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“I’m just saying.”

“The mercenary was the only choice. Now let’s just wait before we start getting cynical.”

There’s some foot traffic on the main street behind us. The smell of fresh rainfall was present throughout the entire journey, but now that we’ve arrived in the capital, the city has covered it up, replacing it with body odors and horse manure.

Those in the city wear leathers with fur embellishments at their cuffs and collars. They appear to be quite the community of hunters, I observe, as I watch a cart of antlers go by. Many in the street have bows slung over their shoulders.

Though the rain lessened the more we traveled southeast, it hasn’t stopped. Even now our boots are covered in mud clear up to our knees. The baths we had in Thersa were a lifetime ago. We’re hungry, we’re wet, we’re cranky.

And we’re going to have to stay in a public house until we find a place of our own. I try not to grimace.

“Is that him?” Temra asks shortly after I hear a door slamming.

She’s not pointing toward the front of the shop, where Kellyn entered, but at the back, where a tall figure is walking away.

“That’s not him,” I say. Kellyn doesn’t look like that from behind. I would know. I spent so much time glaring at his back. He’s broader, holds himself straighter than whoever this fellow is.

“There’s not many guys that freakishly tall,” Petrik says. “Kellyn!”

The figure turns.

And there’s no mistaking that it’s the mercenary.

Kellyn winks at me, jingling a heavy purse of money in one hand, before he takes off like a pack of hungry beasts is behind him.

Temra, Petrik, and I freeze for one moment. Confusion takes over. I was so sure that wasn’t Kellyn until I saw his face. Temra and Petrik recover before I do, leaping after the mercenary, but it isn’t long before I surpass them with my longer legs.

“Trust the mercenary,” Petrik says. “Might as well trust a starving lion!” He falls behind Temra and me quickly, despite his best efforts to keep up.

My face turns beet red, but it has nothing to do with the exertion. Kellyn just made a fool of me. Both Petrik and Temra will blame me for this. We can’t lose our money. Not again.

There are so many threats I’d like to hurl at that long, muscled back. First among them is to halt before I unsheathe Secret Eater and detach the mercenary’s knees from the rest of his body. I could do it so easily.

It’s a fanciful thought, but one I would never carry out. I’ll leave the violence to Temra.

Kellyn pushes people over in his haste, angry shouts following in his wake. He leaps over a parked wagon, slides around a shop corner, barrels into a merchant’s cart full of fruit. I hear Petrik slip on a rolling orange from behind me. Temra loses ground as she has to veer around the overturned cart.

And I’m hot on the mercenary’s heels, having jumped the obstacle.

That good-for-nothing wastrel. That lying, scheming, self-obsessed, worthless little worm of a man. When I get my hands on him, I’m going to yell until I lose my voice.

He’s heading farther and farther out of town. Does he mean to traverse back to the road out of the city? He won’t have anywhere to hide then!

Not that he’s been trying to hide. He made a point of slamming the door out of the pawnshop, after all, did he not? And he brandished that bag of coins at me. Taunting me, even. Daring me to chase after him.

Almost as if—

I stop in my tracks. Temra bashes into my arm, not stopping in time. The panting sound behind us must be the scholar.

“What are you doing? He’s getting away!” Temra screams.

“Something’s wrong,” I say.

“You can tell me while we run,” she says, yanking my arm and trying to physically pull me after Kellyn.

“He left his sword,” I say.

“I already mentioned he could buy a new one.”