Crow shifted tiredly against Penelope’s side as he heard Gavin’s frantic voice calling her name. Despite having not eaten much of the valerian root, he still felt completely drained of energy that morning. He supposed he should have expected as much after he had spent most of the night running around, but he had been hoping that at least some of his energy would have been restored after getting to sleep until midday. Instead, it almost felt like he hadn’t slept at all.

He groaned when Penelope shook his shoulder to wake him up, deciding there was no point in hiding his exhaustion when the rest of the group was just as tired as he was. “I’m up,” he mumbled, propping himself up on his forearm and rubbing his eyes blearily. As he slowly woke up, he took a moment to look around the campsite. Gavin was making his way over to Olivia, who looked almost like she had collapsed against a tree on the edge of the clearing. Meanwhile, Alistair and Rikki were both still out cold on their bedrolls. It seemed that while Gavin had been determined to rouse his comrades, he’d had no intention to wake the thieves.

Crow shook his head faintly and climbed to his feet, stretching his arms as he made his way over to Alistair. “Hey,” he muttered, nudging his companion with his foot. “Get up. We slept through the morning.”

“Just a little longer,” Alistair groaned and pulled his blanket over his head.

Crow rolled his eyes and kicked him a little harder in the ribs, “Come on, lazy ass.”

Alistair yelped and scrambled to sit up, shooting him a grumpy glare, “Alright already.”

Feeling satisfied that the other thief was fully awake now, Crow turned and repeated the process with Rikki, who was a little easier to get up than their stubborn friend. Once both of his companions were awake, he headed back to pack up his supplies—even though he was sure they would be camping here one more night, it had become habit to him to put away his things to protect them from rogue thieves and weather damage—furtively watching the knights as he did so. He didn’t miss Gavin’s suspicious glances at him, but he wasn’t concerned. There was no way that the knight could know he had been the reason why they had slept through the morning.

[i]He doesn’t even know I took Penelope’s guard shift,[/i] he added to reassure himself even more.

When he finished rolling up his bed, he stepped over to rejoin the knights, curious to hear what Gavin’s new plan would be since they had all overslept. No matter what, he wasn’t worried about anything the knight could come up with. He had already ensured that the villagers of Wheldrake would lead them the wrong way, so there was nothing they could do to find Jaxon’s group anymore. He stood nearby with his arms crossed over his chest, waiting patiently to hear what Gavin’s orders would be.