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I pull mine from my waist and toss them to him for inspection. “Do you know any vitalian magic? This man needs tending.”

We put on a show getting Quin off the horse and hobbling to the wide shelf along the side of the carriage to perch, Quin clutching his bloodied arm.

Petros sucks in a breath, his movements turning frantic. “Hunted?”

Quin delivers a flat stare and Petros’s face drains of colour. “N-no, he wouldn’t,” he stutters, “Not after all I’ve done for him. No.”

“You’re no longer of use,” Quin says, embellishing with a nice hiss of pain between his lips.

I grab my handkerchief to bind the slash on his arm, bitterly ignoring the urge to summon a spell.

Quin grabs the cuff of Petros’s sleeve, pulling him closer. “Do you have anything—documents, letters, proof of his involvement?”

Petros panics. “I burned everything, as he ordered.”

I feel Quin’s disappointment in the sagging of his frame. He turns those feelings into a gasp of pain, clutching his leg this time. “Everything?”

“How do I prove that to him? Who’s involved, their families—” Petros snaps his head up, a flash of relief in his eyes. “They’re only in my head, nowhere else—”

“Then,” Quin says. “Youare also evidence.”

“No.” A trembling whisper. “This can’t be. He promised.”

“They attacked us, killed one of our horses, wounded me. They’ll be back to finish the job.”

“W-what do we—”

“We have to run. Hide.”

“Right. Alright, alright.”

“The others involved, their families...”

Petros shakes his head, gaze widening in terror.

“We have to warn them,” Quin says.

“T-this—this can’t be happening.”

Quin grips Petros’s shirt and hauls him close. “There’s no time, we have to give them a chance. Come with us.”

“Come with... no, no, I don’t know how to fight. If they...”

“Then give us a list—turn back and hide. We’ll help the others.”

A shifting shadow catches in the corner of my eye; I whip my head around. The driver? I was sure he’d gone in the other direction.

I push off the carriage and sidle cautiously round to check the craggy rocks bordering this stretch of road.

“Y-yes. Yes,” Petros’s croaky voice carries. “Help the others—”

“Names. Where?”

Where did that driver go? Wait, what’s...

A flicker of movement from the rocks facing Petros and Quin. I race around the carriage. Men in red, masked.Twomen in red. Bows, with glinting arrows notched, taking aim...

“In the south.There are five.”