And a scramble of other noise, and John was already peeking out the door. “Another delivery,” he grumbled. “Livestock. Chickens and goats. Bastards.”

“They’re delivering bastards?” Elena whispered.

The sound of the wheels and the chickens grew louder, creaking to a stop too close outside, so close that John retreated from the front door and shooed the boys away. Will hurried the others out through the back, and then Elena heard a trilling little whistle at the edge of the world.

Much.

She whirled around to grab John, too late. The door opened and the growing light outside made a square around his massive frame, with the shapes of two men standing at the open doorway.

“What’s this here?” one voice with a northern accent barked, and the other, “What’s that back there?”

Get out of here, she thought to Will.

John answered with a dry sarcasm, readying for the fight. “Tools, mostly. Farming. Can I get you something?” He leaned over and picked up a pitchfork from the table.

Let me get there first, John, don’t take them on alone. But there was too much distance between them—

“We have knives,” the first man warned, and John was rounding a table with his pitchfork. Elena grabbed at a trowel on the table. If she could throw it just right—“Do they go in here, or is there another place for weapons?”

The air went out of Elena’s lungs. “We’ll take them, we’ll take them!” she shouted, as casually as a shout could sound. “We’ll organize them, don’t worry.”

“Thanks, girl,” the man at the door said. “Go grab that box o’ knives, would you?”

The second man hustled back to the chicken cart. John looked at Elena gravely, and placed the pitchfork down on another table, slow and dumb, too relieved to think. The men weren’t Guardsmen, they wore simple tunics and plodders. Just wagon drivers.

“Chickens mostly, we’ll be glad to get rid of that,” the one said, kicking the mud off his boot.

“I hear you. We just sort the shit,” Elena said, affecting her voice to match the stranger’s northern lilt.

“We have a small chest or two of coin, too, where do we drop that off?”

“Oh, we’ll take that,” Elena shrugged nonchalantly. God’s shit. “And if it gets a little lighter between there and here, won’t no one be looking for it.”

She winked. That was another trick, one she should remember to tell John. Give a smaller secret, and they won’t suspect the bigger one. If you can get them in on it, then you’ve turned an enemy into an ally.

“You sure?” the man asked, eyeing John Little.

John took his cue. “Just don’t take anything they’ll miss.”