Crow was feeling rather pleased with himself when he noticed Gavin tense at his words. It was almost too easy to rile the man up. As someone who prided himself on his ability to say just the right thing to make a knight mad, he found the current situation to be quite entertaining. He held Gavin’s gaze evenly as the nobleman opened his mouth to argue. However, in the next moment, he blinked in mild surprise as Penelope elbowed him in the side and muttered his name in a disapproving tone instead.

He glanced down at her and shrugged haplessly, offering a lopsided smile. While he didn’t feel guilty for prodding at her former suitor, he could tell she wanted him to stop. So, out of respect for her wishes, he held his tongue as the knight finally spoke up again to try and convince her to agree with his side. The thief rolled his eyes. It was clear that Gavin wasn’t willing to let the subject drop until he managed to win some sort of victory over him, whether it be by gaining Penelope’s favor or proving him wrong.

 As the two knights continued to go back and forth over the topic, Crow’s eyes wandered to Olivia, who was awfully quiet during the whole exchange. He was a bit surprised that she wasn’t jumping at the chance to make the situation worse, since he remembered that she liked to fan the flames of chaos. As his gaze landed on her, he noticed that she wasn’t ignoring them as he had thought but was observing with a bemused expression on her face. He recalled that she’d had the same look when he had thrown his dagger at Gavin earlier, and he wondered what she found to be so amusing.

Before he had a chance to question her, his attention was drawn back to Gavin as the knight decided to arrogantly claim that the only reason he and his thieves hadn’t been caught was because of Penelope’s efforts. He felt a slight twinge of annoyance at the notion. He and his companions had been successfully outrunning the knights since long before Penelope had arrived. For Gavin to attribute their accomplishments as the efforts of someone who had only recently offered any help was demeaning to the thief. He wasn’t going to stand by and take the insult lightly.

Momentarily forgetting that she had wanted him to stop pushing Gavin, Crow smirked haughtily as he responded, “Oh, I’m quite grateful for everything she’s done for me.” He slipped his arm around her waist in a gesture that was clearly meant to annoy the other man. “But that doesn’t negate the fact that right now, I’m your best chance at catching the thieves who raided your camp. In fact, without my help I doubt you’d be able to find them at all.”

“I’m sure we would do just fine without you,” Gavin narrowed his eyes.

“Well, I beg to differ,” Crow snorted. “Penelope may have helped me when all of you arrived in the outer villages, but I’ve been avoiding your incompetent comrades since this war began. Do you really think you’re going to catch a band of thieves with this much skill, when you haven’t been able to stop us for an entire year?” He scoffed. “Come on. Even you have to see how foolish that sounds.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Gavin growled.

“Nothing much,” Crow shrugged airily. “It’s just that I’ve never met a man with such little common sense before.” He met Gavin’s eyes with an arrogant look. “It’s a wonder you’ve even managed to get this far as a knight.”