Working in the stables might have kept her from her current course, if not for Gnab, the red-haired son of the stablemaster. Gnab had shoved horse shit down her pants, tripped her as she walked with arms full of harnesses, and berated her with insults about her dead parents, her thin arms and legs, the gap in her teeth—until the day she decided she’d had enough and sank a bony fist into his cheek.

Linura Castle’s stablemaster—a gruff, impatient man at the best of times—had been the one to break up the fight. Unwilling to hear a word against his son, he’d allowed Anji a minute to pack her paltry belongings, then marched her by the elbow to the laundresses’ quarters beneath the castle, away from the horses and her musty pallet in the tack room’s far corner. There he’d left her with Emelda, the castle steward and servant master, who preferred the title of Matron. And there she’d stayed, until she stabbed Rolandrian.

“I got in a fight.”

“Of course you did,” said the Hawk. She shook out the pot, patted the horse’s neck, and stuffed it back into the bag before tying it to the saddle once more.

“We’ll make for the center of town,” she said, donning her mask.

Anji looked over the ridge at the bulbous building hogging all the town’s scant light. “Looks like the perfect spot to rest up,” she said. “Separate rooms, then? We could share a bed, but I don’t think our relationship has—”

“We’re not sleeping here.”

Anji picked a sliver of cartilage from her teeth. “Right,” she said, “you’ve got a tent and a cozy cot for yourself. I don’t suppose you care, but I’ve had my fill of sleeping on the ground.” She spat the sliver out, watching it catch on a particularly strong gust of icy wind. “A nice goose-feather bed and a drink would be—”

“Stop your prattling. We’re getting supplied and making our way. No interruptions, or I’ll—”

“Slit my moronic throat,” Anji finished, scratching at the skin under her manacles. “I’m well aware.”

“I’ll auction your things to the lowest bidder, girl. That dagger of yours is Sevenfold steel, and the coin is so full of maxia I could sell it to the Dean of Exorcia himself.”

Anji froze. “You wouldn’t.”

“I hardly think it benefits you to assume what I would or wouldn’t do. We’re here for food, and I need to ask about Tumbledown. Then we’re off.” The Hawk hoisted herself back into the saddle, sawing at the reins as the horse sidestepped away from the bats above.

Anji frowned. “Tumbledown? You didn’t mention … I didn’t know we were going that way.”

“Forgive me for not drawing my plan out on a map for you.”