She was surprised to find that there were no windows into the house. Thankfully, apart from the road and the field between it and the house down the hill, it was surrounded by trees. No one noticed her approach to the little door at the base of the back of it.

  Slowly, she pulled it open and peered in. Plenty of room to crawl to where there were lines of light forming a square a bit of ways in. She left the cloak just inside and ducked in, pulling the little cover back into place.

  She crawled, slowly and carefully to keep from making a noise. She stopped within the square of light, dowsed in the dark of the slightly tighter boards of a hatch into the house from the crawlspace. Her eyes adjusted as she pulled her legs into a crouch beneath her to look through the cracks above her. There was movement.

  He was here. She pulled a knife from the belt of many more around her thigh. The dirk that was notched to her belt and sheathed on the same belt as her knives had to wait. She lifted the hatch without a sound.

  A man was crouched with his back to her, humming to himself as he placed items at the head of his mat of hay covered by a blanket over a dark fur pelt. He had no belt, no sword. He was who she was looking for. Her eyes narrowed as she watched him for a moment. He never turned around. She drew in a breath.

  She lifted herself from within the hatchway and slid to the side. She was under a table. She kept crouched as she moved between two chairs. Her soft soled boots didn’t even make a scraping across the dust. Her grip on the knife adjusted. She remembered the last time she tussled with the man. Here we go again, she sighed.

  A board creaked.

  The man looked over his shoulder and his eyes shot wide. “Not you again!”

  She leapt with her knife blade stabbing downward. He caught her hand and rolled sideways. She gritted her teeth as her back slammed the wall beside his spread blanket. Breath erupted from her as her back straightened from the force. He gripped her wrist and pressed on her shoulder with all his weight. Her fingers lost hold of the knife when he twisted her wrist just enough the wrong way.

  She struck his temple with her knee. He floundered. She rolled from beneath him and grabbed his blanket in a fist.

  “But…why?” He pushed to his feet. His hand was out.

  She wrapped it with his blanket. He clawed to unwrap it with his other hand. She wrapped that one, too. His wince was more than satisfying. She dropped to the ground and kicked off the wall behind her. Gripping the blanket, she slid past him. He was thrown, head over feet, onto his back. She whipped herself around to crouch on top of him. Her hair, having fallen from its tie, fell over half her face in frizzy red curls.

  “I asked you…” She began to say. She was cut off when his knees pushed her splaying forward from over top of him. She hit the ground face down and rolled to one of the chairs.

  He jumped to his feet and reached for his sword. He didn’t have it. He rolled his eyes at himself just before she hit him with one of the chairs. He went into the wall beside the hearth. Now his hands were up, ready to fight. She swung the chair again. He caught it with one hand and reached for her with the other. She didn’t think. She just moved.

  Barely a breath, she was going up the wall. She didn’t let go of the chair, twisting it and his arm with it. She walked herself up the wall and across the beams of the roof to land on the table. It happened so fast that his head bounced off the top. He was still blinking to steady his lolling eyes when she let go of the chair on top of him.

  “Ouch,” he tried to push himself up, half bent over the table. His back was to the hearth. “That…seeing double now.”

  Her frizzy red hair fell over her face as she straightened. The door! She could get to the door. She ran across the table for it.

  All she heard was, “Not so fast!”

  The table scraped across the hardwood floor. She leapt out of the way just before it slammed the door shut.

  She cursed at herself. Then, she turned a sharp glare at the young man standing like a teetering spindle in front of the hearth. She charged. He threw a wandering punch, still reeling.

  She was sliding with one foot forward long before he swung. Her first foot caught his front one. He windmilled to catch his balance. She used the momentum of the bricks at the foot of the hearth to spin her into a sweep of his other leg. He hit the ground with a thud.

  “For all that is holy, woman,” he rolled to get back up but she grabbed the pot from the hearth. He looked up at her with saucer eyes pleading nearly as loudly as his, “Oh, come on!”

  She brought the pot down on his back. He flattened on the ground and tried to claw away. She swung the heavy pot that was nearly as wide as she was around and over her head down on him again. It thudded on the hard floor with a bounce. He had rolled away just in time. It was a chair he hit her sprawling sideways with.

  She hit the wall with her arm up to protect her. Thankfully, it wasn’t hard enough to really hurt. Knock the breath out of her, yes. Bruise her, maybe. Hurt, not really. She gritted her teeth. He was rushing to pull the table from the door.

  “Oh, no you don’t!” She sprinted into a jump to plant both feet on the edge of the table. It pressed hard into the door the same time her back hit the floor. She used the legs of the table—which was heavier than her, she gathered—and slid herself under it to kick his foot out from under him. He caught himself on the table when his feet were pushed out from under him.

  She launched herself for the blanket and his pack.

  He caught her with an arm around her waist. Her feet left the ground. She elbowed his face and her feet found the ground again. She grabbed the open pack.

  “The ear? Why would you…my ear?” He had a hand covering it, leaning back on the table.

  Another wide eyed gaze just before she pulled the pack over his head and the hand holding the side of it.

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  His voice was muffled as he reached and shouted, “What is wrong with you?”

  She wrapped the blanket around his free hand and the bottom of his pack, wrapping his neck. Lifting herself onto him, she leveraged her weight by pressing her feet to his chest and leaned backwards. He tumbled over her onto the floor with her on top of him. Perfect, she grinned. She rotated herself and him so that he was on his stomach with her on his back. She pulled, arching him backwards.

