“It doesn’t matter now.” William stopped him from going down that route. “It’s done. The best thing for them now is to go quietly, and quickly. Get a map and show me where they are, they’ll be rounded up before they make it even worse for themselves.”

Robin didn’t move. “What will happen to them?”

Something nagged at William that he should lie, but he couldn’t, not to Robin. “Scarlet and Elena will be hanged at de Lacy’s funeral.”

Robin shook his head. “And the others?”

“I’ll do everything I can, but I don’t know. Don’t think about that. They’ve made their choices.”

“Is there no possibility of keeping the peace?”

“They assassinated the Sheriff!” William hadn’t meant to come off as angry, but hell if he wasn’t. If King Richard had been killed in the night, Robin wouldn’t be thinking of how to treat his murderers kindly. “They’re not stealing jewelry anymore. They snuck into the castle with one purpose—with the intent to murder. Roger de Lacy did everything he could to give them their space, to let them their freedom. To forgive that which is forgivable. This is not. They’ll be hunted down, imprisoned, and hanged. And they’ll deserve it, Robin. You couldn’t have stopped this. They’re murderers and thieves, deserters and traitors. The new sheriff will not be able to turn a blind eye to them the way de Lacy did. No.”

Robin’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t disagree. He nodded, breathed out, and accepted it, because he had to. He chuckled, that was his way. “Who’s the new sheriff?”

William didn’t know why he had been avoiding this.

“I am.”

FINGERS OF BLOOD, SPIDERWEBBING away from de Lacy’s body. Arable entered the room behind him.

“Oh God, William,” she moaned, then her face was unrecognizable, destroyed with grief.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he shouted at her, but he closed the door and barred it—there were bloody handprints on the bar. William’s stomach lurched. He tasted copper in his mouth, it was in the air, it was in the goddamned air.

“I didn’t know what was happening!” she cried, moving to the window and trying to breathe. “I thought Roger should know we couldn’t find anything—”

But he didn’t have time to deal with her. At any moment someone might enter the room. William thanked God he had the presence of mind to understand what had to happen. He might have minutes, or he might have seconds.

Arable’s eyes couldn’t leave de Lacy. “Oh God, was it Gisbourne?”

“No,” William barked. He rifled through the papers on the table. Some were still sticky with blood, he had to peel them apart. “Where the hell is it?”

“Please don’t yell, William.”