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He sighed, but continued walking. “We’ll be there by late afternoon.”

I ran up beside him. “Why are we really leaving before everyone else?”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t think I was unclear in my question.” I grabbed his arm, stopping in the middle of the woods.

“I didn’t think you all came up with a good plan.”

“What’s yours?” I stared him in the eyes and was caught off-guard by the darkness of them. I thought I had noticed it this morning, but attributed the color to the lack of light, but now, granted it was still dark outside, I could tell they were definitely dark, like a deep gray. Was that part of his werewolf thing, too? I shook my head irritated there was so much about everything I didn’t know about.

“We will show up. I will distract her and you will shoot your arrow.”

“Just like that? Easy peasy?”

“Easy peasy?” He started walking again, mildly annoyed.

“What happens if I miss?”

“Don’t miss.”

“What happens if it doesn’t work?”

“You didn’t account for that in your plan last night.” He said simply.

That was true, but last night there was hope. There was ideas. Now it was reality. We were literally on the way to the castle and I started to second guess the whole plan. What if I didn’t cast the spell correctly? Lilibet had to help me enunciate several words over and over again. What if it’s not powerful enough? So many thoughts were racing through my mine now that hadn’t been. Maybe Gage was right, maybe we were unprepared.

“I don’t think we should do this.”

He chuckled and stopped walking. “Yesterday you were all, ‘let’s take down the Queen, fight to my last dying breath’ and now you are being a coward.”

“A coward?”

“What would you call it?”

I stared at him in disbelief for a moment. “There are a lot of what ifs that still haven’t been answered and we don’t even have the cuffs.”

He patted the satchel on his hip.

Ok, so he seems to have thought of everything. “What are we going to do with her body?”

He looked at me, clearly irritated by all my questions. “We will figure it out. But I can promise if you don’t stop talking right now, you won’t make it to the castle.” His words were cold and hard with no hint of playfulness in them- a threat. Gage had always been an ass, but there was always a gentle edge I could see. I was not getting that same feeling right now and couldn’t help but let my mind wander back to my dream this morning.

Is he the one that I couldn’t trust?

Was his name going to be the one that fell from my mother’s lips?

I watched him walk in front of me and couldn’t imagine him betraying me, not when he had so many opportunities before, but there was something still nagging me about him.

Around mid-day, we stopped by a stream to grab a quick bite to eat. Fortunately, in Gage’s satchel was also a couple of sandwiches, carrots, and an apple.

“Gage.” I asked, tentatively. “Are you ok?” I placed my hand on his.

I saw his eyes flicker for a minute, from gray to blue, back to gray. “I’m fine,” he pulled his hand out from under mine. “Eat your food, so we can continue.” He snapped.

“What if I want to wait for the others? I don’t feel right about leaving them behind.” I said, finishing my sandwich.

“No. They will catch up.”