  “We’re going to try this again. Who sent you? Bordeaux? Navarra? Kiev?” She twisted her hands, so the blanket ends wrapped around her wrists and pulled harder. “Who?”

  “I told you before! I told you! I told you!” His voice was muffled by the pack over his head but she could hear the panic.

  She pulled harder. “Was it the Celestes? Is that who sent you?” She jerked the blanket, jerking him. “Answer me, demon worshiper!”

  “Who? What are you talking about? I’m Adrian Taggerty!”

  “Wrong answer,” She gritted her teeth and tightened the blanket around his neck by rolling her wrists.

  “Seriously, what is wrong with you? I. Am. Adrian. Taggerty. Adrian Taggerty. Prince…I…can’t…” She loosened it just a little. She felt him take a breath.

  “Who sent you? Why are you here? Prince Adrian Taggerty,” She mocked his name.

  The table slid back and the door opened just enough for Enya to shout through the opening, “Nina? What are you doing here?”

  “Stopping an assassination,” Nina flicked her brows at her. Why do Pallies have to be so behind on everything? She arched the so-called Prince with a jerk. “Looks like you’re in trouble now, the Paladinate is here.”

  “Please help,” Adrian begged, with a hint of calm in his voice.

  Enya pressed the door open enough to slide in. She grabbed Nina by the shoulders and lifted her from on top of Adrian.

  “Hey!” Nina tried to kick out of her hold, but Enya had lifted her high enough that she was like a child trying to kick out of her mother’s arms. Enya set her on Draka’s bed.

  Enya held up a finger, “What are you doing here? You’re supposed to be in Geneva.”

  “Someone…anyone? Kind of…stuck. And I truly regret not washing this for so long,” Adrian’s muffled voice from the floor was met by Gerard and another soldier sliding through the door to him.

  “I will tell you why later. Right now, you need to arrest him,” Nina pointed. “I caught him sneaking through the gates out of the Geneva in the middle of the night and tracked him here. He’s an assassin and an imposter, I’m telling you!”

  Gerard unwrapped the blanket with the help of the soldier and pulled the pack off Adrian’s head. The moment he saw Adrian’s face, he threw his arms around him with teary eyes. Without letting go, he lifted Adrian onto his feet.

  “My boy, I didn’t believe it when they told me!” Gerard said over Adrian’s shoulder.

  Adrian looked at Nina from Gerard’s embrace and around Enya with an ‘I told you so,’ expression.

  “It’s Adrian for sure. I’d never mistake this little troublemaker’s face,” Gerard’s eyes were gleaming when he turned to Enya with an arm over Adrian’s shoulder.

  “You just assaulted the Prince of Al’Constantine,” Enya shook her head, rolling her eyes.

  “Well, shit,” Nina glowered.

  “It’s fine,” Adrian broke from Gerard’s hold to block the soldier from reaching for the shackles on his belt. “She thought I was going to assassinate the King. She had every reason to be suspicious. In her shoes,” he looked between Enya and Gerard, “I would have done the same.”

  “Come on,” Gerard was all smiles and hair ruffling, “Let’s have a beer and get the clerics to look at you while you tell me everything. How’s Philip? Isa?”

  Once the door shut behind them, Enya straightened. “You’re lucky,” She growled at Nina. Then, with crossed arms, “Now, why are you not in Geneva?”

  Nina let out a long breath, turning away from that heated gaze. “I had to warn him. Where is my King? I need to see him!” She started to stand up from where Enya had plopped her but Enya pressed her back down. She had forgotten how strong Pallies were, especially this one.

  “No, you’re going to tell me,” Enya growled, hovering over her and never taking her hand from holding Nina in place.

  “I intercepted something,” Nina felt her heart begin to rush the same time that heat filled behind her eyes. The idea of it still made her want to weep for her king.

  “What?”

  “They’re coming.”

  Enya rolled her eyes with a hard huff. “Better have more than that. WHO IS COMING?”

  “Hell, Paladin! Hell is coming! For him!” Nina roared, screamed, she couldn’t tell. It poured out of her. She shouldn’t have intercepted the letter. Or maybe she was meant to. She never questioned it. She just did what she felt in her bones the moment she found it on the dead cleric she found in the half buried building she used as her home in Geneva. “The Order of the Holy Sepulcher is being hunted all across Christendom! There have been reports, even in Strasbourg! They’re being targeted. And, anyone who resembles the king, too. I saw with my own eyes three who had been found in Bern. Then again in Basel! I’m here to save the King! He must be warned!”

  Enya looked like she was only half paying attention. She had stood from over her, her head looking at the door with a gaping mouth, her eyes wider than she had ever seen in all her time at the Cathedral. Enya let her finally stand and brush herself off.

  “When he gets back, you wait for me before you speak to him,” Enya wagged a finger in Nina’s face. “You understand me? You will wait for me.”

  “He needs to know now,” Nina growled. If she were braver, she might have bitten that long finger wagging in her face. “Where is he?”

  “He’s on a hunting trip, should be back sometime today,” Enya sent a breath through gritted teeth at the problem that created.

  “Well, I would say send a rider to hurry him up and get some reinforcements here as soon as possible,” Nina looked around her feet for the knife she had dropped. She whipped the twisted blanket, hoping it fell from it. “He doesn’t know he’s the one being hunted.”

  That made Enya turn wild and frightened eyes on her.