I shake my hand out behind my back. Abel let go of it as soon as we put another row of buildings between us and Maurus and it’s left my hand hot, clammy, and strangely prickly. Likely just nerves.

  Abel walks on ahead with easy, confident strides, as if isn’t a wanted man. “What’s at the East stable that’s so important? A secret rendezvous with a wealthy suitor?” He spins around to raise an eyebrow while walking backwards.

  “Of course not.” I glance over my shoulder to be sure Maurus or his guards haven’t reappeared.

  “The Prince, perhaps? Rumor has it you’re rather close.”

  “No.” The accusation swirls in my gut even more than the first, which is ridiculous. I should be thrilled such rumors exist. I want the Prince. The Prince will help my family bring wealth and prosperity to my father’s estate—and keep me from having to marry Maurus. I definitely want the Prince.

  “Then what?” Abel asks, still striding blindly backwards, those intense green eyes fixed on me. That blind confidence tugs at a deep core behind my naval. As if his bravery and freeness are contagious, as if it’ll rub off on me if I’m near enough.

  “My horse,” I say, unable to come up with a more interesting lie.

  “Your horse?” He stops. “What do you want your horse for?”

  I thrust my chin up with as much dignity as I can muster. “To visit him. I miss him.”

  He narrows his eyes. “Interesting. He did seem to like you.” He turns forward and leads me around a corner. “They say you’ve been cooped up in your father’s manor all this time, since you left the palace.”

  “Yes. That’s where I’ve lived.” Tension climbs up into my shoulders, and I wave my hand at him, trying to redirect. “Since we’re getting personal, why don’t you properly introduce yourself? You must have a surname.”

  He flashes those playful green eyes at me and I can only imagine the ‘nice try’ grin beneath the mask. His face has an angular, masculine shape that’s easy to imagine as handsome. “I like you too much to put lies between us.”

  Ha. Sure. “Age?”

  He snorts. Then his brows furrow, as if considering it. “Twenty-eight.”

  Nearly thirty. Nine years older than me. Hardly extreme these days. Women in my position often marry men ten, fifteen, or more years older. I’m honestly lucky Emory is only a year older than me and not vastly more. Not that I can even remotely consider Abel as a suitor! That’s ridiculous. And suicidal.

  No, I’m only curious about his identity. He speaks eloquently and seems educated. And is dressed like an upper noble, though I ought to recognize him if he’s enough of an upper noble to attend High Court. His voice, at minimum. But I’ve certainly never heard or seen anyone like him.

  He clears his throat. “So you never left… since you moved to the manor. Never came to town? I hear you’ve only attended High Court—and never spoken to anyone there.”

  I can’t fathom why he cares about any of this. I certainly don’t want his pity. “Yes, only for High Court. Why?”

  “Confirming my intuition.”

  “Which is?”

  “That I couldn’t possibly have missed you, if you had.” He winks, of all things.

  Heat blooms up my neck, so intensely I charge on ahead of him for lack of a retort. What is it with this man and his winks?

  “This way,” he corrects, fingers touching my elbow to lead me around another corner. “So, why then?”

  “Why what?” A tingle rushes up from his touch at my elbow, raising my sparse, pale arm hair in its wake. “Why do you put that thing over your face?”

  He wags his eyebrows. “So no one recognizes me if I do something illegal. Why’d you never come to town? I’ve seen your sister, why not you?”

  “Do you keep tabs on every noble you might rob?” I flinch, hardly believing I’ve said it. Skies, this man.

  He claps a hand over his chest. “You wound me. I keep tabs on everything that goes on in this city. Especially young ladies the Prince is, reportedly, rather fond of.”

  I shoot him a look I hope is unimpressed. His words raise my hackles, though, like I’m being hunted.

  The stables come into view and we approach the smaller, less-frequented side entrance. Still no Venon guards.

  The rogue raises his brows and his eyes crinkle with a hidden smile as he surveys the area. “Hmm, look at that. No wealthy young men in sight.”

  I scoff. “Of course not. The Prince is rather fond of me, remember?”

  The crinkles around his eyes fall away. “I’m equally surprised to not see him, either.” He pulls the stable’s side door open for me.

  Alfalfa and the sweet musk of horse sweat greets me as I step inside, and I inhale a long draw of it. That smell is long summer hours riding with Father and secret escapades into the woods to meet Farnell. It’s freedom.

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  Abel walks with me down the corridor lined on either side with horse stalls. How will I get rid of him? He, of all people, can’t know what I’m up to. I should have extricated myself from him as soon as I saw the stables again. I whistle, long and low.

  A high-pitched neigh and the bang of a hoof against a stall door answers me.

  I smile and hurry towards the noise. Maybe Sebastian will bite him again and solve my problem for me.

  A black nose presses between the bars of a stall about halfway down the corridor, nostrils flaring.

  Someone has painted BITES on the stall door.

  “Have you been naughty?” I press my palm to his nose and rub up to his forehead. He snorts and paws the ground with his hoof.

  “I know all about that biting problem he’s got.” Abel rubs his shoulder.

  It pleases me immensely. “You did try to steal him.”

  “Rescue him from the dangers of the forest,” Abel says. “And, in my defense, he was wandering alone, untacked, in the woods.”

  I narrow my eyes and have to fight back a smile. “And after I claimed him?”

  “Your story was… unconvincing. Also, you haven’t answered me.” Abel leans against the wooden slats of the stall door, brows raised. He produces an alfalfa-molasses treat from his pocket and offers it to Sebastian from his palm.

  Sebastian pushes his nose through the bars, stretches his lips out to take it, and crunches it loudly.

