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them.”
    His shoulders dropped. “I will see what I can do to help them,” he said solemn.
    â€œI didn’t mean for you to take responsibility,” I told him, shaking my head.
    â€œAnd yet I must. Nobles are frightened, Lady Marian. They aren’t defending their people, much less taking care of them. They are afraid of mobs and riots, of starvation and poverty. They are neglecting their duty. But I will not forget what that duty is. Even if I must do the work of others.”
    â€œPerhaps that is true,” I told him. “But you didn’t kill that boy. I didn’t kill that boy. I will find out who made that man believe he had any right to do it.” I shook my head. “Have you . . .” I drew a breath, trying to find the words. “When did you last—when did you see him?”
    He swallowed. “A few weeks ago.”
    I just looked at him.
    â€œHe . . . he would greatly benefit from hearing you’re alive,” he told me.
    His careful words stabbed me. “He’s not doing well,”I said.
    â€œHe’s not bad,” Allan said, and I looked to him. “He’s just not nearly the same man he is when you’re with him, lady thief.”
    Winchester wouldn’t look at me.
    I tried to swallow, but the thought stuck in my throat.
    â€œMy lord,” said a quiet voice, and Winchester turned to one of his guards. He gestured him forward, and the man murmured something to Winchester, who sighed. He nodded.
    â€œLady Marian, please excuse me. There’s a dispute in the town I should go settle.”
    I nodded.
    â€œEat and drink; I don’t know when the queen mother will arrive, but you should probably rest,” he said, and his eyes moved over me in the same way David’s did. I pulled the cloak tighter around me. Honestly. I were alive, and after three months in prison, I were grateful for that.

    His servants led me to a room, while David and Allan went to the knights’ barracks—to Allan’s horror—but before they went Allan pulled the small stack of letters he’d shown me the night before from his satchel. He handed it to me, meeting my eyes and nodding once, and I took it, holding it against me.
    I sat in the room, staring at the pile. There were five letters. I’d counted them twice, laid them all out without breaking their seals. They were numbered, but it were strange—they weren’t in any order I knew. The first were 27, then 52, then 76, then 91, and 132. Each one bore my name. The first one had my name in tight scrawl, like it were hasty, desperate, but 76 started to get wider, looser, softer. Easier.
    I traced the letters with my fingers, but I didn’t open them. Now that we were here, now that Eleanor were coming, maybe I could go back to Nottingham.
    But no matter where I went, if Prince John knew I lived, he would find me. He would hunt me down, and he would make the people I loved pay for my being alive before he took my life at last. He’d branded me a traitor, and there were little I could do to stop him.
    Maybe he wouldn’t kill me. Maybe he’d throw me back in a prison, a place of darkness, until the world forgot I’d been there at all.
    How long would it take Rob to forget me?
    There weren’t no answers that would satisfy me. But I knew that if I opened one of Rob’s letters, saw his writing and pictured him penning the things to me, I’d go. I’d go straight away to Nottingham, and I’d risk watching him die in front of me at Prince John’s gleeful hand.
    Stacking and tying them careful, I put them away and lay on the bed.

CHAPTER

    Eleanor didn’t arrive until the next morning. When she came, it were in a carriage, with a small cadre of knights behind her. I frowned to see it from a window of the manor—she were the queen mother. She needed more protection than a handful of knights, no matter how loyal they were.
    I came away