“It wasn’t hard,” Crow shrugged when Penelope said he’d found Olivia’s weakness. “Between what you said about them before and the way Alistair has been acting lately, I just put two and two together and took a shot.” He grinned at her cunningly. “Looks like you were right about her, after all.”

Turning back to look at Olivia, he wondered offhandedly if anything would become of their feelings for each other. He and Penelope had decided to abandon tradition to be together, but he didn’t know Olivia well enough to guess if she would be as willing to abandon her life as a knight as Penelope was. Somehow, he doubted she would. Choosing to be with a thief was a tough decision for any woman, since the life of a criminal was so demanding. To add the loss of status and power on top of that just made that decision more difficult still. If he was to place a bet on whether Olivia would follow in her friend’s footsteps, his money would have been on ‘no.’

He glanced at Penelope again as she brought up Gavin’s distrust of him. “That’s probably never going to happen,” he sighed. “I wouldn’t even be surprised if we found and killed Jaxon, and he still found a way to accuse me of that raid.” Shifting to walk a little closer to Penelope, he gave her hand a squeeze. After trying to convince her former suitor that he was innocent with no success, he had given up on changing the man’s opinion of him. It wasn’t like it mattered what Gavin thought, anyway. He was just another knight who would never give a thief the courtesy of being seen as anything other than a criminal. There was no point in trying to convince him otherwise.

--

To Crow’s relief, the rest of their trip to Aramoor went by without any trouble. There had been a few other patrols about, but since they had recognized the knights he was traveling with, none of them had bothered to approach the group. Being able to walk around in the open like that had been a nice change for the thief. Since he usually had to stay hidden from knights, he appreciated being able to blatantly walk in front of them. With his hood drawn and his face hidden, they just seemed to think he was another knight on a patrol.

When they reached the top of the hill where the village resided, the first thing Crow did was amble over to a tree to sit and rest. He dropped to the ground with a long exhale and leaned back against the trunk with his eyes closed. After traveling all day through some of the most demanding terrain in the outer villages when he was already sore, he needed a break.

“What are you doing?” Gavin growled, crossing his arms impatiently as he glared down at the thief. “We need to get to the tavern, so we can interrogate the locals.”

“Just give me a moment,” Crow waved his hand apathetically without looking up. “We have all night to harass the villagers for information. I’m sure we can spare some time before we start.”

“The sooner we get there, the more time we’ll have to speak with them,” Gavin tapped his foot in annoyance.

“The tavern won’t even be full until the sun fully sets,” Crow said dismissively, glancing up at the knight with a bemused look. “I’m even more convinced that we should stop now. It sounds like you need to rest even more than I do.”

“No, I’m just taking this mission seriously,” Gavin retorted, narrowing his eyes untrustingly. “Now stop delaying us and get up… unless you have a reason why you don’t want us to go to the tavern until nightfall.”

“Yes, because I wrote ahead and told all the witnesses to leave before you show up,” Crow said with dry sarcasm. “I know you’d like to think I’m scheming against you all the time, but I really do just want to take a break. Is that too much to ask?”

“It wouldn’t be if you didn’t have a reputation for lying,” Gavin snorted. “Stop wasting our time and get up.”

“Fine,” Crow finally conceded with an exaggerated groan. He climbed stiffly to his feet and took the lead to direct the knights down the road that led to the local tavern.