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The farmer was about to turn forward again when his eye snagged on Lou’s waist, where their sword hung. He shot looks to the rest of us, taking in our appearance. Our weapons. Our lack of army or guard uniforms. “Where are you headed?”

“The Keep,” I answered. No reason not to share that; sellswords went there all the time.

He hastily faced forward. Thomas and I shared an uneasy glance.

“What is it?” Thomas asked.

“It’s nothing,” the farmer said.

“If there’s something we need to know, you should tell us.” Maya’s words were labored, heavy breaths escaping far more than they should. Lou and I turned to her at the same time. Her eyes were glassy.

“Is your friend alright?” the farmer asked.

“I’m fine,” she insisted.

“We need to stop,” I said.

“I’m fine —”

“No, you’re not. Rígan’s right.” Lou stood in their stirrups, looking around. “We’ll find someplace to rest, and I can check your dressing.”

The farmer made a pained sound. He pulled his horse back, coming next to Thomas. “What happened?”

None of us answered. We had orders to speak neutrally so we could play both sides. If we played this wrong, we could damage the mission. This close to the Keep, the farmer could have been brought in by the Exiles just as easily as he could have felt their wrath.

He was nervous, though. Fingers working at the reins, rubbing the leather like a safety blanket. It didn’t clarify much, but the longer we stayed silent, the more likely he’d get too suspicious of us.

I caught Lou’s eye and shrugged, letting him make the call. He mirrored it, tipping his head at Thomas. Thomas eyed the farmer’s appearance. Likely searching for the Exile symbol.

When Thomas was satisfied, he said, “Rebels attacked us.”

The farmer swore, his thumbs moving more agitatedly over the reins. “My house is right over there. You can stop in for some lunch and a rest if you’d like.”

“I’m perfectly capable of”—Maya sucked in a breath—“of continuing.” She winced. “Fine. Maybe not.”

Thomas was still eyeing the farmer. “Pardon my saying, but you don’t seem like you want us in your home.”

He guided the cattle into their designated field. “I am sorry to hear you were attacked by rebels. It’s just, with what’s going on in the Keep . . .” He took another look at Maya before sagging. “But you need rest. We have supplies for wounds and fresh bread for sandwiches. Come on.”

We followed, but I was extra cautious of our surroundings as we trotted down a path to the house, his reluctance setting me on high alert. The smell of roast beef hit me the closer we got, and my mouth watered. We’d only had a light breakfast.

A rumble to my left suggested I wasn’t the only one regretting the small morning meal. Lou grinned sheepishly before helping Maya the few short feet to the ground. She swayed when she landed.

“Shit.” Lou’s outburst was quick, startled. They laid a hand on Maya’s abdomen. “This is hot.” They checked her forehead. “ You’re hot.”

“Thanks, Lou, but I don’t see you that way.”

“Not the time for jokes.” They passed her off to me. “Take her. I’ll grab her bag.”

“This way.” The farmer walked us inside and motioned to the well-loved couch. “Sit her there. I’ll get bandages and ale.”

Once Maya was settled, I took in the space. It was cozy, light wood and light walls making it feel bigger than it was. Smoke wafted in from an open window by the wash basin, bringing with it the scent of the roast beef that had tempted me. There was only one door besides the entrance, which the farmer had disappeared into. Likely a bedroom.

The front door reopened, and a large, burly man entered. Despite the opposite builds, he bore a strong resemblance to the farmer, the same black hair and pale skin tanned from labor on the fields, same height and hazel eyes. But where the farmer was softer around the edges, inspiring some degree of trust, this man was hardened, frown lines set deep in his forehead and lips set in a harsh scowl. He carried a plate with a glistening pile of shorn meat. He narrowed his eyes further the longer he looked at us. The farmer returned with bandages and herbs, and the other glared at him as he thumped the plate on the kitchen table.

“What’s this, then, Finn?”

The farmer, Finn, motioned to Maya. “She’s injured. Feverish. I offered to help. And to feed them.”

The other inspected us, scrutinizing every detail, every weapon and scratch.

“We’ll be out of here soon,” I said.

“We don’t even need to stay for lunch,” Thomas said. My stomach grumbled, forlorn. It wanted to stay for lunch. “If we make you uncomfortable—”

“You don’t,” Finn said.

“You do,” the other spat.

“Something smells wonderful.” Another man entered the house, looking like someone had grabbed on to either end of him and stretched. He dusted his fawn-colored hands on his trousers, his light brown hair windblown. Blue eyes widened at the sight of us. “Is this a bad time?”

“Of course not,” Finn said. “You’re always welcome here, Sean.”

Sean shifted from foot to foot. “Geordie?”

Geordie stepped up to Sean, expression softening before kissing him. “You know I’d never ask you to leave.” He turned to us, scowl deeper than before. “Them, on the other hand.”

“Geordie—” Finn started.

Sean stepped around us as though we’d infect him. He didn’t seem hostile, though, not like Geordie. He gulped at the sight of our swords. “You’re to try and join . . . them ?”

I cocked my head. Them must have been the Exiles, but what did he mean, try? Did it have anything to do with what Fenton had told me about the Keep’s competitiveness?

