“That’s always been the way with him,” she continued. “With Much, with his brother, with me. He’s always fighting because of the things he didn’t do. He’s never fighting for something. He doesn’t care about what comes with success, he’s just afraid of what comes with failure. You think he cared about the Crusade? You think he cared about his father, or us?”

“I think he cares about you.”

It was her turn to falter.

“So he fights because of his mistakes, so what?” John asked. “He’s fighting now because he doesn’t want to make another one. Because he knows what happens when he does nothing—he loses someone he loves. And you’re next on that list.”

She bit her lip. It didn’t matter if he was right. “I’m sorry, John.”

When finally he let it go, it came as a rolling groan, and a great melancholy seemed to overtake him. He turned his back to her and let the door drift a few inches open. “We were just trying to do right by our own.”

“I know,” she cried, just for a moment, and regained herself. “We all are.”

He nodded, respectfully, and put his fist to his chest. “M’lady.”

He opened the door wide and left. She thought about stopping him. She could summon Sir Amon, to help find Robin get them out safely. Even as John’s shape lumbered away, even as she watched him heave to a run down the corridor. Until it was no longer an option. How easily she might have helped, but she didn’t. She couldn’t. There would be consequences, cruel consequences, and there was more at stake here than yesteryear’s memories of lost love.

Everything, everything she’d been working toward in Nottingham had led to this. More than a few times she had worried about the risks, about the selfishness she feared within herself. There was no pretending she did not envy the power she was finally so close to claiming, and she knew its cost. But if Robin ruined this, if Marion ended up in the woods running from the law, every life lost was an unconscionable waste. Here, at the head of the city, she could finally make right on the wake of pain that had brought her here. It was a bittersweet victory, but the only kind she could ever expect.

Well after John was gone, she realized she was staring at the gallows again, imagining what Robin’s neck would look like with a rope around it. She pictured him looking out in the crowd, finding her, whispering her name just before he dropped. She ran back to the door and locked it, as if shutting out the world could make it smaller and less important. She went to the mirror and her hairbrush and told herself that Robin would escape, and that he’d understand.