“It’s Robin Hood,” he announced, and the name whispered through the air as the guards repeated it. “He’s watching us from the trees right now.” John threw a fist high in the air. “This is the signal. When I drop my arm, he’ll rain arrows down upon you all.”

Gisbourne wasn’t impressed. “Put your arm down.”

“No, don’t!” one guard shouted, twisting around to look at the trees, but the trees were everywhere.

“He could put an arrow through two of your necks in the blink of an eye,” Alan said.

“Could be any of you,” Arthur joined.

“Call him off!” one guard yelled, backing up beneath the overhanging roof of the storehouse. The guards all squirmed, craning their heads. Panicking.

“They’re lying, you fools!” Gisbourne yelled, even as he retreated to the relative cover of the alley between two buildings. “They’re just trying to catch you off your guard!”

Now, this is the moment. This is the distraction. Go!

But Elena hesitated.

“Death to the Sheriff!” the shout came from behind Gisbourne, from the alley.

The captain heard it and sprang sideways, wheeling around to meet the attack. His dagger thrust out where an assailant’s stomach would have been, but there was no mob of villagers there, no surprise rescue. There was just the tip of Gisbourne’s knife as it pierced the apple of Much’s neck.

The world stopped.

The force of the blow lifted Much’s feet off the ground, his legs kicking limply forward, his body suspended on the blade. His eyes were so wide and blue in the half moment before his blond hair flung forward, obscuring his face. A small sword fell from his hands, twirling as his fingers lost their grip. There was nothing else to be seen. Everything else was white, and there was no noise. Much and Gisbourne moved to the ground, one over the other. When Gisbourne pulled the knife out, with it came a thick dark ribbon, just flowing out, just like that. The white moved in on them, fuzzy and numbing, until all Elena could see was the pinpoint of Much’s face, and then nothing, just the white, but it was fading grey.

She was pummeling a guard’s face with her fist, over and over, her knuckles broken and bloody. Then there was a shoulder in her gut and the ground slipped away. She was airborne and tumbling backward. Something struck her face hard and she was down, but her legs scrambled beneath her, then someone else’s hands wrapped around her head and grabbed her hair, throwing her down. A knee crushed into her jaw. There was copper in her mouth and her face couldn’t feel.

But the image was still there, of Much frozen in midair, Gisbourne’s knife through his neck like a potato.