Mouse stared down sorrowfully into the bowl that held her breakfast. For four days she had been in Darlen Mathis’ camp, and for four days they had eaten the same thing: frumenty, a porridge sweetened with milk and thickened with grain. It was a stout, hearty sort of meal, and it was a good deal better than going hungry, but there was little Mouse would not have given for a ripe orange or a plate of boiled potatoes with curdled milk.

  She took another lamentable mouthful of the porridge and glanced up at the man who sat across from her, catching sight of the gold tooth that gleamed in his mouth as he laughed at the remark of one of his men.

  Mouse had been watching Mathis, observing him at every occasion, and yet had made out little of his person. The sum of their interactions was their shared meals, and these were spent with Mathis talking with his men and Mouse saying as little as possible.

  The only other times she saw him was in passing, or in those quiet moments of the night when the rest of the camp had gone to sleep and she felt like she was the only waking soul in the rest of the world.

  She would peek out from the flap of her tent, if only to remind herself that there was in fact a world outside of her canvas walls, that life still existed and was moving on, and she would see him sitting there, staring into the dying light of the campfire, elbows on his knees and chin propped on his hands.

  He looked so much older in those moments, heavy with worry, the weight of which was carved into his features.

  She would watch as his lips moved in a murmur, his hands raking through his hair, until he suddenly rose in anger, kicking at the embers of the fire and storming off into the night.

  He was a different man by the light of day, a different creature entirely, a charismatic commander, the sort of person who made others want to lean in and listen to what he had to say.

  Mouse looked at him now, his features softened in the bath of warm morning light that broke through the trees, the deep lines that had been etched into his face the night before vanished.Mouse wondered what sort of person he really was.

  The one thing she could say about him was that, as had been observed to her before, he was very persistent.

  Every morning after they had broken their fast, Mathis would turn to Mouse with those bright, curious eyes of his and ask her the same question: “Are you ready to tell me who you are?” To which Mouse would make no reply.

  What had begun as a vague irritation now maddened her to no end. Mathis knew who she was. He had to, he had her will. The question, therefore, was not “Are you ready to tell me who you are?” but “Are you ready to surrender your version of the truth? Are you ready to give up?” And to that, the answer was “no.”

  Mouse brought another spoonful of porridge to her lips and watched as Mathis rose to see off the scouts. She had been watching them, making note of who went where and when and in what number. These ones would ride north, toward Ingrid’s Vale.

  She reasoned that if she kept her mouth closed and her eyes and ears open, she might sooner or later figure out what it was Mathis and his men were doing here.

  She now took the occasion of Mathis’ distraction to finish her breakfast quickly, shoveling spoonfuls of porridge into her mouth, so that by the time he came back, before he could ask her that same irritating question yet again, Mouse had already gone.

  Mouse followed the worn footpaths of the camp. For the first pair of days, she had done little more than lie in her tent and stare up at the sprig of juniper that dangled from the peak of the tent above her, lamenting the many miseries of her life and feeling sorry for herself.

  She had wondered over every misfortune and mistake, every lie that she had been told and every lie that she had told herself.

  She had languished and wallowed and given herself to every manner of dark rumination, chastising herself and swearing revenge upon those who had wronged her.

  A dark seed had been planted in her heart, one of contempt and of fear and of anger and anguish, and it began now to unfurl its roots.

  She had felt the renewal of grief over the death of Sir Conrad, and she had receded into that hollowed out place inside of herself

  until she felt herself becoming lost in it, drowning in it.

  But in the end, something managed to pull her out of it, and she was forced to acknowledge the reality that it would take more than grief and sorrow to kill her.

  When at last she had emerged from her hermitage of solitude, she had stepped out into a world that felt somehow new and different, one that smelled of grease and woodsmoke, one in which she could be the sort of person who came out the other side of grief stronger instead of frailer.

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  She had not lost everything, not yet.

  She had drifted aimlessly at first through the valley of canvas peaks, anchorless without duty to govern her. And it was then that the realization dawned on her that she was somehow more free here, in this little camp north of Aethelsbrook, a prisoner, than she had ever been back in Kriftel.

  Here, no one wanted her or waited for her. Here, she had choice. And what she found herself compelled to do above all else was to find a way to make herself useful, not because it was demanded of her, but because she chose to, because she wanted to.

  She had walked through the camp, past the sound of splitting wood and tumbling armor, past the men tending their weapons and feeding the fires and watering the horses, until she had come to a small clearing, in the center of which a few men were practicing their swordskill.

  She found a place to sit and watch them along the edge of the clearing, the sound of steel ringing against steel dampened by the moss-clad trees and dense undergrowth of the forest. She thought with a pang of guilt of the sword that Bo had given her, the one that had been taken from her and wondered how she would ever look him in the eye again if she were not able to get it back.

