Rikki wasn’t sure what she had been expecting after she’d unintentionally poured out a piece of her heart to Penelope. She honestly wasn’t sure why she’d done it in the first place. It was a question she couldn’t get off her mind though: Why would Crow possibly want to be with a noblewoman when she had gone out of her way to make herself available to him? Perhaps she was just losing patience with waiting for an answer that never seemed to reveal itself on its own—perhaps that was why she had turned so desperately to the knight for clarity. Either way, she found that she regretted bringing it up. No matter how hard it got waiting for an answer, she shouldn’t have shared her troubled thoughts with a noble. It wasn’t the other woman’s business to know.

So, when Penelope suddenly crouched by her side, the thief flinched and turned her head to avoid the knight’s gaze. Her heart raced with nervousness. Why was this woman suddenly being so nice to her? After the harsh words Penelope had spit at her earlier, she had thought the knight wanted her to suffer. Instead, she was speaking with a softness that Rikki had never heard come out of someone of her class before. Despite herself, she snuck a peek at Penelope’s face as she said she had originally felt threatened by her. The comment made her raise a brow in surprise. She hadn’t known the knight had ever felt that way about her.

As Penelope went on, Rikki listened somberly. She agreed that it sounded completely absurd that a knight would ever be with a thief. Their worlds were just so different. Putting her personal prejudices aside, she couldn’t imagine how they would be able to cross over enough to make a relationship of any kind work, even just a friendly one. However, listening to this knight go on about how she hadn’t planned or expected to fall in love with Crow, she found herself feeling slightly swayed. The realization made her wrinkle her nose. Was she actually coming to [i]understand[/i] this noblewoman’s point of view?

“That wasn’t the answer I was hoping to hear,” she muttered, propping her chin in her hand as she stared down at the pot of medicine. She had been hoping for a quick fix—something practical that Penelope had figured out about Crow that she could learn too. Instead, the knight’s answer made it feel like his affection was out of her hands, and she didn’t like that. [i]Still…[/i] she glanced up at the knight again. Even though her words weren’t what she had wanted to hear, she was actually grateful for the other woman’s attempt to comfort her. It was strangely nice, even if it was from a noble.

“Thanks, though,” Rikki added with a shrug. “I don’t like it, but… I think I understand.” She sighed, feeling Crow drift farther away from her as she spoke. It hurt, but she was starting to think there was nothing left that she could do to stop it. If the thief was really as head-over-heels in love with Penelope as he seemed to be, she couldn’t win him back. He was already gone.

The thought made a surge of sadness well up inside her that made her stomach twist into a knot, and she could feel the beginnings of tears sting her eyes. However, she didn’t want to show such emotion to Penelope, so she turned her head away. “I think this medicine is done,” she said, hating the way her voice broke as she tried to change the subject. Rising quickly to her feet, she turned her back to the knight. “I’ll have Hazel double check it for me.”