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If she, Leif, and Bram got out of the tavern alive.

The pirate had materialized out of existence, melting into the mob as they quickly organized their efforts to corner Wren into their custody.

“Leif,” Bram muttered, as he positioned himself in front of Wren, “remind me to kill you after this.”

Leif laughed like a madman. It reminded Wren of the way he’d acted down in the dungeons—when she thought he trulywasmad. Given his current reaction Wren couldn’t discount that he might actually be at least a little insane.

“If you can kill me after this, that means we’re getting out alive,” Leif replied, before sliding a dagger from his cloak and aiming it with pinpoint precision at their closest attacker.

It flew past the man’s cheek, slicing it open before landing in the chipped wooden surface of the bar.

“You missed,” Wren said, as she readied her own weapons.

“I didn’t,” Leif replied, before grabbing Wren by the wrist and pulling her through the opening that had been made when their first attacker recoiled from the dagger. He flashed a grin back at Bram. “Cover us!”

“As if I have a choice!” he growled, ever the grump.

Wren ran by pure instinct, using her elbows and her knees and her knives to bash and slash her way toward the door along with Leif. The young man moved like water through the crowd, barely touching anyone. It was uncanny. He was as elegant as a dragon.

Aurora would have liked him.

The thought almost stopped Wren in her tracks.

Grief tore at her heart. Why was it that whenever she was in a dangerous situation she thought of the ghosts of her past? Her mother, her dragon, Rowen.

You need to get it together or you’ll get your friends killed.

Wren exploded out of the tavern with Leif and she winced, eyes watering. The morning light reflecting off the waves just about blinded her, but there was no time to waste adjusting to the brighter surroundings. Leif pulled Wren through the curious crowd—whose eyes followed Wren’s hair wherever they went. Her lungs burned as Leif forced Wren to move faster, their boots slapping against the slick cobbles of the road.

She tried to pull up her hood, but they were running so fast it wouldn’t stay up. “We need to—” she gasped, when Leif scrambled onto the top of a ramshackle building and she followed suit, hauling herself up. “We need to hide my hair.” Her chest rose and lowered with her heavy breathing. She needed to train more to keep up with Leif.

“We just need to remain out of sight until the crowd forgets us,” Leif called back, over his shoulder, clambering over another roof and scaling an adjacent, much taller, building. “There’s a place on the docks I know.”

Wren didn’t ask what this place was, nor how Leif knew it. Given what Gunn had just done she wasn’t inclined to put much faith in anything Leif knew, though Wren also had to acknowledge she had no other choice but to follow him.

One last time, she pulled her hood over her hair and followed him with a groan, her arms burning as she climbed after her friend. When she got her hands on Gunn, he’d wish he’d never been born.

The blackguard.

Below them, the noise of people shouting and clamoring through the streets after them all merged into one incomprehensible din in Wren’s ears. The fact none of them had followed them onto the roof was a good sign—it meant they didn’t know where Leif and Wren had gone. So long as she remained hidden behind chimneystacks and plumes of dirty smoke from fireplaces, it was possible they’d actually make it out of this alive.

“Will Bram be all right?” Wren asked Leif when they paused to catch their breath after climbing onto the top of a particularly tall roof. He didn’t seem in need of the break at all—the miscreant. Climbing was clearly second nature to him; for Wren, however, it was a skill she had been forced to dramatically improve over the past two months. Her muscles still weren’t used to it. She’d never been one for climbing and preferred swimming.

The bard nodded, then peeked down to survey the streets well below them. “Man’s a monster in close combat range. I wouldn’t worry about him—nor let himknowyou worried about him. He hates that. On second thought…” Leif chuckled. “Let him know, because he hates it. I want to see how he’d react to the Dragon Princess being concerned for his wellbeing.”

Wren shook her head in frustration and pulled a face. “I don’t get you, Leif. Do you actually care about anyone in the rebellion, or are you merely sticking around because it’s fun?”

“Can’t both be true?” he said in a singsong voice.

“I don’t know. Can they?”

You like and loathe the prince. Can he not have it both ways, you hypocrite?

Wren blew out an annoyed breath at her own thoughts.

After checking that the streets finally seemed to have calmed down, Leif turned his attention properly to Wren. He squeezed her hand gently. “I haven’t told you how I came to work with the rebellion, have I?”

“…no.” She cocked her head and waved a hand at him to continue.