She suspected the boy was right. “Then why are you following me?” she demanded, just as two tall, sneering figures stepped from the shadows, blocking her escape.

Their clothes were rough spun and stained, and the men reeked of ale. The bigger one was missing half his teeth, and the smaller had pallid skin, and blond hair that hung in rattails over his greasy jerkin. Their daggers glittered in the moonlight, and Emry didn’t doubt for a moment that they knew how to use them.

Sard.

Icy fear shot through her veins as the men sized her up, sensing her distress.

“You must be lost,” said the first with a rotting grin.

“ ’Ent anyone ever tell you cities are dangerous?” lisped the other.

“Give us your pack,” said the first, “and we might let you live.”

He stepped toward her, his dagger held low, as though he meant to gut her like a fish.

Emry swallowed nervously. She didn’t have a knife. Didn’t have any weapon on her except her magic, and she’d never used it to defend herself before. She took a step back, which only seemed to encourage them.

“Nowhere to run,” said the grinning man, menacing toward her.

Was her magic faster than their daggers? She didn’t know. And she hated that she was about to find out.

“Two against one hardly seems fair,” someone called.

It was the boy in the beautiful coat, calmly unsheathing a knife from his boot and brandishing it against her attackers.

“I don’t need your help,” Emry snarled. Honestly. Why couldn’t he just leave her alone?

Yet when the men turned to leer at the elegant stranger, the distraction gave her a precious moment to reach for her wand.

Fleoges, she thought, sending her attackers’ weapons flying from their hands. The knives embedded themselves in the nearest wall, handles vibrating.

Emry smirked as the men stared at their daggers, brows knitting in confusion, unable to work out what had happened.

“Not so tough now, are you?” she goaded.

The men merely exchanged a look, then reached down to pull spare knives from their boots, their horrible grins returning full force. Emry’s stomach sank.

“Not so confident now, are you?” one of them taunted, slashing his knife in threat.

Fear rippled through her.

The man with the rotting grin slashed his knife again, and Emry scrambled back, the blade narrowly missing her abdomen.

“Drop yer pack an’ go,” he growled.

But Emry wasn’t giving up her father’s books and coat. Not to these thick-skulled thieves who didn’t even recognize magic when they saw it. Perhaps, she thought, I haven’t shown them magic enough.

“How about you drop your knives,” she retorted, lifting her chin. “Or else I’ll do it for you.”

“Gonna fight us with that stick?” his friend asked, leering at her wand.