Retrieving his clothes from the netted barrels, his thoughts flirted back toward Locksley Castle, imagining Lord Walter’s face churning and charring black in the fire. Gilbert rewatched himself light the torch he had used, walking through its halls, setting anything he could find ablaze. Every living soul had run out to the stables, trying so desperately to put out the flame that the Guards had started, and Gilbert had chosen the opposite. One thing burning wasn’t nearly as interesting as everything burning. It was as much wood as stone in that place, and roof and timber both begged for flame. He had split the oil casks and thrown them against the walls of the dining hall, watching the fire writhe forward, burning hotter and deeper, brighter. That had been the longest his mind had ever disappeared, a wondrous unending mute, nothing but the warmth of the blaze on his face, and the more he fed the flames the longer his solace lasted. At one point he had thought himself wincing from the heat, only to realize he was smiling, wide and childish, uncontrollably.

They had blamed the wind. They thought the fire jumped from the stables and took a miraculous turn on the breeze to find itself inside the castle, because it was the only explanation they had. And he’d never thought twice on it, never suffered the same sickening sense of consequence he felt now over a nothing man.

What it meant, he couldn’t fathom, he didn’t want to, he walked faster. He looked down to discover he was clawing at his glove with the other hand, fresh blood staining it from within. White and red. It didn’t matter, he had more gloves, didn’t he?

When he made it back to the castle gates, he had but to gesture and the Guards opened the side gate for him. They were nothing men, too, safe until Gilbert’s bones started itching again. Not five seconds after he passed, the gate screamed open again, and he turned to see Jacelyn de Lacy walking briskly behind him.

She had followed him. Her good eye bored a palpable hole into Gilbert’s own. She overtook him but did not stop staring, twisting her face around. Perhaps she had only now seen him. Or perhaps she had witnessed everything. Perhaps she was doing something guilty herself and was worried he had seen her.

Not guilty, never guilty. He dug the nail of his good hand into his forearm as punishment for thinking the word. When he pulled it away he left a dark purple dent. He wondered whether he would choose to do something about Jacelyn de Lacy, but no thought came to him.

In the long room off the side of the barracks’ dining hall, Captain Gisbourne asked where Gilbert had been, of course, but only because he had to. The man’s mind was elsewhere. Jacelyn’s half face answered before Gilbert could.