Hanalea’s teeth! He had to get shed of her while he had any secrets left.

“Where’d you get that idea?” he asked.

“You are, aren’t you?” she persisted.

“Well, that’d be bloody stupid, wouldn’t it?” Han said. “Do you think I’m stupid?”

“No. You think it’s your fault they were taken. But it’s not, if you’re innocent.”

She nearly tripped on her long breeches, and he grabbed her arm to right her.

“So. Now you think I’m innocent, do you?”

“Of murdering the Southies, at least,” she said, giving him the evil eye that said he was still guilty of plenty. “They’ll catch you if you try, you know. They’ve got to be expecting this sort of thing. That’s probably why they took them in the first place. To lure you out of hiding.”

As if he didn’t know that. “Well, not your worry, is it?” A few more blocks, and he’d take his leave and…

She suddenly set her heels, practically skidding to a stop, her eyes alight with some new scheme. “Take me back to Southbridge Temple,” she commanded, like the bloody Duchess of Ragmarket. “I forgot something.”

“Are you out of your mind?” He said it louder than he intended, and passersby turned and stared at them. “We just came from there,” he said, forcing his voice down. “I only just got away, and I’m not going back.”

“You’ll have to go back anyway, to free the Raggers,” she said. “Southbridge Guardhouse is right by the temple close,” she added.

As if he didn’t know that. “No. You’re going home. If you really want to help me, you’ll keep your mouth shut about everything that’s happened.”

She set her lips into a thin line and drew herself up to her puny best height. “Fine. I’m off to Southbridge Temple on my own, then.”

It was like one of those nightmares that gets worse and worse until you think you’ll die or bust a vessel, but you still can’t wake up. It was his bloody bad luck to take a crazy person hostage.

He looked around, but there was no dragging the girlie anywhere with the streets so crowded.

He had a notion to pitch her in the river and see if she sank. Instead he turned up his collar and trailed after her, grumbling, back toward Southbridge.

C H A P T E R  F O U R T E E N

ON THE
WRONG SIDE
OF THE LAW

Despite all the troubles she’d had over the previous two days—the kidnapping and threats and robberies and rain and dirt and all—Raisa was intoxicated, bewitched, and bemused by freedom. She strode through the streets in her breeches and shirt, anonymous to the citizens around her, drinking in the details of the colorful neighborhood known as Ragmarket.