“You know, it makes sense, the more I think about it,” Crow mused, casting William a sideways glance. “He’s been a knight for a long time. It’s not a long shot to guess that he’s seen plenty of situations where he would have to know how to tend to his comrades’ injuries.” It was no wonder the older knight was so stoic most of the time. He had probably seen even more hardship than the thief had, so his detachment from his emotions must have run even deeper than Crow’s.

Once William had finished dressing his own wounds, he came back to announce that it was time to leave. Crow looked up at Penelope as she offered him a hand to stand up. “I’ll be fine,” he offered her a confident smile. “It’s going to take more than just a dagger to keep me down.” Reaching up, he took her outstretched hand and climbed to his feet. He winced slightly as the wound in his chest smarted in response to the sudden movement, but he was quick to replace the look with a neutral expression since he didn’t want her to worry. Besides that, he was just as eager as the knights were to get to a safe resting spot. Injury or no injury, he wasn’t going to be the one to hold them back from finding a place to spend the night.

“Alright then,” William nodded curtly and turned to go and mount his horse. “Let’s keep moving before it gets dark.”

Crow walked with Penelope over to the stallion and hitched the staff and bow onto the animal’s belly again. Once both were secure, he stood back to allow her to climb onto the horse before he followed after her. Once again, the motion of stretching to get on the stallion’s back sent a sharp pain through his chest, but he was careful to keep his expression in check so his discomfort only presented itself in the form of a faint twitch of his upper lip.

Now sitting behind Penelope on the horse, he slipped his arms around her waist to hold onto her and leaned forward to press a short kiss to her cheek, although he hovered a little farther away than usual since he was trying to avoid accidentally brushing his bandaged wound against her.

“I’m glad we all made it out of there intact—well, most of us, anyway,” he flashed her a lopsided smirk before taking on a more serious look and glancing down a side street. “I just hope that was the last of our troubles. I don’t know how many more attacks we can make it through after taking so many wounds from the ones we’ve been in already.” He shook his head, mentally replaying the many battles they had been caught up in since they had left the Brerratic king’s castle. Looking back on it all, he was impressed they had survived even until the current hour.

“I’ll be glad when this is over and we can move on with our lives,” he said in quiet longing.