Temra, Petrik, and I freeze for one moment. Confusion takes over. I was so sure that wasn’t Kellyn until I saw his face. Temra and Petrik recover before I do, leaping after the mercenary, but it isn’t long before I surpass them with my longer legs.

“Trust the mercenary,” Petrik says. “Might as well trust a starving lion!” He falls behind Temra and me quickly, despite his best efforts to keep up.

My face turns beet red, but it has nothing to do with the exertion. Kellyn just made a fool of me. Both Petrik and Temra will blame me for this. We can’t lose our money. Not again.

There are so many threats I’d like to hurl at that long, muscled back. First among them is to halt before I unsheathe Secret Eater and detach the mercenary’s knees from the rest of his body. I could do it so easily.

It’s a fanciful thought, but one I would never carry out. I’ll leave the violence to Temra.

Kellyn pushes people over in his haste, angry shouts following in his wake. He leaps over a parked wagon, slides around a shop corner, barrels into a merchant’s cart full of fruit. I hear Petrik slip on a rolling orange from behind me. Temra loses ground as she has to veer around the overturned cart.

And I’m hot on the mercenary’s heels, having jumped the obstacle.

That good-for-nothing wastrel. That lying, scheming, self-obsessed, worthless little worm of a man. When I get my hands on him, I’m going to yell until I lose my voice.

He’s heading farther and farther out of town. Does he mean to traverse back to the road out of the city? He won’t have anywhere to hide then!

Not that he’s been trying to hide. He made a point of slamming the door out of the pawnshop, after all, did he not? And he brandished that bag of coins at me. Taunting me, even. Daring me to chase after him.

Almost as if—

I stop in my tracks. Temra bashes into my arm, not stopping in time. The panting sound behind us must be the scholar.

“What are you doing? He’s getting away!” Temra screams.

“Something’s wrong,” I say.

“You can tell me while we run,” she says, yanking my arm and trying to physically pull me after Kellyn.

“He left his sword,” I say.

“I already mentioned he could buy a new one.”

“But that one was special to him. He loves Lady Killer. And he’s—well, it’s like he’s leading us somewhere.”

Kellyn disappears around a bend in the road, just where the houses of the city end and morph into trees, where the noises of the market fade into animal calls. Secluded. Private.

“If he wanted to run off with the money, he wouldn’t have made so much noise about it,” I say. “He would have been sneaky. Quiet.”

“He’s an arrogant—bastard,” Petrik says between breaths. “This was exactly his style.”

“No, I don’t think—”