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manage to blurt out an apology before she either buried a knife in his gut or simply turned and walked away from him. He could safely say he wouldn’t have been surprised by either. It had been all he could do on the plains to make sure she stayed beside him—
    Which she wasn’t, at the moment.
    He spun around, dragged his damp sleeve across his eyes to clear them, but saw nothing of her. He hadn’t felt anyone with magic around him, but then again, he was hardly one to judge such a thing. He cursed fluently, then strode back the way he’d come. He ignored the pubs and inns. She had no more gold than he did, which was none, and whilst she might have been willing to work for a meal, he suspected she would have first sought nothing more than a place to hide. He passed two alleyways before he hit upon the right one. Sarah was there.
    So were a handful of lads who had apparently found her worth a second look.
    He strode forward, took the two lads closest to him, and cracked their heads together. They slumped to the cobblestones with remarkable grace, all things considered. Sarah struck the third in the nose, sending him stumbling backward. Ruith reached for the fourth only to have him cry out suddenly and bolt past him.
    Never a good sign, that sort of thing.
    Ruith felt the shadow sweep over him before he saw it, but shadow it was and not one made by the heavy clouds hanging overhead. He reached for Sarah’s hand and pulled her into a stumbling run over the slippery stone toward the alley’s entrance, hoping to blend in with the shrieking thug who was clutching his nose and stumbling about. Sarah fought him briefly, then fell abruptly silent.
    Ruith pulled Sarah under his cloak and backed her against the wall with more force than he meant to.
    “Careful, damn you—” she gasped.
    “Feign interest,” he begged.
    She glared at him before she wrapped her good arm around his neck and pulled his head down where she could whisper furiously in his ear. “If I thought I could stick you between the ribs and not swing for it, I would, you unfeeling, unpleasant ... impolite ...” She spluttered a bit, seemingly unable to lay her hand upon an insult vile enough to suit her. “I would call you a mannerless whoreson,” she said finally and with a distinct chill to her voice, “but that would be an insult to your honorable dam, who I’m quite sure would be terribly ashamed of how you’ve behaved over the past several days.”
    He agreed, silently. He would have attempted a brief apology, but he didn’t suppose Sarah was in the mood to hear it, and he didn’t dare take his attention off what he feared was coming their way. Sarah’s arm trembled so violently, he feared she would either truly do him a goodly bit of damage or collapse from weariness. He slipped his arm behind her back to hold her up, which displeased her every bit as much as he’d expected it might.
    “If you think I’m going one step farther with you, Your Highness ,” she said in a voice that trembled as badly as the rest of her, “you are sorely mis—”
    “Sshh,” he whispered frantically, pulling her closer. He hazarded a glance to his left. A dragon had swept but a foot over the heads of the local civilians, sending most of them sprawling onto the cobblestones. The dragon laughed before it disappeared and a man stood in its place.
    Ruith turned back to Sarah and bent his head forward to hide hers. He heard footsteps coming toward the alley, then heard them pause. He held his breath, because there was nothing else to be done. The evil that flowed ahead of the man standing there was like a strong wind before the brunt of a storm. Ruith didn’t consider himself particularly self-effacing, but he would readily admit he wasn’t up to besting even the forefront of that storm.
    Damn it anyway.
    After several eternal moments, boots scuffed, then walked on, their heels clicking against the stone.
    Ruith would have dropped to his knees if he’d had the