As Gavin said that he could pretend to keep courting Penelope, Crow nodded, feeling a mixture of relief and distaste at the thought of watching another man get close to her. Knowing that it was all for the sake of keeping their relationship a secret, he found the knowledge to be a little more bearable, but it still wasn’t pleasant. He glanced at Penelope as she gave her former suitor further advice on how to act when John was around. Part of him wished they would wait until he wasn’t around, since hearing them talk about such things made him feel uncomfortable, but with her father on his way to the tent as they spoke, it wasn’t like they had time to find a private place to discuss their plans. Apparently, they barely had time to talk about it now too, as the sound of approaching footsteps could be heard outside the tent.

Crow turned to see who was coming, trying to ignore the irrational pang of jealousy he felt at the sight of Penelope taking Gavin’s hand. It had only been one small gesture, yet he already wished they didn’t have to go to such lengths to fool the other man. If John stuck around for a while, he had a feeling the rest of his recovery was going to go by quite slowly, especially since the knight seemed intent on staying by his side at all times. He sighed despondently. At the rate things were going now, his hope of finding any more time alone with Penelope was looking grim.

He watched quietly as John stepped inside the tent and addressed Gavin and Penelope, rolling his eyes at the older knight’s comment about keeping him ‘locked up and supervised.’ Any measures the nobles took to keep him restrained were redundant at this point. His wound was enough to keep him immobilized by itself, so they didn’t need to keep him chained up and surveilled on top of it. But of course, there was no getting through to the irrational minds of the knights, so he knew that arguing over about their extra measures would have been useless.

As John went on to speak with Gavin and Penelope about their courtship, the thief bit his lip to suppress an amused smirk. [i]If only you knew how wrong you are,[/i] he thought smugly, averting his gaze to look up at the canopy of the tent as if it was suddenly interesting. Even though he was well aware that they were treading on dangerous ground while Penelope’s father was in the camp, there was a small part of him that was entertained by the fact that the man had no clue his daughter was romantically involved with a criminal—and the most infamous one in the kingdom, at that.

However, his amusement quickly fled when John brought up the mention of discussing wedding plans for the two knights. Surprise and worry flashed across his face for a brief second before he recovered his neutral expression, and he was grateful that no one seemed to be looking at him at that moment. Why was Penelope’s father pushing to marry them now? When she had told him about their marriage plans before, she had made it sound like they were still in the far distant future. He didn’t understand why there was a sudden rush for the two to get married when the war was still raging strong.

As John announced that he expected to set the ceremony one year from now despite the outcome of the war, Crow felt the color drain from his face. If the fighting wasn’t over before then, it was going to be quite a mess for him and Penelope to get out of. He hoped the war came to a conclusion before that time, so they wouldn’t have to deal with that, otherwise they just might end up being forced to run from the frontlines together much earlier than they had planned.

When John dismissed the two knights to leave the tent, Crow had to fight to keep an uninterested expression on his face as Gavin kissed Penelope on the cheek. Even though he knew it was all for the sake of the act, he hated having to watch her ex suitor get so friendly with her right in front of him. Taking a calming breath, he offered Penelope a halfhearted smile as she caught his gaze on her way out of the room, hoping to reassure her that he was still supportive of their plan.

Once they were alone, John wasted no time in addressing the thief.

“So,” he said, stepping over to sit in Jane’s chair on the other side of the tent. It seemed that despite what he’d said about guarding him earlier, the knight didn’t really view him as a threat. “Have you made your decision yet, or would you still like to have until the end of the day?”

Crow hesitated for a long moment before he answered in a low voice, “No, I’ve made up my mind.”

“Is that so?” John mused, folding his arms over his muscular chest. “What have you decided, thief?”

Again, Crow wavered before replying. “I’ll accept the invitation,” he muttered. “As soon as I’m healed enough to get out of here, I’ll go with you to the castle.”

“Good choice,” John nodded sagely.

Crow just grunted in response and turned his head to face the wall of the tent, closing his eyes and settling down a little more comfortably on his bed. It wasn’t dark outside yet—he had seen low daylight when the flap of the tent had lifted earlier—but without Penelope around and with nothing else to do, he supposed he might as well get some rest. After all, it looked like he was going to need it since he would either be escaping from the knights’ camp or traveling to the inner kingdom soon. Either way, he needed to restore his energy to make the trip he chose.

With that thought in mind, the thief slowly drifted off into a light and dreamless sleep.