Page 90 of Gilded Locks

Chapter 22

Grace shook. She thought she might throw up.

Her world was spinning.

The mayor—that vile tyrant—was right about her. Sitting on the sidelines of a party was a pittance of rebellion. She lived off the people’s hard-earned money. Yes, her family gave back; they did all they could, but they were putting a bandage on a deeper problem.

She’d thought she could keep wrapping the wound in simple, safe defiance. But the problem had festered and destroyed Fidara from the inside.

Now, here she stood, facing an impossible decision.

If she went along with the mayor’s version of the story, he wouldn’t stop looking for the Rogue, and Grace knew the Rogue wouldn’t stop. They’d simply return to what they were doing. The mayor would send out patrols and he’d break into homes.He’d jail citizens until someone couldn’t prove they weren’t the Rogue to his and the sheriff’s biased specifications.

Zerudorn gold would drip from every lock, and people would die.

But if she spoke up against the mayor, she feared the cost would be so much worse. Words of dissension wouldn’t take effect immediately. All of the same problems would continue for a time. If Grace managed to keep the Rogue, or anyone else from being hanged before people came together, would it be enough?

And, if the Rogue made good on his threat to bring word of the Zerudorn gold to national leaders, it would start an investigation. The secret of the Zerudorn gold wouldn’t just be out, it would surge to every corner of Leiloa. People would come seeking its power and monetary value and find destruction. Her small family of four couldn’t keep a continent at bay.

The way the gold had infected the mayor made her shudder. How long before everyone she knew died? How long until the continent was inhabited only by ghosts?

“Grace?”

It took a moment for Grace to pull free of her thoughts, recognize the fake gruff voice of her Rogue, and remember where she was and who was with her. When she did, she didn’t answer, but just started walking.

“Grace?” The Rogue grabbed his face cloth from the ground and followed her. “Talk to me.”

But she just kept walking. What was there to say? She didn’t know what to do, and she didn’t want to hear his valiant, goodhearted insistence that they stand up and do the right thing. That they stop sitting around waiting for the problem to heal itself.

She had climbed over the fence out of the mayor’s copse before the Rogue put himself physically in front of her. Stubborn man that he was, he’d retied the cloth about his face.

“Grace, stop! We have to talk. We have to discuss this.”

She shook her head. “What is there to say, James?”

“James?” The angry response hit her and bounced off.

“I’m tired of secrets. Let’s not pretend I don’t know who you are.” Grace brushed past him easily. He stood there, stoic in shock. He’d come out of it soon enough.

She trudged. Uncaring. Tired. Defeated.

“You’re wrong,” came James’s delayed response. “You don’t know me.”

“No? Fine. I don’t know you. I haven’t seen you a moment in my life.” She didn’t want to fight. If he wanted to be right, she’d let him. That was what a Robbins did, wasn’t it?

James tried again to get her to respond, grabbing her arm and stopping her in place. “Grace?”

His hand burned her skin. That heat, that tingling, felt detached from the chill that had spread from her heart and hardened every whit of her.

“I’m going where you can’t go, James.”

“Stop calling me that!”

She yanked her arm free. “You don’t understand! I can’t let that gold wreak havoc. At least while the mayor is around, no one will go near it. So I’m going back out there, and I’m going to play the part I’ve been playing for two years, and I’m going to do what I’ve always done.”

She turned to him. “But you… you did what I wasn’t brave enough to do. I can’t choose for you.”

“Grace…” He didn’t finish. The sound of movement through the woods alerted them to someone approaching.

---