Crow shook his head as the knights began bickering amongst themselves. He raised one more bite of food to his mouth and chewed slowly, deciding to hold back from eating anything more of the poisoned meal. It tasted great, and his empty stomach tempted him to finish off the plate, but he didn’t want to risk consuming too much valerian root and sleeping through the night. He needed to be alert enough to finish everything he had planned to do before sunrise.

As Penelope spoke up, he turned to her with a smile, focusing on the present moment rather than what was to come. “You still did good,” he said, wrapping an arm around her shoulders to hug her against his side. After a moment, he pulled back again and shifted to rise to his feet. “I have something to take care of,” he announced, looking down at the knight and resting a hand briefly on her head as he stood over her. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” Gavin asked coldly.

“Relax,” the thief rolled his eyes. He reached for the sleeve that covered his right arm and pulled it back, revealing the bandages he had wrapped around his forearm from Jaxon’s cut. “I just need to change these out quickly. It won’t take long.”

“When did that happen?” Rikki asked with a frown as she studied his arm.

“A few nights ago,” he shrugged, letting his sleeve fall over the bandages to hide them from view again. “A bounty hunter found me while I was sleeping. Fortunately, he was young and inexperienced, so this was the worst he managed to do.”

“Too bad,” Gavin muttered.

Crow ignored the knight’s bitter comment, “Anyway, I just need to take care of this before I forget tonight.” He leaned down to press a quick kiss to Penelope’s forehead, casting her a playful wink as he picked up his plate of food. “I’ll be sure to finish this off while it’s still warm.”

Feeling satisfied that he had convinced the others of his story about a bounty hunter attack, he turned and walked over to his bag, where he had packed away the spare bandages. On the way there, he could feel Gavin’s suspicious gaze on his back, but after a while, the knight seemed content that the thief hadn’t left his range of sight, so he looked away to continue eating in silence. Crow smirked to himself as he sat down facing away from the group and dug through his things to retrieve the fabric wrapping. He really did need to change out the dressing on hi injury, but that wasn’t the only reason why he had chosen this particular moment to do so.

Casting a furtive glance over his shoulder, he made sure that no one was looking in his direction and then swiftly poured out the rest of his dinner beneath a nearby bush. Between the cover of the foliage and the darkness of the night, no one would be able to find it unless they were looking. He sighed softly, [i]Sorry, Penelope. I’ll be sure to enjoy your cooking next time.[/i]

With that done, he made quick work of replacing the bandages on his arm and got up to rejoin the others at the firepit.