Unfortunately for Crow, it seemed like Mia wasn’t as gullible as he’d been hoping she would be. Her face remained unreadable to him as she took in his rather obstinate answer to her question. He didn’t like the way she paused to think over everything he’d said, since he had been trying to bait her into finding his suggestion so absurd that she would decide he couldn’t have been involved with Penelope. Instead, she was just as calculating as he had originally suspected her to be, which made things a little trickier for him. Perhaps he needed to try a different approach with this baroness.

He listened carefully to her response as she confirmed that she wasn’t going to be so quick to believe his word. When she revealed that she knew a few things about his history with Penelope, he was slightly surprised. Although, he supposed he should have known that. Word of their mission in Younis two years ago had spread quite far around the kingdom, since it had been a big deal at the time. It honestly would have been more shocking if Mia hadn’t heard about it.

[i]I can still work with this,[/i] he thought, formulating another direction to try.

“You’re right,” Crow shrugged. “We did know each other before, but that’s the only reason why I was willing to work with her again now. She’s proven to me that she can be trustworthy—unlike the rest of you coldhearted fools.” He narrowed his eyes slightly at the baroness as he went on, “You know, you should take a few notes from your lieutenant. [i]I’m[/i] the only reason your knights were able to stop the thieves that attacked your camp, and [i]I’m[/i] the reason you aren’t rotting in a Younisian dungeon right now. If she had treated me like the rest of you nobles so often do, I would have been content just sitting back and watching them run your battalion into the ground.”

He casted her a cheeky smirk. “As for this,” he gestured to the bandages around his middle. “I’m flattered that you think [i]‘a thief like me’[/i] is honorable enough to take a sword for someone out of the goodness of my heart, but I’m not that noble. You see, I’ve had a personal vendetta against the leader of those thieves for quite a while now.” His gaze darkened slightly. “I disapprove of the way he would kill without discrimination. Men who murder without cause are the worst sort of criminals, and I got sick of seeing him get away with it time and time again. We may have both been thieves, but in my eyes, he was a danger to these villages that needed to be dealt with.

“So, when I saw him about to take yet another life, I just intervened without giving it much thought,” he looked down and gingerly touched the bandages over his wound. “Call it petty revenge if you will, but I just couldn’t let him have the satisfaction of doing it again when there was a way for me to stop him.” He turned to meet her gaze again with a thoughtful expression. “I would like to say it was a coincidence that your lieutenant was the one I happened to save, but who knows?” He smiled at her amusedly. “Perhaps subconsciously, I saw it as a way to repay her for the respect she’s continued to show to me whenever our paths have crossed.”