What if the Tinman has found Remy? What if he’s making his way down into the tunnel already, close on our heels?
I glance back over my shoulder and quickly right myself again. The darkness behind us is all-consuming. Terrifyingly close.
Goosebumps lift on my arms.
Finally, we reach the end of the tunnel and find another ladder that leads up into the ceiling. Rook holds the candle up, revealing a tangled web of more roots over the trapdoor.
“Hold this,” he tells me and hands off the bottle. I keep it aloft, shedding light on the exit as he pulls at the tangle of roots.
Dirt runs down around us. Toto yips as a thick clod bounces off his forehead. “Stay behind me,” I tell him, and he winds through my legs, shielding himself from the worst of it.
“Rook,” I say, as he fights with a thick root tangled up with another. “I’ve been thinking… Henrietta said the Tinman loves you and hates you.”
The root gives and Rook stumbles back.
“Do you think… I mean… how I found you, the way you were injured…”
He stops and turns to face me. There’s a smudge of dirt on the sharp line of his jaw. The candle flame flickers in the reflection of his green eyes.
“He wants you dead, so you must be enemies,” I say. “But that means he knows who you are.”
The corner of his mouth lifts. “Are you suggesting I ask him for my name next time he’s trying to chop me down with his axe?”
“No! But…” I sigh. “You’re making fun of me.”
“No, I’m not, Kansas. I just find your innocence endearing.” He rips down another root. “And adorable.”
Heat rushes to my cheeks. In the days we’ve been together, he’s gotten better and better at charming me into submission.
Is he doing it on purpose?
“Maybe there is room for reasoning with him,” I say.
“His axe seemed like a pretty clear message.”
“Yes, but perhaps there’s more to the story.”
“There always is.”
“So don’t you want to know it? Don’t you want to know your story?”
The final root comes down and the door comes into view. Rook takes the candle from me and sets it on one of the flat rungs of the ladder closer to the top so he can inspect the exit. “A heartless man will never give up information freely.” He runs his fingers under the lip of the door and the old wood creaks. “The Tinman is a Soldier of Fortune; what he gives, he does not give freely, and I’m not interested in buying my story. Certainly not from him.”
I rake my teeth over my bottom lip. “I suppose you’re right.”
He dusts off his hands and steps away from the ladder to face me. “Can I tell you a secret, Kansas?”
The smile that comes to my lips is automatic. “Yes, of course.”
“I would rather write a new story with you. Word by word. Page by page.”
I let out a little gasp of surprise as butterflies spin in my stomach.
I search his face again, checking for levity. But he’s serious now, a pinch furrowing the lines between his dark brows. He seems desperate for something but I don’t know what.
Henrietta’s warning runs through my mind.
Yours is the kind of love that changes the wind and breaks the stars.
