“I can handle him on my own,” Fie mumbled, surprised when her eyes burned. The anger had boiled down to mortified spite. “I just … All I did was play a damn game.”

Wretch dropped the water skins on the bank and waded out to Fie, shaking her gray-streaked head. “Aye, all you did was play a game. And with a pretty boy. And if it were fair, that’s all there’d be to it.”

Wretch wasn’t much for sentiment, but she gripped Fie’s shoulder anyhow. “I would have left you to handle Hangdog. We all know you could trounce him twice with your eyes shut. But when he followed you? The only reason that pretty boy didn’t come haring after was because I beat him to it. And we both know where that road would have led.”

Fie did. And she hated it. All this mess over a stupid game.

“We’re two more days off Cheparok. Then you’re clear of all this nonsense, and we’ll have a Covenant oath to cash out and no more fretting over Oleander rides. That’s a mighty thing, Fie.”

“Aye,” Fie said softly. Two days and it would all be over.

“They’ll come up with a fancy name for you,” Wretch teased. “Tell stories for centuries. Fie Oath-cutter. Fie the Cunning. Fie, the Crow Who Feared No Crown.”

“I’ll settle for Fie, Who Never Saw an Oleander Again.” Fie rubbed her eyes.

There was less jest than truth when Wretch said, “So would we all.”

That night passed, and two more, without Fie looking at Hangdog or the lordlings if she didn’t have to. Instead she huddled in the wagon, practicing her toothcraft as the road turned from sand to rocky clay, and bristling pines shifted to copses of stout palms. Each field they passed seemed lusher than the last, a distant thin ribbon of green broadening into the Fan River, which gave the region its name. That ribbon pointed straight to a hard, jagged line against the coin-bright sea: Cheparok.

And that river marked their way, flashing coy as Fie fought to strike harmony with pair after pair of teeth. As Cheparok neared, Pa looked over his shoulder less, but a telltale creak of the wagon seat still gave him away each time. At least the Pigeon witch-tooth had kept any plague beacons at bay until after they’d passed.

By the time they drew within half a league of the city’s western gates, Fie’s shirt clung horribly to her skin, half from the choking air and half from the murderous sun overhead. Cheparok’s towering walls didn’t even have the decency to cast a long enough noontime shadow to offer respite.