Page 31 of The Hood and his Thief

“Well, now that I’ve been persuaded, I’d like to stretch my legs if you’re leaving the plan up to me.” Rhosyn stood, forcing Ansel to take a step back.

He immediately stepped forward again as Rhosyn’s knees buckled, an odd mix of wobbly and stiff after being tied for so long. Ansel caught her with one arm under hers and the other around her waist. Rhosyn threw her arms around his neck on reflex.

They stood like that, perfectly still. Rhosyn’s nose was a few inches from Ansel’s, close enough that she could make out the shimmering lamplight reflected in his eyes. The way they held each other, it was almost like the time they first met, dancing at the King’s ball. But that wasn’t the first time they had met—that had been a chase over steep roofs, ending in Rhosyn’s humiliation.

That thought gave Rhosyn the impetus she needed to wrench away, legs much more prepared to hold her weight this time. The man who had flirted with her—who had made her hope she had successfully left her past behind her, while making her wonder if she were broken for wanting to shatter the layer of veneer that coated his manner—that man was a lie.

This man was the Hood. More a representation of the past that she was trying to leave behind than her present. And while the Hood’s manner was also naturally flirtatious, she chafed at the way she had jumped to his challenges.

“I did untie you, but I’m not sure giving you a tour of the premises is wise,” Ansel admitted, drawing Rhosyn from her thoughts, apparently completely unfazed by their recent proximity.

She jutted out one hip and rested a fist on it. “You have your insurance for my cooperation.”

For now, she added silently.

Ansel bit the inside of his cheek as if considering. It was a more human gesture, speaking of indecision and doubt, than Rhosyn had ever seen on him as Mr. Blakely. She found herself softening her posture.

“You don’t even have to let me see where we are, just let me walk the hallways,” she compromised. After all, she could learn plenty about the Foxes from inside their hole, even if she didn’t know its precise location.

“Alright,” Ansel conceded. “But I’m not letting you wander anywhere alone.”

“Of course not. You need to tell me the story of how you found yourself stealing Talented away from their jobs.”

Ansel gave her a long-suffering look as he led her from the small room into a narrow hallway. It was dingy and cramped, with doors lining it all the way down. He didn’t speak as he led the way down past the doorways, some stood open to reveal tiny bedrooms and others closed, voices coming from within. It looked so much like the safehouses where her friends in the Lions lived that if she closed her eyes, she could pretend she was seventeen again, visiting the teenagers who had aged out of the Den and her care.

“It started when Mr. Archer still owned the circus actually,” Ansel started without any preamble as they turned the corner at the end of the corridor towards the stairs.

“Mr. Archer?”

“The one whom the circus is named after. He was my…mentor.”

Rhosyn considered the back of Ansel’s head as he led them down the stairs. He didn’t elaborate for a minute as they squeezed past others, many of whom nodded courteously at Ansel before catching sight of her and paling. Their shock at seeing her walking free told her that most of them witnessed the scene in the common room earlier. She grinned.

Finally, they arrived on what Rhosyn surmised was the ground floor, where a familiar room full of tables and chairs greeted them.

“Will, get our friend here something to eat and drink. She’ll be staying for a while.” Ansel shouted toward a group of men gathered around a table with their heads bent together. One of them looked up, staring for a moment before hurrying to do Ansel’s bidding.

Rhosyn watched him go, wondering why he seemed familiar until it hit her. “Your acrobats.”

Ansel nodded as he took a seat at an uninhabited table, gesturing for Rhosyn to take another. “The Merry Men. The act that made the circus famous.”

“I originally thought that one of them was the Hood,” Rhosyn admitted.

“The Hood?”

Rhosyn cleared her suddenly stuck throat. “It’s what I—we—the police started calling you, since we didn’t know who you were. You always wore a hood though.”

“I don’t know if I should be flattered that I’m notorious enough to have a nickname with law enforcement.” Ansel grimaced.

“The best criminals do.” People still called Nate “the Beast” behind his back, but nobody would do it where the king or his intimidating bodyguard might overhear.

“If I were good at doing my job, I wouldn’t be drawing enough attention to be infamous,” Ansel admitted.

“Your acrobatics aren’t exactly subtle.” Rhosyn shot Ansel a meaningful look. “Now that I know who you are, I’m honestly surprised your act in the circus was knife throwing.”

Ansel reclined, leaning the chair he was sitting in back on two legs and balancing there. “It wasn’t at first. When Mr. Archer took me in, when I was just a boy, I was one of the first Merry Men.”

“Then why did you take up knife throwing?” Rhosyn asked, as Will put a plate of bread and drippings in front of her and scurried away. She didn’t hesitate digging in, saying around a mouth full of bread, “You clearly didn’t leave acrobatics for a lack of skill.”