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She nods quickly behind my hand. Her breathing is quick, and she’s all but straining against my grip, trying to see the path. Footsteps are definitely heading this way.
“I hate going out all this way,” a man is saying. “That rebel meeting isn’t supposed to be until the end of the week.”
Rebel meeting.I’m frozen in place.
“I know,” grunts another one. “But I saw the coins on a step. That thief is outtonight.”
I bristle. I’m not a thief. Violet cranes her head around to look at me. My heart is pounding in my chest, begging for action.
I glance down. My clothes are all shades of black and brown, invisible in the faint moonlight, but her sleeping shift is pale and might as well be a beacon in the darkness.
“Take off your mask,” she whispers behind my hand.
My eyes snap to hers. “What?”
“Take off your mask. Say you were taking your sick sister to find a physician.”
“I—what?”
She gives me an exasperated look, likeI’mthe crazy one, then flops against my shoulder dramatically, her head lolling back, her eyes half open. She goes limp so quickly that I barely catch her before she tumbles into the undergrowth.
Well, damn.
“Look!” a man calls, and I swear inwardly. “What’s that up there?”
I’m frozen in place. I can’t take this mask off. Ican’t.
Or … maybe Ican. It’s the middle of the night, and there’s little moonlight. I couldn’t name a single officer in the night patrol, and I rarely have cause to be in the Wilds. The chance of anyone here recognizing me at this hour is low.
But not nonexistent.
Violet hisses, “Move, Fox.”
I reach up and jerk the mask over my head, scrubbing my hand through my hair to muss it up, then shove the silken red fabric down into my pouch. I stand, dragging her with me, trying to awkwardly scoop her into my arms.
She doesn’t help atall. I’d be impressed by her commitment to the act if I weren’t so irritated.
“Who’s there!” another man shouts, and I hear the click of a crossbow bolt being loaded.
This could go very badly. I take a slow breath so I can strip any tension from my voice. “Is that the night patrol?” I call. “I need to get my sister to the physician.” I try to add a plaintive tone to my words, but I wasn’t prepared to perform on demand, and I likely just sound aggravated. “She can’t wake.”
Violet somehow goes even more limp, and she nearly slips through my arms. I adjust my grip, then pick her up fully. She’s even thinner than I thought.
Then I can’t think at all because two crossbows are pointed right at me.
I’ve envisioned this outcome a dozen times, but my imagination didn’t prepare me for the bolt of fear that pierces my chest. I almost can’t breathe around it. For an instant, my thoughts spin, because it’s obvious that they don’t recognize anything about me—and just as obvious that they’d pull those triggers without thinking twice about it. I’m alone and it’s dark and there’d be no one around to care. No one would even notice. Not forhours.
“Please,” I say. I have to clear my throat, because my breathing has gone ragged. “My … my sister.”
Violet lets out a low, painful moan.
One of the men lowers his crossbow, and he leans in. “What’s wrong with her?”
She didn’t have the sense to listen when a masked outlaw told her to go home.
“I don’t know,” I say. “I found her like this.” I think better of it, then tack on, “Sir.”
In my arms, Violet begins making retching sounds, and it’s so realistic that I almost fall for it myself. But the man springs back.