“You won’t be getting any help from us,” Geordie said before Finn could get a word in. “Just because we get access on market days don’t mean we’ll bring you with us. I don’t need anyone breathing down my neck, trying to make me believe the king is incompetent.” He scoffed. “As though a king who chooses peace over violence is a bad thing.”

The four of us looked at one another. These men were clearly not supporters of the Exiles, or else Geordie wouldn’t have said such things, and Sean wouldn’t look ten degrees of terrified. We’d already started telling Finn; might as well defend ourselves. And what with Geordie’s refusal to help us get inside the Keep, there was information here. I nodded, and the others conceded.

“We aren’t going to join the Exiles, or their rebel allies,” I said. “We’re just going to the Keep.”

Geordie scoffed again, harder this time. “You expect me to believe that you, dressed as you are, aren’t here for those bastards?”

Maya bared her teeth, managing to look menacing despite her dulling complexion. “Not every sellsword wants to not only drag their name through the mud but commit treason against a good king. Some of us have sense to know who’s worth following and who isn’t.”

Something in her tone convinced Sean, who trained his eyes to the floor. Geordie remained skeptical.

Maya snapped at him. “If we were rebels, why would one stab me through the gut and try to kill my friends?”

“Maybe you upset them,” he grumbled. Still, he let Finn—who had to be his brother, they looked too much alike—grab a pitcher of ale and bring the medical supplies over to the couch.

“If you’re not rebels, you shouldn’t try to get in the Keep,” Sean said.

I took a plate Sean extended to me, grabbing bread to make myself and Maya some sandwiches. “What do you mean, try?”

“The Keep shut its doors five days ago. They’re only letting select farmers in for market days, but we’re guessing that won’t last long. Likely they’ll start coming to us. And they’re selective about what sellswords they’re letting in.”

Selective. Not competitive. Like they already knew exactly who and what they needed. Still . . . “Why would they shut the doors?”

“There are theories, but no one actually knows anything,” Finn said. “Even the farmers Lord Ríos purchases from personally. He’s being more secretive than usual, and it has people talking.”

“What are they saying?” Lou asked.

“A bit of everything. Lord Ríos is a proud warrior, part of the culture the Exiles love so much. But he’s also proud in other ways. He wouldn’t simply give up his city to the Exiles.”

“He might,” Geordie said, taking a seat at the table. He wasn’t relaxed, but at least he wasn’t hostile.

“In any case,” Sean said. “We don’t know if the doors shut to protect Exiles within, or to keep Exiles out and deal with whoever got inside.”

Deal with . That sounded suspiciously like executions. If that was happening, perhaps Ríos had closed the gates so Dàibhid wouldn’t find out until it was too late. But why risk Dàibhid’s anger through killing rebels and Exiles?

“What’s more important for you lot, there’s no telling who’s hiring who right now in these parts,” Finn said. “For all you know, if you walked through those gates, you’d wind up taking a contract from a rebel.”

“Isn’t that the case everywhere?” I asked. And didn’t non-supporters need protection within city walls, too?

“You want to take the added risk?” Geordie jutted his chin to his brother. “Finn was chatting with a fellow farmer up the road yesterday. One of the people who heard whispers on market day. They have reason to believe the Keep is teeming with rebels.”

Finn shook his head ruefully, watching Lou work on Maya’s side. It was puffy, discolored, and obviously infected. I frowned at her. You should have said something , I mouthed. She only shrugged. I wanted to punch her a little. I didn’t know what I’d do if something did happen to her.

“Last we knew for certain,” Finn said, “is that Exiles had visited, possibly not for the first time, spreading whatever shit they had at the ready, and some of the families liked what they heard. And now the city is essentially closed off to everyone. Everyone inside is tight-lipped. I’m reluctant to believe anything we heard on market day, or anything anyone else heard.”

“We don’t know what to trust anymore,” Sean said, and my heart broke.

“I can’t blame you.” Thomas’s food lay untouched on his plate, as did mine. My stomach rumbled again. I conceded, taking a giant bite, practically unhinging my jaw to cram the first bit in.

The beef was delectably juicy, the bread nice and buttery, but I paid it little attention. “What if we want to try and get in, anyway?”

Geordie looked at me like I was once again an enemy. Sean looked at me like I’d lost my mind. Behind him, so did Lou.

“Why would you want to do that, with what we just told you?” Geordie said.

Simple—we had a mission. We needed to go to the source of the information. Dàibhid wanted us to learn what we could about what was actually happening. Not whatever unchecked rumors the farmers had heard. We could get the people inside to talk, I was sure of it.

“Look.” Geordie leaned his elbows on the table. “You want to risk it, fine. It’s your time, your morals. But while the Keep has always been secluded, the warriors keeping to themselves and quietly grumbling that they wished someone like them were on the throne, they’ve all but sealed themselves off. That hasn’t happened before. They may not have given us a reason, but I’d bet this farm and Sean’s too that I know exactly what that reason is.”

He breathed steadily, daring me to contradict him. He was certain of what he thought he knew. With a conviction like that, he had me near convinced the Exiles truly had taken over the Keep.

