Over a few years their friendship had naturally bloomed. Vivian was the prettier of the two and found that in common with Edmond, while Marion and Robin shared a love for learning. She would spend hours with Robin in the forest reading books aloud to each other and wondering about the stars at night. One night as they walked home, their hands briefly brushed together. Whether it had been an accident or the bravest thing Robin had ever done, Marion would never know. But both possibilities amused her, so she took his hand with her own. She walked closer to him and pressed her cheek against his shoulder, just before they returned to the manor and found Edmond staring at Vivian’s body, bloodied and beaten with her guts spilling onto the cobblestones, like the rabbits he used to hunt.

Robin had closed off to her after that. Even now, Marion had too many things to say, and it seemed Robin had too few. She forced herself to remember he was still reacting to his father’s death, and he needed time. At long last she asked him, “Why don’t you come to Sheffield with me?”

He smiled, but not kindly. “That’s good of you, but I don’t mean to stay.”

“You need to sleep somewhere.”

“I’ll take one of your horses, if you can spare it. I have pressing issues in Nottingham.”

This time their eyes met, and the silence was long.

“Don’t do that,” Marion almost whispered. “Don’t run away again.”

“I’m not here on holiday, Marion. I have an errand for the king, your cousin, you may remember, and when it’s done I mean to return to him.”

“You could stay.”

“There’s nothing for me here.”

She almost gasped, but caught it. “Nothing?”

“No, not … I didn’t mean that.”

“Oh don’t get too full of yourself, Robin,” she chastised him. “I wasn’t asking you for my sake. Your name carries weight here. People would listen to you. You could help things.”

“The way my father helped things?” Robin threw his arms out and paraded about the room, as if she were blind to its devastation. “Here’s how to help things—they give me the weapons they stole, and then they never steal anything else again.”

Marion was shocked. For months she had wondered if they would ever be held accountable for those war supplies, fearful that someone would one day come hunting for them. Someone finally had, and it was the one person who should be on their side. But Robin treated their lives as an annoyance from his own.

“This group needs to disperse. Move back to their villages. They pay what they can, and the Sheriff stops persecuting them. Everything ends up fine. The solution here is to do nothing. I’m not very good at doing nothing.”