Page 14 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

Their obvious agitation only rattles my nerves more. “It’s not like you can do anything about it right now. It’s not as if I’d want you to.”

Rheave glances back at us. “What’s wrong? Why’s everyone upset?”

Casimir manages to make the explanation simple. “We passed by a woman who used to hurt Ivy when she was a child.”

Rheave’s posture goes rigid, his eyes flashing as he searches the line. “Where? Why hasn’t she been punished?”

The fierceness of the words makes my heart skip a beat. “Gods above, not you too. It’s my mother. We’re not doing anything.”

The daimon-man catches my gaze with a frown, his hands still balled into fists around the reins. “If she hurt you, then she’s an enemy more than anything else.”

Alek lets out a low, raw chuckle. “Hear, hear.”

I aim a glare around at all of them. “In case you’ve forgotten, we’ve got much bigger enemies to worry about. Can we please focus on getting through that gate alive?”

Rheave makes a chagrinned expression and tugs his body back around. Stavros growls something under his breath that I don’t ask him to clarify, but no one makes any further attempts to inflict justice on the woman who raised me.

Men, Julita murmurs with a hint of amusement. I suppose it’s a good thing for both of us they’re so committed to defending you.

It’s a good thing they’ve remembered the larger problem, because we’re just a few buildings from the gate now. I inhale and exhale slowly, gathering myself.

We’re not fugitives. We have every right to pass through. We carry the full authority of Silana’s military order.

Ha.

Normally there are only two guards monitoring each gate, maybe one on the wall overhead. Today, four blue-uniformed figures stand in front of the barred doors, with three others monitoring the situation from above.

My throat constricts, but I lift my chin again with my false haughty airs. More thunder rumbles in the ever-darkening clouds overhead.

Rheave rides right up to the row of soldiers as if he can’t imagine them stopping him. At least he knows how to play this part well.

“We need to get through,” he says in a commanding tone. “We have orders to search the countryside.”

The woman in the middle frowns. “The lockdown hasn’t been lifted.”

The daimon-man lets a more urgent note creep into his voice. “There are concerns that the fugitives may have escaped before it was enforced. If that’s the case, we must track them down quickly.”

She still looks hesitant, and her colleagues peer along our procession, eyeing the bunch of us with critical gazes. My skin itches with apprehension.

The longer they take to ponder our story, the harder it’ll be to convince them.

I nudge Toast half a step forward and summon all my memories of past Crown’s Watch soldiers who’ve sneered and stomped their way through the outer wards. “We’ve been delayed enough already! Let us through, or the king will have your heads for your idiocy. We have a job to carry out even if you’re struggling to do yours.”

The guards stiffen, but my domineering attitude appears to do the trick. The woman mutters an apology and reaches with one of the men to heave open the crossbar.

My heart thuds ever louder as the doors swing open. We tap our horses into a trot, Rheave passing beneath the arch in the wall first, then Casimir and me. The hammering against my ribs doesn’t start to ease until I hear the clops of Stavros’s and Alek’s steeds emerging behind me.

Then, in a deafening warble of thunder, the clouds open up with the first deluge of rain.

The drops splatter across our bodies. I spare a panicked glance behind me in time to see the make-up running on the faces of both of the men at my back.

And I’m not the only one who sees it.

“There’s something wrong with them,” one of the guards atop the wall hollers to his fellow soldiers. “They were disguising their faces!”

“Halt!” someone bellows from behind us, just as Stavros barks out, “Ride!”

We all prefer the former general’s suggestion. I dig my heels into Toast’s sides, and he takes off like his tail’s on fire.

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