year."
 
"Adair Bélanger Weiss, what did that relic of yours do to my children?"
 
The Mistress was already glaring at them, her grey eyes full of thunder. And when the Mistri's pale, clear eyes turned toward them, the ice in them made the world drop out from underneath Muse's feet.
 
"Servant's door, Muse. Now."
 
It had seemed so simple. A stern word, a locked door, and the family had disappeared - into the house, into the past, into a fading, watecolor memory.
 
…Until now.