  The sound of approaching hoofbeats had turned her head, she imagined that she might see the guardsman riding through, come to find her. But of course it was only that morning’s scouts returning from their voyages.

  Mouse pulled her knees to her chest, her back pressed against a tree, and thought of Bo and what he must have sacrificed, what he must have risked to see her safely away from Kriftel.

  She did not sleep soundly that night.

  The next day, she had returned to the same clearing, this time noticing a fletcher just to the left of where she had been the day before. He sat with a jig at his feet and a strip of blackfish skin across one knee, filing nocks into arrow shafts from his perch atop a mossy stump.

  Mouse had taken a seat close enough to watch him work, to watch the deft, practiced movements of his fingers as he filed and cut and trimmed and smoothed, shaping his grey and white goose feathers into proper fletching and fitting them to the arrows. When he was done, he put them aside to be whipped before starting on the next.

  Mouse watched him bead the pine resin along the vein of the fletching and recalled how she had once thought she might like to be a fletcher. And when she had returned again the next day, he had agreed to let her try for herself.

  But Mouse, despite her earnestness, had not managed to attach a single fletching, and instead ending up with a bleeding thumb and fingers sticky with pine resin.

  She remembered thinking how she might like to be a fletcher, that it would be an easier life, a simpler life, but the truth was that it was hard work, just like everything else.

  On the third day, they had both agreed that Mouse would do best to stick to the whipping, and so she had, winding the thread tightly around the base of the fletching and up through, pulling it tight at the top. It was not so different from needlework, she thought, and with a bit of practice, she might even become good at it.

  She slept better that night, and it was now, on the fourth day that she went once more to the clearing.

  The fletcher greeted her with something that might have been a smile, and Mouse quickly set to work whipping the arrows he had fletched. When they had had time to dry, she carried them over to a kettle of water that hung above the fire and steamed out any gaps and kinks.

  She felt the steam roll over her knuckles and allowed herself a small smile. She was beginning to feel almost like she might be useful.

  As she returned to the fletcher, her head turned once more toward the sound of approaching horses, and she stopped to watch a group of riders dismount in haste and cross the camp toward Mathis’ tent in long, brisk strides. She trailed them with her eyes until they disappeared.

  She delivered the arrows to the fletcher, glancing at the black mark on his cheek, something like a triangle with one long arm. She didn’t understand what it was or why he wore it, and she didn’t ask.

  “I’ll be back,” she said, and with that, she made through the camp, following in the same direction the scouts had gone, toward Mathis’ tent.

  Mouse stood outside waiting for the scouts to reemerge. She didn’t know why she had chosen that moment. Perhaps because it was the first moment she could recall that felt like it belonged to her and not to someone else.

  When the men came back out through the flap of the tent, Mouse steeled herself with a deep breath and went in.

  She found Mathis leaned over his desk, scowling down at a map that was stretched out there, his reddish hair mussed from where he had raked his fingers through it.

  “What do you want?” he muttered without looking up.

  Mouse suddenly felt her resolve begin to falter.

  “I beg your pardon,” she began. “I—”

  Mathis’ head jerked up, his previously dour expression becoming one of complete surprise. He had noticed her come in, it seemed, but he hadn’t noticed that it was her.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, coming around the side of the desk and gesturing toward an empty chair.

  “No,” Mouse said. “It is I who should apologize. I’ve interrupted you.”

  “Nonsense,” Mathis waved a hand dismissively at the desk. “It can wait. It always does.” He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back against the desk, looking at her. “What is it?” he asked. It was an invitation.

  Mouse dug one hand into her pocket, squeezing the little wooden tafl piece.

  “I—” she started. “I’d like to ask a favor of you.”

  Mathis’ brows rose, a gleam of amusement entering his blue-green eyes.

  Mouse squeezed the tafl piece tighter.

  “I would like to ask you not to write for my ransom.”

  Mathis opened his lips to speak, but Mouse continued before he had the chance. “I think I could be useful to you,” she said, “if you’ll allow me, that is. You see, I know things. I know things that no one else does, and I believe that I could help you.”

  It took everything in her not to look at the scroll that sat on Mathis’ desk next to the map.

  “You could help me?” Mathis echoed.

  Mouse nodded.

  The man canted his head in interest, his eyes narrowing somewhat as he looked at Mouse.

  “What is it you’re asking me?” he asked, an intense curiosity in his eyes. “What is it you want?”

  Mouse pressed her lips together and swallowed, gathering her resolve.

  “I want you to take me with you,” she said. “I want to go north.”