Page 83 of Secrets of Graves and Gold

My jaw clenches. The conspirators have ousted us from our latest sort-of home, and they’ve stolen our horses too.

I guess you could say we stole the horses from the royal college in the first place, but Toast at least was mine as far as he and I were concerned. No one else wanted him back at the college anyway.

Here’s hoping he’s kicked several ribcages in for their trouble.

We draw back out of view of the stable, clutching our cloaks tight around us and scanning our surroundings. Even though the daylight is fading, barely any of the nearby shops and eateries have lit lanterns to welcome customers. The front window of the restaurant we’re standing outside is dark and unwelcoming. Only a few pedestrians other than us are walking the streets, and those with a hurried stride.

Stavros’s vision may be faulty, but he reads the atmosphere quickly enough. “The locals are holing up after the riot, bracing for what the Order might do in retaliation. They know the conflict isn’t over yet.”

The conflict we kicked off. For their benefit, but it still seems horrible to run off now.

What choice do we have, though?

“What should we do?” Rheave asks, his normally luminescent eyes shadowed with worry.

Alek adjusts his stance, and I realize he’s still clasping the book he was reading under his arm. He never let go of it when we made our hasty dash out of the apartment.

“We should be able to find some other place to ‘hole up’ ourselves,” he suggests. “At least for long enough to get a sense of?—”

Casimir makes a gesture to silence him, his gaze fixed across the street. “Someone’s coming to us. I think—that’s one of Emor and Voleska’s people, isn’t it?”

I jerk around, but I do recognize the face of the woman approaching.

When she sees we’ve noticed her, she lopes the rest of the way across the street, her expression fraught. “We were told to keep watch for you. Voleska caught word that the Order of the Wild was hunting down people with your descriptions. If you come with me, we’ll see what we can do to help.”

As the men and I exchange glances, Alek tugs his cloak’s hood farther forward with a twist of his mouth. He must have left his mask behind at the apartment. No one but us has seen his uncovered face and its scars before.

But the woman doesn’t show any sign of horror. Her gaze latches on to his face for a beat longer than the rest of us and then flicks back to me.

I haven’t seen any reason to doubt our newer allies’ loyalty. If this woman wanted to get us caught, she could have avoided our notice completely after seeing us and simply roused the nearest Order members.

Rheave fixes his intense gaze on her. “No one there is planning to hurt Ivy?”

The woman blinks as if startled by the question. “Of course not. You’ve all helped us pull off more than we expected to so quickly.”

Stavros sets his hand on my shoulder protectively but makes the decision for all of us. “We’ll come.”

The woman leads us on another winding path through the city. She’s clearly more familiar with the back ways than I am, understandably.

We end up behind the Bright Bloom Café where we met with Emor and Voleska before. The woman hustles us inside to where the two leaders of the local resistance are consulting with a couple of their comrades in urgent tones.

Voleska’s face brightens at the sight of us, a sharp contrast to the hostile reception we got from the other woman we thought was our friend. She and Emor move to join us.

She glances at Alek first, with an expression that’s more sympathy than anything else. Her people didn’t have the chance to meet the scholar before, but I mentioned he’d likely be masked if they did. I guess now she can see why.

She bobs her head in greeting. “You must be Alek. I’m glad Bessa was able to find all of you together.”

Emor studies us. “You all look well enough. Did Bessa reach you before the Order of the Wild people did? I assume she told you they’re out to ‘arrest’ you.”

I grimace. “We ran into a few of them, but we managed to get away.” It seems wisest not to mention exactly how.

“They’ve taken our horses too, though,” Casimir puts in.

Emor sighs. “I’m not sure you’d have gotten away safely even on horseback. Whatever the Order found out about you, they’re not happy. We’ve gotten more reports since Voleska first sent people out to warn you. I’m sorry if we dragged you into a bigger mess than you were prepared for.”

Stavros tips his head. “We knew the risks.”

“What exactly are you hearing?” Alek asks, his head still low beneath his hood.

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