Sully’s voice was a growl. “She’s as quick as you, and smarter.”
“I don’t care,” I said, and for a second the old stubbornness burned clean. “If I wanted to be safe, I’d have stayed home. I’m going.”
Scar looked at Sully, then at me, and shrugged. “Let her. If she gets killed, not my problem.”
Sully ignored him. He turned to me, hands on my shoulders. His fingers dug in, not hard, but enough that I knew he was holding back something huge.
“Cat,” he said, voice gone soft. “Please. I need you alive. If anything happens to me—”
I wanted to slap him, or kiss him, or both. “Don’t talk like that,” I hissed. “Don’t you dare.”
He let go of my shoulders, but only to cup my face, rough hands gentle now. His forehead pressed to mine, and his breath was hot and sweet with the memory of us. “If I don’t come back, you ride east. Don’t wait. Promise me.”
I almost lied, but the look in his eyes stopped me. “I promise,” I said, voice small.
He kissed my brow, quick as a sparrow. “That’s my girl.”
Scar cleared his throat. “Touching. Can we get on with it?”
Declan tore a strip from his cassock and handed it to Scar. “For your arm,” he said. “You’re bleeding.”
Scar blinked, then looked down at a long scratch leaking down his sleeve. “Didn’t feel it,” he said, and tied the bandage tight with his teeth.
The three of them huddled, heads together over the leaf. I watched the way their shadows merged, the way Sully’s fist dwarfed Declan’s thin fingers. Scar did most of the talking now, his voice quick and sharp. I tried to listen, but my ears rang with the memory of Sully’s words: I need you alive.
Finally, they stood. Sully turned to me, a smile cracked across his face. “Don’t get into trouble,” he said.
“Who, me?” I tried to laugh, but it came out flat.
He squeezed my hand, the pressure almost painful. Then they were off, Scar and Declan melting into the underbrush with Sully close behind.
Somewhere a bell tolled, thin and sour. I wished I smoked, or drank, or had some vice to chew the edge off the waiting. Instead, I walked in circles, then crouched and dug holes in the wet earth with my nails, then walked again.
When it started, it started fast. A shout, distant but sharp, then the clatter of iron, a crack of musket fire that echoed in the stone.
I picked my way closer through the tangle of bramble and brush. The skin on my forearms was a crosshatch of cuts, but I barely felt them. I slid low, using the last bit of moon to find the dip where Scar said the drop was. From here, the voices were clear—English, thick with the sound of orders and threats, then a voice I recognized, high with rage. Declan. Then another, lower, all gravel. Scar.
I risked a look. There were six soldiers, red jackets half-unbuttoned, faces smeared with black grease. Two were on the ground already, twitching or still. One had his hands pressed to his belly, trying to keep the ropes of gut inside. Scar was a shadow, moving in and out of the torchlight, knife in one hand, a short sword in the other. He took a man by the throat, twisted, then shoved him down the embankment. The soldier’s head hit a rock and bounced. Scar didn’t watch him fall.
Declan had a staff—a real one, not just a walking stick—and was using it like a man born to crack skulls. He moved better than I’d ever seen, swinging in tight arcs, the wood a blur. He caught one soldier at the side of the knee, and the man screamed and collapsed. Declan hit him again, then used the staff to vault himself backwards, out of reach.
But it was Sully I couldn’t look away from. He fought like a man with nothing to lose, every move bigger than the one before. He caught a musket in both hands and snapped it in two, then drove the splintered barrel into a face. He took a bayonet in the side, yanked it free, and used the butt to knock a man’s teeth down his throat. For a moment, I thought he’d win—just cut through all of them and come running back to me, whole and grinning.
But it wasn’t enough. The last soldier, cleverer than the rest, circled behind while Sully went for the biggest. He brought the butt of his gun down on Sully’s head. The sound was like a melon splitting. Sully staggered, arms windmilling, and then the other soldier caught him around the neck, and they both went down hard.
Declan yelled, “Sully!” and tried to break free, but two more guards tackled him, pinning his arms and dragging him away from the fight. Scar tried to help, but a fistful of men jumped him, clubbing him until he collapsed into the mud.
I wanted to scream, but I bit down so hard on my own hand I tasted blood. I ducked lower, my belly scraping the ground. They were alive, but not for long. Two of the guards hauled Sully to his feet, his head lolling, blood bright on his face. Declan and Scar were half-conscious, barely able to move. The soldiers herded them together, cuffed and battered.
And then, out of the main gate, came another man. Captain Hale. I knew him from the stories—tall, scarred, uniform soclean it might have been painted on. His voice was calm, almost bored.
“Take them below,” he said, “and make sure the priest doesn’t die before he talks.”
The guards saluted, then marched Sully and the others through the gates. They left the bodies behind, twitching or dead or both.
I knelt there, not breathing, until the torches faded and the doors slammed shut with a sound like thunder. The blood on my hand had dried to a tacky glue. I tried to stand, but my legs didn’t work right. I crawled, blind, back to cover. I shook, and the tears came, and I didn’t try to stop them.
They had Sully. They had him. And I had nothing but a ring on my finger and the knowledge that if I waited, if I did nothing, he’d be dead soon.