“Shh.” She paused several feet from the alley mouth, where the marines wouldn’t see them in the shadows. “Never tell me that I can’t. Just be ready to get us to this inn of yours.” If she keeled over and he had to carry her, so be it.

Closing her eyes, she slowed her breaths.

It was hard—gods, it was so hard to forget her body and slip away when it ached and trembled. When the cold nipped at her fingers and cheeks. When the cloak, soft as it was, chafed the blisters on her hands, threatening to split them open.

Out there, in the moist air … In the dark, cold night … On the open sky …

She drew in a damp wind, blowing it up from the sea, over the shingle beach and through the streets.

Her body complained at the cold and somewhere warm hands fastened on her arms, keeping her upright.

The wind brought in fog, shrouding the city, drifting through lanes and up alleyways, blocking—

Then there was darkness.

Fog

“Wild Hunt take you, woman,” Knigh muttered when her body went limp. He caught her, swearing again at how cold she was.

But the road was choked with fog—the marines wouldn’t see them pass.

Clenching his jaw, he surveyed her still face. Warm breath touched his cheek. She was alive then. Thank the gods.

Though this holding her close was a kind of torture. His hands ached for the contact, to comfort her, to touch her. But he was the one responsible for her suffering.

He’d betrayed her. There it was—as bare and raw and horribly simple as that. He’d betrayed her. He didn’t deserve to hold her, to touch her, to have what he wanted.

And yet he couldn’t leave her in this alley.

So he held her against his body, pulling his coat around them both, trying to share what body heat he could, and kept his hold functional, gentle—what she needed, not what he wanted.

Heart aching, he set off into the shrouded streets. Every inch of him knotted—ears straining for any sound through the mist, eyes alert for the slightest movement, body taut and ready to dive into an alley. Anything to get her to the relative safety of his room.

Her cheek was like ice, tucked against his neck, and she weighed far too little. Her chest barely moved with shallow, slow breaths. She’d eaten a little but, if anything, she looked even worse than when he’d first taken her from the gibbet cage, cheeks hollow, lips pale.

“Vee, if you bloody die, I’ll never forgive you …” Or myself.

He should never have let her go after FitzRoy. What had she needed from him? There was no sign of blood on her clothes or hands, so she must have stayed true to her word and not killed him.

If she had, would he have deserved it?