He sat back. “You’d have more luck in the capital petitioning the king himself for a job.”

I shoved in another bite of sandwich to keep from snorting.

“Have there been attacks around here?” Lou asked.

Sean picked at the crust of his sandwich. “Small ones. A few fields wrecked here and there. But we don’t know if it’s rebels from the Keep or others just wandering by, like the ones who attacked you.”

“You don’t feel safe here, do you?” Maya asked.

Sean and Finn cast their gazes down. Geordie tried to keep eye contact, but broke it sooner than I’d thought he would.

“We heard about the Ardannian farms,” Geordie said, still not looking at us but out toward the fields he and his brother tended. “There’s no telling if that will happen here.”

At his partner’s tone, Sean grabbed Geordie’s hand, their fingers entwining on the table. Everything inside me turned heavy. Whether we got into the Keep or not, these people needed help. How could we not offer it?

“Give us a moment?” Lou said. The bandages around Maya’s midsection were fresh and tied, her lids half-closed.

Finn guided the others outside. Lou sat back on his heels. “We can’t go to the Keep, not like this.”

“Can’t we?” I said. “We need information from the source.”

“We basically just got it,” he countered. “Besides, Maya can’t travel like this. The wound reopened, started swelling, and someone ”—he shot her a glare—“didn’t say anything.”

I shivered. I knew that look. It was the same one he’d pierced me with a year ago when I had the flu and wasn’t drinking enough water. Except then, Maya had taken their side.

Now, not so much. “We have a mission,” she said, words slurred. I’d thought the same thing a minute ago. But while I could stand on my own two legs and push around a rebel or two as needed, she was struggling lying down.

I sighed. “We can’t do the mission if you’re lying prone on a couch.” She tried to sit up. I put a hand on her shoulder. “That wasn’t a cue for you to move. It was me agreeing with Lou. We can’t go on. Yet.” I directed that part to Lou.

“If at all,” Lou said, firm. “You heard them—the Keep is all but closed off. Even if they let us in, who’s to say we won’t have to take a contract before we learn anything? And then what? Work for a rebel, or worse, an Exile , for a couple weeks to glean information? And then steal away in the dead of night, which would only look suspicious?”

“That’s what I was thinking.” We could deal with the suspicious departure later, figure out a way to make it work in our favor.

“And you’d be able to keep a straight face if you were told to act more assassin than sellsword?”

“I’m a good actress.”

“You’re also stubborn and don’t mind pointing out when someone’s a jackass. Imagine if you were told to become a murderer. You’d launch yourself at them and kill them instead.”

“I could manage.”

Even Maya, in her half-dead state, gave me a look that said You want to bet?

“Defense, not offense, remember?” Lou said.

I threw my hands up. “Fine. You’re right. It wouldn’t go well. But we can’t do nothing .” This was supposed to be the dream assignment, the job where we got information that could prevent a godsdamn war. I wasn’t about to fail and go crawling back to Dàibhid with nothing. Especially not when this was a one-time deal. I couldn’t risk working for Dàibhid again. If I gave him nothing, my chance to help these people would have evaporated like morning mist.

“Missions fail, Rígan,” Thomas said like he could read my mind.

“I know that.” I did. We’d had plenty that failed. But this was my only chance at this one.

“What if we stayed here?” I suggested. “We protect the people of these farms, accompany them to market days, learn what we can that way.”

Thomas frowned. “No one will talk to us that way. We’d be aligning ourselves against the Exiles, and if Geordie is right about the Keep’s allegiance, that would put the farmers at risk.”

“And if Geordie is wrong and the gates closed to keep Exiles out?”

“We’d be risking their lives, Rígan,” Maya said. Finally siding with Lou, then. So much for we have a mission . She even used her stern voice. She rarely pulled it out unless I was being pigheaded. Which I was. I knew we couldn’t risk their lives like that, but the alternative, leaving them to their own defenses, had me wanting to pull my hair out.

“I can go to King Dàibhid,” Thomas said. “You’ve already said it—Maya needs rest. If the farmers are kind enough to let you stay here for a little while, I can make the trip back, tell him what we’ve learned, and see how he wants us to proceed. I’ll present all ideas to him. If I ride hard enough, I can be there and back in three days.”

I rubbed my face. Sellswords entering the Keep were likely only allowed in by contract, so we couldn’t enter like we’d hoped and pretend to shop around for a client. And Lou was right; we might end up being hired as assassins, which I could never live with, no matter if it was for a greater purpose. And if staying here really was unfruitful, the mission was pointless and Dàibhid was wasting his money on us. I sighed as his orders came back to me. We weren’t to risk our lives unnecessarily, and we weren’t to waste time. Knowing what we knew now, taking an assignment in the Keep would waste time. Staying here with no true leads would waste time. But the Keep was an important opportunity, and we were so close.

But this was Dàibhid’s mission. With Maya unable to advance and no risk in hiding here for a few days, it might as well be the king’s decision.

I lifted Maya’s feet to sit on the couch with her, placing her feet in my lap. “It’s as good a plan as any.”