“I won’t apologize for wanting to take care of you, May,” he answered, kneeling in front of me. I couldn’t find the words to reply, and the tournament trumpets began to sound in the distance. Will turned his head to listen, then looked back at me, his face a mask of pain and indecision.
“Please, don’t do this,” I whispered, brushing hair away from his face. “Please, come away with me. I’ll never hate you, no matter how hard it is. No matter how many nights we spend sleeping on a cold floor or working our fingers to the bone. As long as I have you…please…”
The trumpets sounded again.
“Will you be here when I get back?” he asked.
“If you cannot love me in broad daylight, Will, then you do not love me at all,” I said, holding his gaze. “You can still choose me. I am begging you to choose me…” He leaned closer, wiping tears from my cheeks and cupping my face in his hands—a loving gesture that felt more like he was ripping my heart from my chest.
“I love you, May,” he said steadily, “and I’ve only ever wanted to take care of you. That’s what I’ll be shooting for—you, and our future. I hope you can forgive the path I take to get there.”
The trumpets blasted once more, and he pressed a brief kiss to my forehead, then picked up his bow. I watched him walk toward the bramble patch, where he stopped and looked back for a moment. Only when he was gone did I let myself fall apart completely.
How foolish could I have been? Why had I been so certain that he would come with me? That he would leave everything he had ever known or wanted behind? As dearly as I loved Will, I also knew him, and I knew, deep down, that he was a coward. He had never been able to stand up to his father, and he certainly wouldn’t do it in front of Johar, with every eye in the city on him. He would accept the Prince’s favor, and Helena’s kiss. All I had to decide now was where I wanted to be when he returned. There was no place left for me. Not with Will, and not at Locksley. But as the understanding of my circumstances sunk deeper into my bones, it did not light a fire beneath me. All I wanted was to lie down and let the roots of the oak tree consume me, so I did. The grass was soft beneath my cheek, and another tiny green moth fluttered past my face to land on a root.
“Wouldyoulike to run away with me, little friend?” I murmured, choking on my own despair and isolation. “Or perhaps…” I reached into my pocket and drew out the Devil’s coin, which still bore the images of a dragon and a donkey. “Perhaps the Arden would be a kinder fate than this. If you’re listening, Devil…I think I’ve grown weary of the world of men…”
The insect did not reply, but the coin certainly did. It burned white hot, scorching my fingers and causing me to drop it with a yelp. When I sat up and found it beneath my skirt, I watched the image of the dragon slowly fade away. Carefully, I reached out and picked it up.
Blank.
Both faces, empty, smooth, and flat.
I staggered to my feet, chest heaving and panic overtaking my mind.
“Mercy, I didn’t mean right this very instant!” I hissed into the empty air. Feeling as though I were in a fever dream, I walked over to the fountain and dropped the coin into the brown, brackish water. It sank, but continued to glitter, as if it were mocking me. “Please, just…let me say goodbye to Will, and tell him what happened…please…just in case…”
In case I never returned.
I left my satchel lying beneath the oak tree and walked out through the brambles, then jogged along the bailey wall. A few straggling spectators were still heading for the tournament, mostly those who were so drunk they’d lost their way. They were loud and lewd, but I hardly noticed any of it. I felt like a deer cornered in a gully, and people pressing in on all sides only made it worse. When I finally made it into the tournament grounds, I went straight toward the royal box, where I knew it would be easier to catch Will’s attention. Squeezing through the crowd, I stood beside the outer wall of the box, corralled behind a fence and partially concealed in the green and gold velvet curtains. On the archery range, the competitors were making last minute adjustments to bowstrings and arrows. Once Will had finished his, I cupped my hands around my mouth to imitate the sound of a mourning dove. It was something he did to get my attention when he had snuck around beneath my window, and it worked like a charm, causinghis head to jerk up and his eyes to sweep the crowd. He spotted me quickly, then glanced behind him before coming over.
“You’re here,” he said with a wide smile. “I knew you’d—”
“My debt is due, Will,” I breathed. “He’s coming for me.”
“Fuck,” he muttered, hand tightening on his bow. “Fuck, May! But surely he won’t come here, with all these people, and the Iron Fist. Surely, we have a little time…”
I shook my head. “I…I asked him to come…”
“Youwhat?”
“What would you have me do?” I cried, then softened my voice to a whisper. “There is nothing left for me here, Will! Perhaps if I can pay my debt, then he’ll let me go…and then I can leave Nottingham.”
Will just growled, “Gods be damned, May, what were you thinking?” Desperately, he looked around, but spotted his father across the archery range and dropped his eyes. “Just…stay here. Don’t move. Stay where I can see you, and…and…”
“And you’ll do what?” I asked. “Refuse Helena? Stand up to your father and the Prince?”
“I don’t know!” he groaned. “I don’t know, but please don’t leave, May…please stay…”
“I’ll stay as long as I can, Will,” I said gently, squeezing his hand.
“I love you.”
I could not bring myself to say it back. He squeezed my hand in return before returning to the other archers, and I was left caught in a vice grip between fear and hope, anticipation and apathy, love and anger.
Yet another chorus of trumpets sounded and the crowd rose to their feet. From the back of the royal box, Prince Johar and his wife, Lady Rinelda, emerged. The couple were visual opposites—tall, lean, dark Johar and short, curvaceous, blonde Rinelda, who always had a loving smile for her husband no matter what atrocities he was committing. He always seemed to have a look of affection for her as well, and I often wondered how a man so seemingly heartless found it in him to love anyone at all.
Once Johar and Rinelda were seated, the crowd began to whisper and titter wildly. I had to lean forward in order to see that Lady Helena had entered the box, wearing a voluminous scarlet gown. I gritted my teeth as she took the seat beside her father and blew a kiss in Will’s direction. He plainly saw her and turned away, but I couldn’t help watching her for a moment. She was not at all unfortunate looking—blessed with cascading, yellow hair and blue eyes that would make asapphire envious. The only thing stopping me from being consumed with jealous rage was the fact that Helena was well-known for being cruel, obnoxious, and entitled, with a gift for acting and manipulation. In hushed tones, she was called ‘the Prince’s Shrew’, and was the only one of Johar’s four daughters to still be unmarried at nineteen years old. Rumors swirled, of course, since her sisters had all been married off much younger, but Will had informed me that Helena had more of an appetite for stable hands and men-at-arms than for the high-born suitors her father threw at her.
