“It’s my business if that snake-tongue solicitor has turned you against me.”
My eyes went wide, and I instinctively put my hands out in front of me. Where was this vitriol for Draw coming from? If anything, he should be mad at me. “Whoa—”
“It’s one thing if you’re going to distract the queen’s solicitor from his work, another if you’re going to plot with him against issues of interest to the crown.”
I had been ready to apologize, diffuse his anger, but my own, already tempered high from Sorrel’s letter, was ready to ignite.
“Don’t be an idiot,” I spat. “Why do you think I came all this way—to help the queen and, duh, that includes you by extension. If you wanted to talk more about your sister, you could have calmly approached me anytime on the road in the past two days.”
“So, you do have more information about Bianca.”
His hand snapped out so fast I didn’t see it coming. He tore Sorrel’s letter out of my hand, nearly ripping it.
I have to get that back. He wouldn’t understand all the references, but it was definitely the kind of suspicious evidence the queen loved to hold trials over.
I threw myself at Ironclaw, attempting to wrestle the paper from his hand. He held it over my head, trying to read it as I jostled him, batting at the letter to grab it.
“Give it back,” I grunted. My hand made contact with his jaw.
He shrugged me off and stepped back, putting his hand on the hilt of one dagger. I forced myself to look him directly in the eye. It’s not as if I meant to punch him.
The truth was though, if Ironclaw wanted to do me harm, there was no stopping him. The only redeeming fact of the current situation was that his eyes were no longer on the paper but on me.
“What’s going on here?” Draw materialized at Ironclaw’s side, looking fierce. He was back in his gray robes with a stack of bound papers under one arm. I knew he had gone to collect signatures, a quick switch back to business after our afternoon date. Now his face looked sharp, his eyes narrowed at his cousin. The letter was well within his reach. He plucked the parchment out of Ironclaw’s hand, took one glance at it to check the addressee, and thrust it at me. “Dottie, are you okay?”
“Yeah—”
“This witch of yours is proving to be as wily as you, Draw.”
“You’ll address her as Lady Dottie and do well to remember she’s under the queen’s own protection. Get your hand off that knife.” He hissed, “This isn’t a tavern brawl.”
Other members of the camp had been going about their business, but now with Draw’s and Ironclaw’s raised voices, it was inevitable they’d take interest. A serving boy elbowed his friend, and two women seated on a bench outside the saddle tent paused in their conversation to watch us.
I stepped between Draw and Ironclaw, the men towering over me on either side. I needed to diffuse this as quickly as possible. “Sir Ironclaw, I just wanted to let you know you’d find your sister by the end of this war with the Dark Mage. That’s all I had to say. I thought you’d appreciate the reassurance.”
He looked slightly mollified, but his voice was still needlessly rough. “Then why not say it that day by the stream? Why play these games?”
“I thought you’d rather hear it in private—”
Ironclaw turned to his cousin. “LadyDottie outright propositioned me. She’s loose. But perhaps you already knew that about your fling, Draw?”
Draw’s jaw flexed. The unfortunate thing was there was no way to refute what Ironclaw said because Ihaddrawn myself into a mess of a situation. In this instance though, Draw didn’t seem to care if Ironclaw was being logical or not.
His response came swift and easy. “Jealous she chose me?”
Ironclaw made a noise akin to what you might hear from a bear.
“Dottie,” Draw continued in a decisively unruffled voice, “do me a favor and go to my tent.”
“But—”
“Please, Dottie.”
I looked between the two cousins, both faces firm with anger. One white-knuckling a sheath of documents, the other the hilt of his knife. The crowd had grown around us as soldiers gathered to watch completely unabashed. Perhaps my leaving was the only way to diffuse the situation. I didn’t think it would come to blows and Ironclaw couldn’t kidnap Draw in front of all these people.
“Fine. I’ll see you there in five minutes.” That was all I was giving him out of my sight.
I glanced back only once before turning into the rows of tents. Draw’s face was rigid, his hands in the air in front of him as he snarled at his cousin. Ironclaw was shaking his head in frustration and snapped something back. The crowd seemed to lean forward as Draw dropped his voice.
