“I’m thinking you should answer for taking her,” Amon said. “I want to know what you…” He swallowed hard. “I want to know if you’ve hurt her in any way.”

“I’m fine,” Raisa interjected, pressing her fingers into the flesh of his arm. “He never touched me.”

Amon looked down into her face. She raised her eyebrows, signaling him to leave off.

“What about the dead Southies?” Amon went on, not able to help himself. “Convince me you weren’t involved.”

“You going to put me on the rack, then, like the others?” Cuffs asked, still smiling, though it looked kind of frozen to his face. “Yank out my fingernails? Smash my—”

“You stop it!” Raisa said sharply. “Amon is not a torturer. He was the one who freed your street runners from gaol. If not for him, I—”

“They’re not my street runners,” Cuffs interrupted.

“Fine,” she said, glaring at him.

“Fine,” he said, rolling his eyes.

Amon was beginning to feel a little extraneous. “You know Gillen’s going to come after you again,” he said to Cuffs. “It’d be better to turn yourself in.”

“Would it? Let me think about it…No thanks,” Cuffs said. “I’ll be off, then. Good luck with your girlie, mate. I think you’ll need it.”

And before anything more could be said, he’d turned the corner and was gone.

Aflame with anger and embarrassment, dizzy with relief, Amon whistled for his triple, and they assembled around him, jittery as colts.

“First of all, great work, everyone,” Amon said. “You should all be proud to have pulled this off without any bloodshed.” The Wolfpack elbowed each other and grinned. “Second of all, nobody says a word to anybody about what happened over here. Don’t ask questions, because I can’t answer them. This is the queen’s business. The fewer who know about it the better.”

Their faces fell, and Amon knew hopes of tavern bragging and free rounds of drinks were evaporating.

“Now. We’re going to take Rebecca back to the castle close,” Amon said. “Fall in.”

Amon marched his little army back to the Way and turned toward Fellsmarch Castle. The guardsmen walked a few paces ahead and behind, giving Raisa and Amon a little space in which to talk.

“What’s going on?” Raisa whispered. “Is my mother furious or worried or both?”

“Furious,” Amon said. “The queen is fuming, and Lord Bayar is making all kinds of threats. But not for the reasons you’d guess. My da and Lord Averill told her you went back to Demonai for a week for some kind of name day clan ritual.”

Raisa blinked at him. “They did? Why did they say that?”

Amon cleared his throat. “My da is worried that if news gets out about you spending the night with a streetlord, your prospects for marriage might be…diminished.”