Crow wanted to rake his fingers through his hair in frustration. As hard as he tried to convince Gavin to let it go, the knight refused to see reason. He wished he could explain himself or do anything to make the other man understand what was going on, but he couldn’t do so without breaking his word to Jaxon. To make matters worse, it seemed that Gavin had mistaken his warning for a threat. He groaned inwardly as the knight took on a defensive stance, as if he expected the thief to come after him. Of course he wasn’t going to attack anyone. As infuriating at the man could be, he didn’t want to see him die. They may not have gotten along well personally, but he didn’t think Gavin was a bad person, and the knight certainly didn’t deserve to be killed for stumbling upon something he shouldn’t have.

He was just about to try another approach to get Gavin to back down, when the knight added something else that made him bristle: [color=fdc68a][b]“And so will Penelope once she learns what you’ve been doing behind her back.”[/b][/color]

Crow narrowed his eyes at that. It was quite clear that no matter what he said or did, Gavin had every intention of telling the others that he had seen him with Jaxon. [i]He’s going to ruin everything,[/i] he thought scathingly, trembling slightly from a mixture of anger and fear as he restrained himself from lunging at the knight. After everything he’d done to keep the knights from finding out about his alliance with Jaxon, Gavin was going to spoil it all and get Penelope killed anyway! He took a shaky breath, trying to calm down so he wouldn’t do anything irrational.

“That’s not going to happen, because she’s never going to find out,” he snarled. Well, so much for being rational. “Tell her whatever you want, but I’ll deny it tooth and nail. She’s never going to believe you.” Knowing the conversation was going downhill fast with no resolution in sight, he glanced over his exit points again. He needed to get away from Gavin before the situation got any worse.

Without waiting for a reply, he lunged at the knight with the dagger in his right hand poised to strike. Of course, the attack was merely a distraction. As soon as Gavin blocked or dodged it, he intended to sprint for the closest escape route to get away from him, using his superior knowledge of the outer villages to get away.