  “I don’t recall the question,” I say. “Do you always walk around with horse treats in your pockets?”

  “You do know what I do professionally, don’t you? I’m sure we’ve covered it.” Abel nods towards sacks piled beside the door we’d come in through. Skies, he’d stolen some right next to me and I didn’t even notice. Sebastian nuzzles Abel’s hand for more.

  A pang of panic shoots through me, and I reach for my pocket. My fingertips meet the hard edges of the book and I let out a breath.

  “I think I ought to be offended.” His brows furrow and his gaze falls upon my pocket. “Though I am curious as to what book demands your favor so much you carry it around with you.”

  I tense. “I like to carry one with me in case I find a pleasant spot to sit and read.”

  Abel takes one deliberate step towards me. “And that has nothing to do, I presume, with a certain book that has gone missing recently? One that’s got Maurus Venon all bent out of shape and ransacking bookstores all over the city? Like the one you ran from a short time ago.”

  Ice washes over me. I should have hurled the book into the canal the moment I read it. I should have burned it. I face the stall and it takes every bit of my training to force my hand to calmly stroke Sebastian’s nose. “I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean. I tend to avoid social circles with Maurus Venon.”

  He chuckles and takes another step closer. Heat radiates from his body, warming my shoulder. “Aside from that marriage proposal, mm? Are you going to ride?”

  I refuse to cow away, even as nerves set my stomach tumbling. And… something else? Disgust? Stupid. I shouldn’t care if he lumps me with Maurus Venon or anyone else. “No.”

  “Why not? Or have we circled around back to why you’ve never been to any of the balls, to town, to any of the events all the other young noble ladies typically partake in, all these years?”

  I swallow against the pain of having it pointed out. My helplessness. He, of all people, can’t understand. He has the freedom to come and go as he pleases. Rather than hiding away, he’s out in the open, anonymously fearless. I’d give anything to have that. “I suppose we have.”

  “I assume it has something to do with dear ol’ Clara.”

  I fix my gaze on Sebastian and keep my head high. There’s no point in validating it.

  “And that’s it? You’ve just let her rule your life?”

  I snap and twist around to glare at him. “I have nowhere else to go. I have no money. I have no status. I have no power. You’re a rebel. You wouldn’t understand.” I turn away, a prickling burn behind my eyes. Skies, I resent him for making me feel. And myself for reacting.

  “You might be surprised by what I would understand,” he says, low, quiet.

  Fingers brush my cheek as he tucks my hair behind my ear, nudging back my hood enough for his breath to tickle the spread of gold up my neck. A fiery jolt pulses down my body from the graze of his touch, seizing my gut and sending my heart back into a frenzy. Irrational and ridiculous and… more like elation than fear.

  “I think you would be surprised,” he goes on, “by the number of people who would help you, if you were only to ask. William left his mark on more hearts than yours.”

  I flinch at the sudden stab of pain in my chest. How does he do that? Send my pulse fluttering one second and gut me the next? “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  His hand falls on my shoulder, warm and steady. Slowly, he turns me.

  I drag my gaze up to meet his.

  His emerald green eyes hold no mocking laughter this time, only a steady connection, an honesty. “Just that.”

  I want to fall into those forest-green eyes, fall into them and away from this place like peasants fleeing into the woods. Though I suspect, if I dared, I will meet the same brutal, life-ending fate.

  A group of laughing, boisterous noblemen burst into the stables.

  I jump and Abel steps back, angling his face away.

  I don’t recognize the newcomers as they move to a stall opposite Sebastian’s, talking about some horse’s pedigree. It sounds like one of them is selling and the others interested in buying. Everything in Kheovaria is about breeding. I suspect they’re lower nobility. Abel’s peers? Maybe they’ll recognize him—is that why he turns away?

  I tug up my hood and turn my back on them. As much as I’d enjoy waving my hand at them and watching Abel’s reaction, my reputation can’t afford it.

  “Perhaps it’s time we left,” Abel says under his breath.

  “Yes.” It’s certainly time he left. I’ll circle back and leave on Sebastian as soon as these nobles finish their deal.

  Together, we leave out through the side door we’d come in through.

  Once outside in the early morning sunlight again, Abel turns to face me. “Well, Lady Aubrey, I think it’s time I take my leave. It’s been a pleasure.”

  Perfect, he’s leaving! Yet, something tugs behind my navel, drawing me towards him, even as the book weighs heavily in my pocket. I’ve wasted so much time already. “The body, at the palace, was that you?”

  His brows rise. “You saw that, did you? I’m surprised you haven’t brought it up sooner.”

  My jaw tightens. I should be more horrified, walking next to a man who can do such things. “Who was he?”

  Able shrugs. “An upper noble. A trade advisor to the King with a penchant for young boys.”

  Revulsion rises up my throat. My gripes feel suddenly small against the powerlessness of peasant children. I’ve known how terrible it can be for them, even when I lived in the palace. But back then, there’d at least been my father looking out for them. “You still killed someone. A noble.”

  “A parasite.” Abel glances back at the stables and rubs his fingertips together. “No real loss, in my opinion.”

  I draw in a steadying breath and ask the question that’s been nagging me since that day, “Why did you write my father’s name on those stones?”

  His gaze levels upon me. “Same as the others.”

  The door to a bakery across the street bangs open. A man drags a boy by the arm out of the store, yelling, “Filthy street rat! Nobody steals from me.” He strikes the boy across the face and the boy crumples to the ground, all bony knees and elbows, clutching his face.

  My gut twists and I reach for my rebel companion.

  Abel’s gone.