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"Robin, the camp is…”

"We're not going to the camp." I got us moving toward the tree line with his blood running warm down my side. "You wanted to catch the Ghost of Sherwood so badly?"

I dragged him into the dark under the pines, where the ground went hard and would not hold a trail.

"Congratulations. You're coming home with her."

14

ROBIN

The cabin above the north spring hadn’t been opened in many years. It sat covered in moss and vines, nearly hidden against the greenery and landscape.

But, the door still knew me.

It stuck in the same place at the same height, and I put my shoulder into it exactly where my father used to. As if sighing a sigh of relief, it gave with the same complaining scrape. Dust rolled out at us in a gray wave. The hearth was full of old ash and a bird's nest, the shutters had warped in their frames, and the table my grandfather built still stood in the middle of the floor with his initials cut into the leg.

My father had brought me here every autumn of my childhood. We’d hunted badly, ate well, and slept in that single bed under the eaves while he told me which stars were which.

Bringing the Sheriff of Nottingham through that door felt close to sacrilege. He tried to walk himself to the bed, and made it just a few steps before his legs nearly gave out.

I got under his arm and took his weight again, and it was like catching a falling wall.

"Still fine?" I said.

"Perfectly."

I sighed. “Wonderful. Bleed somewhere less inconvenient."

"I'll endeavor to be more considerate."

"Start now."

I got him onto the mattress and cut his shirt away from his side with my dagger while he breathed through his teeth and did not make a single sound about it.

That should have been the only thing I noticed.

The wound.

The blood.

Whether he was going to die in my father's bed and force me to explain that particular disaster to God when my own time came. Instead, when I peeled the ruined fabric away, I discovered that the Sheriff of Nottingham was built like a man who was nothing short of being built like the perfect warrior.

Of course. Broad chest. Hard stomach. Old scars crossing newer ones.

A pale line beneath his ribs that had nothing to do with me and another along his shoulder that disappeared around his back. I stared approximately one second too long.

"Robin."

My eyes snapped to his and there was pain in his face. There was also amusement.

"What?"

His mouth moved. "Nothing."

"Good."

I looked back at the wound. "Because I have a knife."