Page 7 of Bound to the Fae Assassin

She looked up and saw the pale white horses, the familiar blue uniforms, and of course the inky black dogs, which sniffed industriously at the scent trail she had left behind. But hers was not the only trail.

One of the dogs began to whine.

Had she not been here, the men surely would have allowed it to follow the suspicious smells into the woods, where Thorn was hiding.

As it was, his handler scolded him, clearly thinking the creature was misinterpreting Farrow’s scent.

“I was gathering herbs and lost track of time,” she said lightly. “I will hurry home, my lords. Thank you for the reminder.”

“You’re the baker’s daughter,” a voice called out.

A moment later, a bald head peeked out the window of the wagon following the guard.

“Hello, Chef Hawkins,” she said politely, recognizing the king’s cook. “Are you seeking ingredients too?”

“Got them already, my girl,” he said proudly. “All we need for rhubarb pie, the king’s favorite for his name day.”

She smiled and nodded to him. Hawkins loved his work as much as she did.

“Go along, girl,” another guard shouted. “Don’t let the sun get home before you do.”

Another gave her a wave.

She scrambled to her feet, to demonstrate that she was leaving, even though that was the farthest thing from her mind.

The crew moved along. The whining dog’s master tugged his chain and he trotted off with them, a low growl in his throat.

Relief swept through her, and she closed her eyes for a moment. When she opened them again, the king’s men were gone.

She jogged back to Thorn’s hiding spot. But when she reached it, she found nothing but shadow between the trees and the buttress.

On instinct, she thrust her hand into the shadow, but it went all the way to the wall.

She pulled it back, feeling foolish. If the Fae stranger had been able to disappear, he wouldn’t have needed her help.

Had he climbed back over the wall?

A sense of disappointment washed over her. It would have been nice to talk with someone about magic for once.

It also would have been dangerous. She was lucky he had disappeared when he did.

She headed back to the clump of onions she had found when he showed up. It wasn’t much, but she hated to go home empty-handed. As she moved to gather them, something crunched underfoot.

She looked down to find a small clump of dried flowers. They were unlike any she had seen before. The blossoms looked as if they had been a brilliant orange, though now their color was dried to muted terracotta. She lifted them to her nose to see if she recognized the smell.

The aroma was rich, like cardamom or even cloves. It made her think of tiny cakes to be eaten with tea.

She looked around the fields, but there were no bright orange flowers to be found.

And the sun was nearly down.

She tucked her find carefully into her pocket, then pulled the onions and shoved them in the basket.

As she hurried toward home, she tried to picture Thorn’s face, but it was as if a fog was settling over her memory, and he was already fading from her mind.

If not for the silver band of flowers around her wrist, she might have worried that she’d imagined him. She touched the bracelet again, minding the silver thorns this time.

Beauty and danger so often go hand in hand…

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