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But as Willa came closer, the driver began to squirm.

“Hey, miss. You’re going the wrong way!” he shouted.

“What?” Willa called.

“Turn around. You’re going the wrong way.”

“I can’t hear you. Say that again.” Willa’s shouts were loud. The volume and the discomfort of their driver made the horses fidget.

Grace began to approach as though she were coming to help.

The driver tried to calm the horses but kept his focus on Willa. “You’re coming right for the horses. Turn around!”

But Willa just kept on going and ran herself and the wheat right into the carriage. With a loud “Oof!” Willa fell to the ground, wheat tumbling about her.

The driver cursed and the horses stamped unhappily.

Grace was at Willa’s side when the driver hopped down to comfort his horses.

As the girls knelt to gather the wheat, Grace slid herself halfway under the carriage. She saw a wooden pin in the wheel and gripped it, twisting, trying to loosen it just enough to cause a problem the next time the carriage moved.

The peg didn’t budge. Grace slid farther under the carriage, placing her feet against the wheel and pulling with all of her strength. It was risky, putting herself beneath a carriage that could collapse, but her parents had managed it. Certainly, this would work.

She felt the wood give way, a thrill of fear shooting through her as she cringed and waited to see if she’d orchestrated her own doom. When she opened her eyes, she saw the pin had only slipped halfway out. Just enough that when the coach tried to drive, the wheel would detach.

Perfect!

Grace was about to slide back out when she noticed an odd latch on the center bottom of the coach. She reached out and flicked the latch. A trap door opened, and a pouch fell to the ground beside her.

A secret nook in the floor of the coach. Well, it seemed the tax collector wasn’t so loyal after all. She tucked the pouch in her dress pocket and began sliding.

That was when everything went mad.

“You! What are you doing?” Mr. Durr, exiting the barn, shouted at Willa or Grace or both.

The horses, newly settled, began stamping again.

Grace stopped scooting, instead trying to rotate herself about so she could roll out the other side. But her skirts were catching on things.

Willa bellowed back at Mr. Durr. “Stop your yelling! Can’t you seen I’ve gone and made a mess of this wheat? Imbecile. We’re out here working our backs to breaking to get crops that give the town money to function, and you go and leave a carriage right in the way! And you have the gall to yell at the girl almost killed by your negligence. Or is it ignorance?”

Grace was still trying to scoot, twist, and roll herself out the other side of the carriage when she heard cries of alarm.

“The Rogue! The Rogue!”

Grace’s heart stopped. The Rogue. Here, now? But of course. He was robbing the tax coach. Her face paled. The coach she was underneath. The coach that would lose a wheel as soon as it started going and collapse to the ground, crushing her.

Grace’s movements became more frantic. She rolled onto her stomach and began scrabbling her hands and feet against the dirt, ignoring the sharp pebbles scraping at her hands and coughing through the plumes of dust her hectic movement sent flying.

“Get out of my way!”

“Hey!” That was Willa. What had happened?

“Driver, go!” the tax collector shouted.

Grace slipped herself out from under the carriage in time to watch as the coach lurched forward, the horses moving in haphazard, uncoordinated movements at the driver’s repeated lashes of the reins. The gaudy vehicle made it a few paces before the wheel slid from the post and the back left corner of the carriage slammed to the ground.

But Grace wasn’t watching the wheel. She was staring back toward the storage barn as the carriage careened out of her way and the Rogue came into view. She saw him running toward thecarriage, bow in hand, arrow nocked. With a smooth release, an arrow flew, embedding itself in the carriage.