His negotiation tactic was one Nox tucked into the back of her mind—the firm way he offered no alternative while still providing the matron with something she wanted and making it sound like a win for all parties involved. Agnes was no holy woman, and the Law of Sanctuary was probably as important to her as any other prayer she faked or formality she navigated. Coin, however, was a language she knew how to speak.

Agnes’s face twitched against the need to argue. The man took several steps to ground himself more deeply into Farleigh. Logically speaking, Nox supposed she should have been afraid at the presence of a strange man in the night. Yet something about him didn’t seem frightening. She was instead somewhat pleased that he’d bested Agnes in an argument.

Clearly unhappy, Agnes turned and led the man to her office, where she would presumably lock up his weapons and accept his compensation for lodging. Nox took several quick steps away from the balcony, slipping into the dormitory as Agnes guided the man down the hall before they could spot her. Nox’s eyes widened from her place in the shadows at the small, ruddy droplets that fell onto the stones as the stranger trudged down the corridor, the wound in his abdomen spreading with every passing second. The moment the door to the office closed, she took off into the hall.

She needed to find Amaris.

The din of chatter and sounds of eating resumed, perhaps with more excitement as the children pressed each other about the stranger in the manor. Dinner was almost over. Amaris and Nox would soon lose their distracted opportunity to gather supplies.

Maybe the chaos of this man’s arrival would provide additional diversions, securing their escape from the orphanage. Nox pricked with an idea as her eyes floated over her shoulder and down the hall to where she knew Agnes’s office would be locked. The stranger had been relieved of his weapons. Perhaps she could steal a knife or two. If the man had truly paid the Gray Matron, his coin purse may very well be sitting on her office floor amidst his pile of blades. Nox’s mind was buzzing with the ideas as her thoughts began to slow. A fear-filled doubt crept in to replace her excitement.

What had injured him? Was whatever caused the wound still out there?

Nox pressed herself into another dormitory doorway just in time for one of the matrons to move quickly past.

Matron Flora padded past the entrance to the dorm, headed hastily down the corridor. It sounded as though the man was being helped down the servants’ stairs in the back to be kept on the kitchen level overnight. It made sense that the matrons wouldn’t want him slumbering near the children.