Chapter 5

Rhea’s POV

The sounds came back to me before the light did.

Maisie's breathing, muffled by the pillow. Tessa turning, the rope bed creaking beneath her.

Outside, past the shutters, a man called a count, and another answered from the same direction as yesterday.

I lay still and compared the rest with what I'd memorized the night before—the draft under the door, the smell of horses and cold mud—and when it all matched, I sat up.

The room was bigger than the first one, and farther from the hall.

Nobody had told us why we'd been moved or who'd decided it, and I hadn't asked, because asking might give them a chance to refuse.

The window latch was a loose pin through a metal loop, and I'd checked it twice before sleeping.

The keyhole had been dark all night, which meant no one had put a light to it from the other side. I'd checked that too.

Tessa was already up in the thin light from the window with a torn sleeve across her knee, squinting at her own stitches.

She glanced over when I moved. "He asked you about the road."

"The escort. Where they changed horses, who took the money." I kept my voice down for Maisie. "I told him what I could."

"What you could." She laid the needle flat on the cloth and waited.

"The fork at the salt track. The yard with the well. The man with the mark on his jaw." I pulled the blanket straight and didn't look at her. "That's what I had."

She didn't ask again.

"I'm going to get the knife back," I said. "And finish the rest of it."

She held out the mended sleeve without looking up. "Put this on first."

There had been two guards in the corridor last night. This morning there was one. He straightened before I reached him and held out a key.

Small, iron, nothing unusual.

I took it and turned it over in my palm.

"That's yours," he said. "Captain's orders. The only other key was the master key, and he had it taken off the ring this morning."

The teeth looked right for the lock I'd checked. I closed my fingers around it. "Where does he work?"

"Study. I can take you—"

"Just tell me the way."

I followed his directions with the key pressed into my palm.

The study door was half open. I knocked anyway, and he said, "Come in."

Papers in three piles across the desk, a lamp that had burned out, a coat over the chair.

When he turned and saw me, he reached out and turned the nearest sheet facedown on the desk.

"The knife," I said.

He opened the bottom drawer and set it on the edge of the desk, the wrapped grip toward me.

I crossed and picked it up. One turn of the cloth had come loose, and I tightened it.

"I want to finish the rest," I said. "Your promise in writing today. In Tessa's hand before I tell you anything else."

"I'll buy all three of your contracts and give you your freedom once you've helped me identify the men and told me what you witnessed. I can put that in writing today. It won't be a release until the contracts are settled."

"Then give her the written promise first. If I have to finish first, you can still decide not to give us anything." I kept my hands at my sides. "You want the road. I'm not handing over the road and hoping."

He took his time with it.

"Written and given to her today," he said. "I won't hand either of them over while you're helping me. You still can't leave until you're finished."

"And if I die before I'm finished?"

"Then I still buy their contracts and set them free."

"Write that in."

He picked up the pen and wrote it.

"Second thing. If the man's gone, if the arrows are gone and there's nothing left to find, I'm not held responsible."

"I told you. I want what you know, not a guaranteed result."

"I know what you told me. I want it said plainly. I don't owe you for what can't be found."

He set the pen down. "You don't owe me for what can't be found."

I thought over his answer. "Good."

That should have been the end of it.

I had the knife, he had agreed to put his promise in writing, and I was still standing in his study turning the grip over in my hand when I heard myself ask, "What will you pay for me?"

It was out before I'd decided to say it.

He didn't hesitate. He told me the number. "That's what I intend to offer. Nothing's been paid yet."

I'd priced myself before, riding in the back of a wagon with my wrists tied and nothing to do but get the arithmetic wrong.

What he said was more. Not much.

My face grew hot, and I stood there with my jaw set, waiting for him to use the number against me.

"Is there anything else?" he said.

I wanted something to say that would make the last half minute less strange, and what came out was, "I'll need another pair of boots. Ones that fit."

Sharper than I meant.

He didn't blink. "I'll have someone see to it."

I stopped with my hand on the doorframe and nearly said something else. Nearly. Then I left.

Maisie was on the floor when I got back, hunting through the hem of her blanket for something she'd tucked there and forgotten.

She looked up and went back to it.

"You sorted it?" Tessa asked.

"His promise in writing today, in your hand. He won't hand either of you over while I'm helping him. Once I've finished, he buys all three contracts and gives us our freedom. If I die first, he still buys yours and Maisie's and sets you free. And I'm not held responsible for anything that can't be found."

Tessa folded her hands in her lap. "Anything you didn't tell him?"

"Nothing that matters yet."

She reached for the finished sleeve, set it aside, and said no more.

Maisie pulled out a flattened heel of bread from the blanket hem, held it out like a prize, broke it in two, and pushed half at Tessa without looking.

Tessa took it.

I thought about the piece I'd pressed flat against my ribs last night and said nothing.

I sat on the bed, the knife across my knees, the key still in my coat pocket.

Men used what they had the moment they had it. But he didn't use that number to demand more from me.

That didn't make him safe. It made him harder to read, and I didn't know which one bothered me more.