The door is open, and a figure stands in the doorway, but with the light behind them, there’s no way to see who it is. Light glints on a weapon near the wagon, and my heart pounds, but I realize it’s Saeth, ready for trouble. The low murmur of voices carries back to us through the rain, but I can’t make out much of what they’re saying. Francis must be convincing, however, because eventually the door closes, and the figure follows Francis out into the weather.
When they pass Saeth, he steps out of the shadows, and Reed must sense a threat, because he tries to whirl.
My guard stops him with a hand on his shoulder. “It’s Saeth. Keep walking. Head for the wagon.”
The shock on Reed’s face is visible in the shadows, but he keeps walking.
That shock doubles when he gets to the wagon and Thorin gives him a nod and murmurs, “Nice night, eh, Reed?”
The shock triples when I step down from the wagon to face him.
He inhales sharply, but before he can sayexactlywhat I know he’s going to say, which could give us all away, I point at the wheel. “Take a look. Can you fix it?”
I’ve made my voice an order, and he looks at the wheel automatically, but I can see him trying to work out the implications of my presence here. Thorin is close, and Francis is hopefully near the back of the wagon, providing lookout as he promised.
“Down here,” I say, pointing. “It looks like a rock has broken the wheel. Crouch down for a better look.”
He obeys, and I follow. Almost immediately, he turns to look at me, and I shake my head.
“Keep your eyes on the wheel,” I say. “Look like you’re examining it.”
He nods and swallows. “Yes, Your—”
“No,” I say. “No titles.”
He nods again. “As you say. But there’s no damage.”
“I know. I need to talk to you. Thorin guessed my personal guards would be dismissed. We were worried you might be in the Hold. Are you being watched?”
“No, Your—No.For the first few days, I think we were. But there must be too many of us. They still come every morning to question whether we’ve seen you. They ask the neighbors, too.”
I glance under the wagon at the other houses. A curtain shifts in the window of one, and a shadow moves in the window of another. We need to be quick here.
“What else?” I ask him.
“They’ve promised a thousand silvers to the first guard to report your whereabouts.”
I let out a breath. That’s quite a sum. Far more than I would have guessed. A far larger reward than I ever would have offered, for anyone.
The consuls must be desperate to find me. I wonder if it’s proving harder to paint the king as a criminal if they don’t have me in a cell. A tiny flicker of hope burns in my heart.
“Is anyone tempted?” says Thorin.
“At first we all scoffed,” Reed says. “But—but much has happened. They’ve frozen our pay and our accounts. They’ve implied we were assisting the king, so a lot of the merchants won’t sell to us. Food has grown scarce. I’ve been scraping by, but it’s been more than a week. A few of the families aren’t doing well.”
I have to fight to keep my eyes on the wheel instead of looking at Saeth, but I know he heard that.
We’ll fetch your family, I think.I promise.
“We’re being watched from the houses,” says Thorin, and there’s an urgency in his tone that I cannot ignore. I glance back under the wagon just as another curtain shifts.
I look back at Reed. He’s young, and I haven’t known him as long as many of my other guards. It’s hard to put loyalty up against a thousand silvers if they’re being starved out of their homes. Right now he’s tense, biting back a shiver as rain threads his hair, his eyes fixed on the wheel.
My chest is tight, because he could refuse to join us, and there’d be absolutely nothing I could do about it—aside from kill him to keep our presence a secret.
“I didn’t do the things they’ve said,” I say to him. “I haven’t poisoned the people. This is another attempt to take the throne.”
He nods. “I know.” He glances at me before looking back at the wheel. “But Captain Huxley stripped our weapons on the first day you were gone. Some suspected—”
