I scan my surroundings, weighing my options.
I can climb down the balconies. Slip through another room and vanish into the interior. Or scale upward and take the roofline where guards are fewer, and sightlines are longer.
I turn slightly, gauging the Horseman’s distance by the cadence of his voice.
Or…
There is one other option.
I could go through him to gain my freedom. Show him that all he’s learned of my skills so far isn’t all there is to what I’m capable of.
It’s probably not the smartest action, but if it’s a testing game he enjoys, this back and forth between us, then what better way to say my goodbyes?
I double back and quickly pick up the scabbard.
Pollock
Manacles in hand, I make my way back toward my rooms. Tennison intercepts me in the corridor, falling into step at my side to update me on the new arrivals and where he’s temporarily housed them. He speaks quickly—efficiently—but I listen with only half my attention.
The other half is already upstairs.
Impatience rides me hard enough that Tennison must sense it. His report grows more concise, his words clipped as he adjusts to my shortened stride and notices the flexing as I grind my molars.
When I can no longer tolerate the delay, I stop him mid-sentence.
“I trust your judgment. Handle it.”
He nods once, relieved or perhaps wary, and peels away.
As soon as I reenter my rooms, I’m aware that something’s amiss. Instead of finding my little White Witch exactly where I left her, I find only discarded ropes on the tile floor of the bathroom.
I immediately turn and cautiously exit the bathroom. She’s still here or close by. I can feel her—courage humming like a live wire. Anticipation. That wild, reckless thrill she carries before she strikes. But where?
My gaze snaps to the balcony curtains, billowing inward through the open doors.
I approach carefully and lean out over the railing, scanning the ground below, the adjacent buildings, the narrow alleys between them. Then I turn and tilt my head back to check if she’s scaled to the roof.
That’s when she appears.
With my back already braced against the railing and my gaze tipped upward, she swings down from the recesses of the overhang above. Her booted feet slam into my chest with brutal precision.
Air explodes from my lungs.
The impact sends me hurtling backward. Instinct takes over. I reach out, snatching her ankle, fingers locking tight to stop my fall.
Steel flashes.
My own cursed blade arcs down and severs my hand cleanly at the wrist—the one clutching her leg. Pain detonates, sharp and white-hot, and another boot connects with my face.
The world tips.
And I fall.
Gravity claims me. Wind tears around my body in a suffocating rush as I pinwheel through open air, my clothing snapping violently against my limbs.
I catch only a brief glimpse of her, but it will forever be burned into memory.
She’s crouched on the railing, balanced as if she were completely at home there. Her lips curve into the first genuine smile she’s given me—bright, victorious, and somewhat feral. When our eyes meet, she lifts my sword to her brow in a mock salute as if to say, “Who has the upper hand now, Horseman?”
