Crow met Penelope’s lips briefly when she kissed him and then stood up from the bed, taking her hand as they headed to the door. When they reached it, he glanced over his shoulder to take one more look around the home where he’d grown up. It felt surreal to think that this was the last time he would be coming here in quite a while, and that the next time he visited, he wouldn’t be a peasant anymore. He took a moment to capture an image of it in his mind before turning back to the knight with a soft smile, “I’m ready now.”

He took a slow breath and opened the door, once again letting her pass through first before he followed along behind and closed it after him. As soon as they were outside, he gave her hand a quick squeeze and then dropped it, letting his own hand hang at his side. Even though they hadn’t seen very many guards around, it would have been just as troublesome if a peasant caught them together. After all, his face was known throughout the outer villages, so it wouldn’t take long for a rumor to start that the most infamous thief in Brerra was seeing a knight romantically. It also wasn’t unlikely for such a rumor to eventually spread to the inner kingdom.

As they walked along the road that would take them further south, Crow passed the time by telling Penelope a few more stories from his life in Myrefall, a few of them being: the time he’d gotten caught by a few local guards when he was a child and got away all on his own; another time when he had been running along the top of a wall in the rain during his teenage years, slipped off, and given himself a bit of memory loss when he’d hit his head on the ground—he pointed out the spot where it had happened as they passed by—and an even more embarrassing time when he’d been spotted by a patrol of knights while bathing in a stream just outside the village border and wound up fleeing from them through the streets before he’d had a chance to put his clothes back on.

Despite the lingering sadness he felt about leaving the outer villages, reminiscing with her about his childhood lifted Crow’s spirits quite a bit. So, by the time they arrived at the inn in Wellspring, he had a grin on his face and was in a rather upbeat mood.

Word of their travels must have spread to this part of the kingdom by now, because the innkeeper didn’t give them much trouble when the thief requested a room for the night. The man merely casted him a wary look as he handed over the key and muttered something about them leaving the room exactly as they found it. Crow wasn’t bothered by his distrust. He thanked the innkeeper politely for the key and then headed down the hallway with Penelope until they arrived at their room for the night.

As soon as he stepped through the doorway, Crow dropped his bag on the floor and collapsed tiredly onto his stomach on the closest bed. “I don’t think my father needed to bribe me to stay in the castle after this,” he groaned into the flat pillow, his voice muffled against its fabric. “I’m sick of traveling. I just want to lay down and never get back up again.”