Page 50 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

This isn’t how he would ever have expected to access one of these storerooms—as a fugitive, breaking in and technically stealing from it.

We really are criminals now. And we have a long road ahead of us before we can prove ourselves to be anything different.

Fifteen

Ivy

Toast gives his mane a rebellious shake as he trots along, but his gait has turned more sprightly on the even ground. After three days of traveling through woodlands, we’ve decided we can risk taking one of the smaller country roads, at least as long as it’s cutting through forests rather than fields so we can’t be seen at a distance. It’s hard to keep up a good pace picking through the brush.

Stavros is still taking the lead, since he’s the one with by far the best idea of where we’re going. A couple of times he’s ridden ahead alone to check road markers, but mostly he seems to be guided by the sun and the occasional landmark.

We all scan the trees warily as we ride, our passage silent other than the clop of the horses’ hooves. My ears are pricked for any other sound that could alert us not just to a patrol but local brigands as well.

Although with most of us visibly armed, in peasant-style dress, and carrying little cargo, we probably don’t look like ideal targets for a robbery.

It’s only when we stop for a brief break that we speak again, in lowered voices. Casimir passes around handfuls of nuts and bloodfruit, and Stavros checks our steeds’ horseshoes for stray pebbles while they graze.

Rheave drifts over to the trees while chewing on his dried fruit and trails his fingers over the leafy vine that’s wrapped around one of the trunks. “Ivy,” he says thoughtfully, and looks over at me with a glint in his eerie eyes that’s almost sly. “Is it strange that you have the same name as a plant?”

I shrug. “It’s not the most traditional name, but I’ve met people named after flowers. I picked it because it meant something to me.”

The daimon-man blinks, and his face lights up with more curiosity. “You picked it?”

Julita’s presence perks up in my head. I didn’t know that either. You’ve been holding back stories.

She at least knows the basics of my history, things I’d rather not have to explain to Rheave too.

My stomach knots, and I pick my words carefully to skirt the worst parts of the tale. “Things were bad between my parents and me as I grew up. I left home early and picked a new name for myself. There was ivy growing on a tree in a neighborhood I often visited. It seemed like something resilient and a little sneaky, and I liked that.”

A giggle bubbles out of Julita. It certainly suits you, and I mean that as an absolute compliment.

Rheave appears to consider my explanation. “Maybe all people should pick their own names. They would be more fitting that way.”

“No one would know what to call us when we’re too little to decide,” Casimir says in an amused tone.

Rheave starts to chuckle. “And if you went by what babies look like, they’d all be called ‘Potato’ or ‘Gourd.’”

I muffle a laugh of my own with my hand. The fact that I can laugh at all despite the tension hanging over our trek lifts my spirits and makes the day seem a little brighter.

Alek shakes his head with a short guffaw and shoots a tentative glance at me. “What was your birth name? Not that I’d call you anything but Ivy. But it might be useful to know in case it comes up somehow… In case anyone manages to connect you to your old life.”

I guess that’s true. I hesitate all the same, my body balking against forming the sounds I haven’t heard spoken to me in more than eight years.

My voice comes out a bit raw. “Izabel. Izabel Milaeya.”

Stavros makes a dismissive sound, as if casting aside the name and all the painful history entwined with it. “Ivy suits you much better. And you don’t need a last name when the woman it refers to doesn’t deserve to be honored.”

I completely agree, Julita declares.

The former general pats his stallion’s neck. “Come on. I’d like to cover a lot more distance today.”

An unfamiliar voice pipes up from behind us. “I don’t know if you’ll accomplish that.”

We all startle, Stavros’s hand whipping to his sword as he whirls to face the source of the unexpected interruption.

A figure is standing in the middle of the road, just a few paces from the nearest of our horses. I have no idea how the man got this close without any of us noticing him approaching.

Especially given that he doesn’t look like the nimblest of hikers. His shoulders are hunched within the layers of dark gray cloth that swath his body so erratically I can’t tell whether they’re part of a cloak or a thick tunic, or perhaps some combination of the two. He sways a little as we stare at him and clenches his hand around a gnarled walking stick.

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