“You can’t.” Guy stood. “You can’t, Eric. I know how you feel. But it wouldn’t serve anyone.”

“It’d serve me,” Eric growled.

“And no one else. They need to hang, publicly, so that the people know they’re safe. There’s more at stake than revenge, Eric. It wouldn’t be right.”

“She took my teeth!” he snapped. “And she killed Devon! Wouldn’t be right?”

“She’ll get what she’s earned. At de Lacy’s funeral.”

“That’s a month from now.” His fingers returned to the table, scratching. “Wouldn’t be right is waiting. Who knows what could happen in a month, Captain, and you know it.”

Guy met his eyes, but said nothing. The rancid truth was that Eric was probably correct. Elena Gamwell and Will Scarlet sat in separate cells beneath the castle, waiting to die. If the Guard had taken care of her when she first put a blade to Guy’s throat at Thieves Den, it would have served Jon and Devon and Brian and Reginold and Bolt and George and Roger. The list might still keep growing. So who else might they lose, by letting her live a little longer? Who else was even left to lose?

“We have to be better than that,” Guy said at last. “I understand the desire to take matters into our own hands, to do what feels right. But that’s the easy path, and the easy path is easy for a reason. There’s no lasting victory there. What would make us different than them, Eric?”

But the words rang hollow. By the word of the law, Guy was duty-bound to obey the usurper Wendenal, regardless of how he claimed the sheriffcy. But Guy was already contemplating a path to undo that injustice—which required him to bend from his duty.

“Help me find men, understood?” He pounded the table to dismiss them. “Good men, who are able to step away from their responsibilities for a bit to hunt down these traitors. Bring them to me, the sooner the better.”

“And what about this?” Eric asked as he stood. “The Black Guard? We allowed to do this?”

“There’s precedent.” Guy knew it was not much of an answer. Even years ago, when there was men and coin to spare, he would have to get approval directly from the Sheriff to build a team like this. But William de Wendenal didn’t know the first thing of Nottingham’s procedures, so he wouldn’t even think to question it.

It was foreign territory for Guy. The selfishness of doing the right thing over doing the lawful thing. The hypocrisy of telling Eric he could not do the same. The first step on a slope he had seen too many others slide down, and it led directly to a cell in the prisons, or a blade in the back.