As soon as Penelope had gone, Crow turned back to Rikki, looking her over as he tried to think of the best way to handle the situation. After a moment, he spoke up, “Come on; we should start walking back to camp.” He waved his arm in a gesture to leave and waited for her to comply before he fell in step beside her. They lapsed into silence again as they headed through village, the quiet only broken by her intermittent sobs. He felt a pang of sadness for her and was suddenly tempted to try to explain everything to her right there. However, he knew it would be best to wait until she had calmed down a bit, so she would be able to have a coherent conversation with him.

They walked for a while until they reached the edge of the forest. By this point, Rikki’s cries had faded into occasional sniffles, so he guessed she had gotten most of it out of her system. “I’m sure this all probably came as a shock to you,” he said softly, looking ahead to avoid meeting her tear-filled gaze. “And I know you must have a lot of questions for me. I just want to start by saying that I’m sorry you found out this way. I was going to tell you all eventually; I was just hoping it wouldn’t be like this.”

“I just… I don’t get it,” Rikki murmured, shaking her head. “You told me you didn’t want a relationship, but I heard you talking to her in there about your plans for the future.” She turned to him with a frown, her chin quivering slightly as she grew dangerously close to crying again. “Was all of it just a lie? If it was just me you didn’t want to be with, you could have said so. I could have handled it.”

“That’s not it at all,” Crow turned to her, hoping she could hear the sincerity in his voice. “You’re an amazing woman, love. You’re beautiful, funny, caring, and an incredibly talented thief.” He offered her a halfhearted smile. “My reasons for not courting you have nothing to do with who you are. Honestly, if we had met a few years earlier, or if Penelope hadn’t come back into my life… perhaps I could have brought myself to love you.”

Sniffling quietly, Rikki averted her gaze again without replying. Crow sighed and did the same. He knew that his words probably did nothing to comfort her. He just wanted her to know the truth. “When I told you last year that I didn’t want a committed relationship, I was speaking the truth,” he said. “I never told any of you this, but… two years ago, when I had gotten out of prison, I was sent to Younis with three knights by the king’s orders. I was told to steal something for him, and they were assigned to guard me, so I couldn’t escape.

“Penelope was one of those knights,” he glanced at her again. “Over the course of the journey, we grew close and eventually fell in love with each other. Even though she was a knight and I was a thief, we found that we couldn’t help it. We cared about each other in a way that defies the culture of our kingdom.” He shook his head as he went on, “We were planning to be together back then, but… a number of things went wrong. Long story short, she was never able to join me in the outer villages, and I believed her to be dead.

“After that, I didn’t think I could handle getting so close to anyone else… not after losing her like that. That’s why I told you I didn’t want anything serious. If I let myself get close to you, and I lost you like I thought I had lost her…” he trailed off, unable to bring himself to complete the thought. After a brief pause, he went on in a quiet voice, “When I found out she was still alive, it changed everything. I realized I had a second chance to be with her, and it turns out she still wants to be with me too. That’s what you overheard us talking about… Once this war is over, she and I are planning to pick up where we left off and be together as we intended two years ago.”

Now finished with his explanation, Crow fell silent and watched Rikki as he waited for her reaction. At first, she said nothing, though he couldn’t tell if it was because she was trying not to cry again or because she was genuinely unsure what to say. Perhaps it was some combination of the two. However, after a long pause, she finally spoke up without meeting his gaze, “This is the real reason why you’ve been avoiding me lately, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” he nodded.

“I see,” she took a shaky breath. “I suppose I can sort of understand, but I’m hurt that you would lie to me about everything. Why didn’t you just tell me the truth? It feels like you’ve been leading me on this whole time. You let me keep hoping for a future you knew was never going to happen. If you really care about me as much as you’ve said you do, then why would you do that?”

Crow blinked, caught off guard by her words. He had never thought about it that way before. He had been so caught up in his worries about what his companions might do to him if they found out about Penelope that he never once considered how his lies might have hurt any of them. He lowered his gaze, suddenly ashamed of himself. “I’m sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to lead you on. I guess I was just hoping you would eventually move on on your own… I should have been more considerate of your feelings.”

“Yes, you should have,” Rikki shook her head. “I would never do something like this to you, Crow. I guess I should have known better than to expect the same respect from you.”

The thief winced as her harsh words hit him like a sucker punch to his stomach. He knew he didn’t deserve anything more from her after he had toyed with her heart like that—even if he hadn’t done so on purpose—but it didn’t lessen the pain. “I’m sorry,” he said again, avoiding her pained eyes. He could already feel an invisible wedge driving them apart, tearing at the closeness they had built up over the year they had been together. It hurt to know that he was probably going to lose her friendship over this. As selfish as it was, he still wanted to be friends with her when everything settled down.

“I know I shouldn’t ask anything more of you after what I’ve done, and you have no reason to do anything for me, but… would you please not say anything to Simon or Alistair about me and Penelope?” Crow asked tentatively. “I want them to hear it from me first.”

“You’re right, I don’t have a reason to help you,” Rikki said coldly. “But that’s the difference between you and me. I don’t need a reason to be kind to someone.”

“So, you won’t tell them?” he said, slightly surprised.

“No, I won’t,” she glanced at him. “I may be upset with you, but I’m not so petty as to go around and gossip about your forbidden romance just to get revenge. You should know me well enough by now to know that I would never do something like that.”

“You’re right,” he exhaled. “You’re a great person, and you didn’t deserve any of this. I’m so sorry I hurt you… I wish I’d handled this better. If I could go back in time and take it all back, I would.”

“Too bad, huh?” Rikki muttered. Another short moment of silence dragged on between them before she spoke again, “I may not go out of my way to get you back for this, but when we get back to camp, don’t talk to me for a while. I need some time to think.”

“Of course,” Crow nodded, feeling a pang of sadness that she wanted to stay away from him. Even though he found her constant company to be a nuisance sometimes, he did enjoy having her around. It was going to be strange to not have her by his side anymore when they returned.

With neither thief having anything left to say to the other, they spent the rest of their trip back to the tunnels in tense silence. They skirted around the edge of the waterfall and stepped inside to find the others already asleep on their mats. Crow headed over to his bed to lay down for the night. He quietly kicked off his boots and pulled his blanket up to his chin, closing his eyes as he tried to fall asleep, so he could forget about his uncomfortable conversation with Rikki.

However, before he had a chance to drift off, he looked up as he heard a scraping sound and saw the female thief dragging her mat away from where it had been set up next to his. She dropped it on the other side of the sleeping area and laid down with her back to him, pulling her blanket over her head. It was faint, but he could hear the sound of muffled sobs coming from her direction as she began to cry again.

Crow rolled over to face away from her, pulling his blanket higher as well to block out the noise. With her sobs as an incessant reminder of the way he had hurt her that night, he tossed and turned for a long time until he finally drifted off into a fitful sleep.