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“Indeed.” He shut the shack as they stepped into the night, but there was no undoing the shattered lock. “To Ranor.”
CHAPTERFIVE
Gil had not lied.The narrow river was not far from the shack, but Thea still ached with exhaustion when they finally reached its banks. The sounds of the royal hounds never came closer, but they were always there, soft and haunting.
“We must cross,” Gil announced at the river's edge. “It isn't deep, but the water will mask our passage.”
Thea observed the current with a frown. It was sluggish to the eye, at least in the dark, but she did not doubt it would be enough to pull her off her feet. “I don't think I can make it in a skirt.”
“Unfortunate that you didn't finish your trousers, then. Shall I have to carry you?” The question was light, teasing, but a hint of reservation in the way he smiled told her he would not object to helping her across.
Thea objected enough on her own. She sat on the bank and reached into her basket. “I'll finish them now.” Whatever she did in the dark wouldn't be perfect, but it would hold together well enough for her to cross the river. Rough stitches could be picked out in the morning, when she could see to do a proper job.
She expected a protest, or at the very least a complaint. Instead, Gil merely turned to the river and crouched. The moon had risen high and the trees here were thick, but they had shed enough leaves that she could still make out shapes as he emptied his bag. The lack of visibility was a blessing, she decided when he sat a particularly large something aside. She didn't want to see. She would have been happier to pretend it didn't exist at all.
He leaned down to submerge his satchel in the river. “I'll carry your basket when you're finished. That way, your cloth will stay dry.”
“And my chalk won't melt.”
“And your books will remain unwrinkled.”
Thea shook her head. “My books are in my bag.”
“Then you'd best put them in the basket, if you want them to stay dry.” He scrubbed his hands and arms with handfuls of sandy soil from the riverbank, then scrubbed the inside of his bag, too.
She worked her needle through the remaining pieces of her unfinished trousers as fast as she could. Magic would have to wait. Anything she worked into the cloth now would stay there and could interfere with anything else she tried to add later. “I don't think you'll be able to save that bag.”
“No, but this will make it harder to track us. The dogs rely on scent, and this has been dripping since we left the palace.” When the leather satchel met his expectations, he cleaned his tools and... the other thing he carried. From now on, Thea thought it might be easier if she pretended she didn't know it accompanied them.
By the time he put everything away, she was tying a loose knot at the end of her messy stitches. “Don't look while I'm changing.”
“I wouldn't be able to see anything, anyway.”
She untied her boots and wiggled her feet out of them. Once free, she waited to be sure he wasn't looking, then slid her improperly-made pants on beneath her skirt. She had them halfway up her thighs before a realization made her stomach sink.
She hadn't chosen a separate skirt. She wore a dress, and she had no shirts among her things.
Well, there was only one solution for that. She squinted at him in the dark to be sure he still faced the other direction, then hiked up her pants the rest of her way. “Give me a knife.”
He raised both hands to show they were empty. “I understand your concerns, but I promise, you have nothing to fear from me.”
“I could probably argue, but I assure you that you misunderstand. My dressmaker's shears would be too awkward for me to use behind my back. Give me a knife. The sharpest you have.” She gathered her skirt in one hand and tugged the fabric away from her body. Her other hand, she held out in clear expectation.
Gil finally glanced her way, examined the situation, and understood. He unsheathed a blade and stepped toward her. “Hold still.”
The dagger glinted in the moonlight and her heart skipped a beat. “I can do it myself.”
“A knife would be no easier to wield behind your back. I told you I mean you no harm, and I don't intend to see you harm yourself, either. Whether or not you mean it.” He seized her skirt from her hand and plunged the knife through the fabric. The sound it made as it tore made her stomach lurch.
One step at a time, he circled around her, severing the skirt from the bodice of her dress. The fabric fell away in a heap at her feet.
“It's as straight as I can cut it, though I doubt it will meet your expectations,” he said as he sliced the last few threads and stopped before her.
Her legs felt bare in her skirt's absence and she crossed her ankles as if it might help her hide. “I'll fix it. Somehow. But not tonight.”
He flipped the dagger in his hand and returned it to its sheath. “No. Tonight, we run for as long as we can. If we can wade along the river's far edge for a time, it will help.”
“By hiding our scent?” She stepped out of the ring of fabric and bent to gather it. There was just enough space in her sewing basket to stuff it inside.
