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It didn’t sound so bad, when I put it like that.
But I knew I couldn’t. I had come too far.
When Will Scarlet had told me to lean into my impulsiveness, I didn’t think he knew the sleeping huntress he would be waking.
This wasn’t impulsiveness or a rash decision, though. This wasn’t hardheadedness or being stubborn. This was a calculated maneuver I had planned, wishing to bring peace to the Merry Men, because they deserved the night like they had tonight every night. Cozying around the fires. Swapping stories and tall tales. Enjoying one another’s company. Making friendships.
With that in mind, I pressed forward. The barleygrass seemed to part for me with the whistling wind, and I gained the street.
Then I marched up to the base of the Wilford estate.
Two guards were positioned near the fountain ahead. They saw me coming, and immediately ran halfway down the slope, brandishing their spears. One of them shouted, “Halt! Do not trespass here, man.”
I stepped into a patch of moonlight that trickled in through the thick clouds overhead. “I’m no man,” I announced in an even, loud tone, throwing my hood back. “I’ve come for an audience with the . . . lady of the estate.”
The guard scoffed. “In the middle of the night?”
Apparently my grand entrance hadn’t made an impact.
“Aye, soldier. Tell the lady of the manor that the thief of hearts is calling on her.”
The guards glanced at one another after my ominous admission. One of them shrugged and wandered off up the hill, while the other guard stayed and said, “Your funeral, girl.”
When I had first met Maid Marian, she had warned me not to steal the Merry Men from her. Now she was living in the place I called home, and I knew why: She wanted to prove she could make my life Hell. She was trying to steal everything from me, as she thought I had done to her.
The truth was much simpler. John, Will, Alan, and Tuck wanted me. Not her. They had made a choice, and it wasn’t even much of a choice. They had chosen honest love over duplicity and deceitfulness.
I was the lucky one who hadn’t been forced to choose between them. They all wanted me in equal measure, in their own way. Those four men, however, hadn’t been so lucky. They had made an enemy of Maid Marian, and so had I, indirectly.
It filled me with sick glee knowing they hadn’t even mentioned Marian’s name in months, though I didn’t plan on telling her that because I rather enjoyed having my head attached to my neck.
The longest minute of my life passed. I tried not to shiver or wilt in the cold. I tried to show strength, as my men had taught me.
Finally, she emerged, dressed in a gaudily thin robe that left little to the imagination. Maid Marian was a beautiful woman with an enviable figure, and she could have had any man she wanted.
Well . . . any man except mine.
It irked me when I noticed she didn’t even look bedraggled. She carried a small covered candle as a lantern, and it swung in time with the swishing of her hips as she stopped at the fountain, with the two guards next to her.
“Well, well,” she said, and a red-lipped smile curved across her face, matching the tint of her curled hair. “The thief of hearts, Robin? Really? A bit dramatic, even for you.”
I cleared my throat. I wouldn’t let her get under my skin.
“What in all the layers of Hell are you doing here, girl?” she asked.
I squared my shoulders and stood proudly, hands bunching into fists at my sides. “I have come for Emma, and anyone else you may have inside.”
Her beautiful mask of a face cracked, for only a second. Surprise shone through that placid stare in the fluttering of her eyes. And then it was gone.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said.
My heart sank. I kept it beating fiercely behind my ribs, refusing to give up. I knew Emma’s captors wouldn’t keep her in the same jailhouse as Little John. Not after John had made a miraculous escape. It was compromised.
Call it a hunch—similar to my hunch about Loxley months back—but I had imagined they’d bring Emma somewhere she’d feel comfortable. Somewhere familiar to her, before they did whatever they planned to do with her.
My gut kept me moving forward, and the flash of shock across Marian’s pristine face told me I was right.
Emma was just a cog in the machine.
