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“Don’t be mad, Fox,” says a soft voice.
My heart trips and stumbles, but there’s a part of me that isn’t surprised. I sigh and turn. “You gave your word, Violet.”
“I know, I know.” She uncurls from the shadows, shivering inher sleeping shift. Her eyes are wild and guileless. “I started to think maybe I imagined it. You know? Like maybe it was a dream. I had to make sure you were real.”
“I’m real.” I glance at her feet, bare in the grass. A bandage is still tied tightly in place, but it’s not the same torn muslin I used. “How’s the foot?”
“Good!” she whispers, and there’s a gleeful note in her voice, as if she’s relieved I’m not angry at her. “I told my mother it happened in the stable.”
I nod and drop the coins on the stump beside the ax, then turn away to move on.
She swishes through the long grass to walk beside me.
I sigh and keep walking. Maybe if I say nothing, she’ll grow bored and go home.
I’m not that lucky. “Where do you go next?” she says.
“Right back where I came from if you insist on following.”
“My cousin doesn’t think you’re from the Wilds. You’ve got too many coins. That’s why you wear the mask, right? Why did you pick red? Are you—”
“Violet.” I round on her.
Her eyes stare back at me, wide and innocent. “What?”
“Go home.”
“But I want to help you.”
“You can’t.” I glance down. “And even if you could, you’re in bare feet. You’ll end up with something worse than an arrowhead.”
“I’m always in bare feet. I walked my toes through my last pair of boots, and Mama says there’ll need to be snow on the ground before she’ll find coins for a new pair.”
Oh.
Despite what I’m doing, I’d somehow forgotten just how very desperate some of these people are.
I reach into my pouch and pull out another few coppers. “Here,” I say brusquely. “That should be enough for boots to last until then.”
“Oh!” She takes them and slips them into a pocket of her sleeping shift. “Thank you, Fox. But I’ll give them to Toby. He lives next door. His da broke his arm, so he can’t work at the mill. Mama has been baking them extra bread.” Her voice drops. “Toby’s mother died last winter.”
I’m not sure what to say. I want to give her another handful of coins, but there’s a part of me that wonders if she’ll just give them to another neighbor.
She glances at the path, and her eyebrows flicker into a frown. “Don’t you have more coins to leave?”
“I do.” I turn and start walking again.
She strides along beside me. “Maybe people will see us and think we’re Wes and Tessa!”
She sounds like this would be the ideal scenario. “The whole point isnotto be seen,” I say.
“ButIsaw you.”
“Trust me, I’m regretting it al—”
A shout erupts somewhere ahead of us on the path, and I swear, then duck into the foliage, dragging Violet with me. She squeals at the suddenness of it, and I slap my hand over her mouth.
“Quiet,” I snap in her ear, my voice low and rough.
