“He’s here,” Elliot hisses, instantly jumping into action. Grabbing my arm, he pulls me behind his back at the same time he snatches his gun from its holster. “The lurker, ten o’clock.”
Swearing, Hex whips his head around to look in the right direction and bursts into a run, straight for a figure who vanishes down a side street.
Fear washes over me, leaving me dizzy. “Lurker?” I gasp. “What—”
Elliot stuffs his fingers into his mouth and whistles so loudly that my ears ring, then he backs me up against the wall, arms on either side of my head as he shields me with his body. My eyes lock on the shiny metal of his gun near my ear, my thoughts jumbled, and I can’t look away.
“Sir!” Multiple voices echo the word around us. Palace guards coming up from the beach?
“Elliot!”Sander.
“Possible hostile, south-southwest,” Elliot growls, pulling my attention to him. “Five with me. The rest, support pursuit.” He barely turns his head toward his men, keeping his sharp focus on me.
“Details,” Sander demands as several guards rush off in the same direction as Hex.
Sliding his arm behind my back, Elliot pulls me forward, not giving me a chance to get my bearings before he’s ushering me up a differentstreet, back toward the inn. Half a dozen guards, my brother included, surround us as we go. “Same man,” he says, the words clipped.
“As Breckenholt?” Sander asks.
I stumble on a cobblestone, but Elliot holds so tightly to me that I come nowhere close to falling. A blessing, I suppose, as I try to understand what is happening. The same man as who?
“He was half hidden, watching the princess.”
Sander swears and runs a hand through his hair. “Hex?”
“Went after him.”
“Good. What do you need from me?” I have never seen Sander this serious or focused, even as the less talkative twin, and he almost looks like a different person as he matches Elliot’s long strides perfectly. My carefree brother has been replaced by an imposing soldier, ready to follow orders.
Slowing his steps, Elliot waits for the guard in front of us to do a quick sweep of an intersecting street before we resume our hurried pace. “I need you to find Grimstad.”
“What?” The word slips off my tongue at the same time I try to come to a halt, though Elliot’s arm makes stopping impossible. “Grimstad? Why would—”
“Keep moving, Princess,” Elliot growls.
I gape at him, still fighting his hold. “You are giving me an order?”
“Sun’s down. Your day’s over, and you promised to obey. Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
Flashbacks of him carrying me over his shoulders in Invem fill my mind, and I relent, letting him continue guiding me up the street. “At least explain what is happening,” I demand, breathless from our speed.
Elliot glances down at me, his jaw tight and indecision in his eyes. If it were up to him, I am certain he would tell me nothing, but at this point he knows better than to fight me in every instance. He chooses to concede this particular battle. “Remember the man I told you about? The one watching the hotel in Breckenholt?”
Barely. “You said he was in Kirkstead as well, yes?”
“Inside the church,” Sander confirms.
So were a hundred other people.“You told me I did not need to worry about that man,” I argue, which is the very reason I had all but forgotten about him.
“That was before he showed up here,” Elliot says. “Sander.” He nods to his left, and Sander slips down an alley and disappears. Presumably to find Markham.
As the streets grow darker, my fear and confusion dim as well, and each step away from the beach is like a step toward normalcy. My thoughts still, leaving me with only facts rather than unfounded fears. An unidentified Candoran man was in Breckenholt, watching my hotel. The same man witnessed my disaster of a Q&A. Here in Havenford, he was, as Elliot put it, ‘half hidden’ and ‘watching’ me.
That is not much to go on.
We are all silent until we reach the inn, where Elliot directs half of the guards to check the building and my room despite two unfortunate guards having been stationed here all day. The rest of us remain outside in the chill dusk air, and I cannot simply stand here and accept this course of events.
“Elliot?”
