Chapter 12

Over the heads of the mob, he spied the girl in the dress. Her dark eyes met his, and then she whistled sharply.

Something sharp jabbed Reynolds in the back, and he stumbled forward. The crowd surged against him, and its weight shoved him to his knees on the dusty floor. Smoke began pouring from his nostrils, and his dragon raged.

Then a piercing shriek split the air, and an enormous white gyrfalcon swept into the room and slammed into the people surrounding Waltman and Luther. The bird circled, raked the mob with its talons, and then screamed a battle cry. "Get up. Up!" A small gloved hand wrapped around Reynolds's arm and hauled him to his feet. Before he could take a single step, the girl locked her arm around the back of his neck, leaped against his chest, and slammed both of her feet into a group of villagers, sending them sprawling. Falling back against him, she whirled around and pulled his shoulders toward her while

another plank whistled through the air where his head had been.

Skies above, she knew what she was doing in a fight. He supposed he should be embarrassed—the king of the Draconi needing rescue from a human wasn't exactly the kind of story the bards would turn into song—but he was too grateful for her help to bother.

Waltman and Luther, their attackers were momentarily driven back by the gyrfalcon, hurried toward him. The mob quickly rallied in their wake and came after the Befelynians with renewed fury.

"Follow me." Without waiting for a response, the girl looked at the gyrfalcon. As if obeying some unspoken command, the bird shrieked and flew toward the door. The girl hiked up her skirt and ran forward, the Befelynians on her heels.

They burst out of the tavern and into an alley covered in sodden leaves and clumps of almost-melted snow, the crowd of villagers right behind them.

"Alvie, get Risa and anyone else who will be reasonable and see if they can talk sense into their neighbors. Promise them we'll rob the next treasury wagon and give food to everyone." The girl turned from the black man with the sword and looked at the boy who'd entered the tavern with her.

"Sydney, find a clear path out of the village," the girl said. The boy disappeared around the corner, and then reappeared on the roof of a building close to the street.

"North and then west," he called.

"You three, follow me!" the girl said as she sprinted down the alley, leaving the man with the sword behind. Reynolds obeyed without hesitation.

The bird swooped low and slammed into a pair of women who were chasing Luther, rusted knives in their hands.

"I like this bird," Luther said, and though her skin still shimmered with her dragon's silvery sheen, her eyes were human again. "It has good taste."

"I think the girl is controlling the bird. She has it trained to obey her movements or something," Reynolds said as he raced with his friends toward the mouth of the alley where the girl was . . . skies above, she was yanking off her dress.

"Then the girl has good taste, and, hello there," Waltman said with appreciation as the poufy green dress was dumped unceremoniously on the dusty cobblestones, leaving the girl in a pair of fitted dark brown pants, a white jerkin that left her pale arms bare, and a pair of boots.

A thick jug went sailing past Reynolds's head and slammed into the ground, and the crowd behind them screamed for money, for food, as Reynolds snarled, "She just saved our lives. Stop looking at her like she's next in the try-Waltman-on- for-size club."

"I'm one size fits all," Waltman said as they reached the mouth of the alley and tumbled into the street where the girl was already moving north.

"You're a fool," Luther snapped.

The mob of villagers poured out of the alley in the Befelynians' wake and came for them.

"We have to get out. Now." The girl sprinted up the street and skidded around the corner of a squat little brick building. The boy appeared on the rooftops to their left and kept pace with them, leaping from building to building like a mountain lion.

"We'll have to use the north gate," he said. "It'll be locked."

"Meet us there," the girl said. Her bird arrowed into the sky and flew in the opposite direction.

"Hey! We might need that bird," Luther called out.

"She needs to find Alvie and make sure he's safe," the girl said as she practically flew over the cobblestones. "There's nothing more she can do for us."

Reynolds sped up—the girl was fast—and came abreast of her as she whipped into another alley. "How far to the gate? And why is it locked?"

"Just past this alley. And it's locked because when the gate watchers warned the village about your arrival, several of them ran to bar the gates shut from the outside. Makes it easier to rob you if you refuse to barter when you have nowhere to run," she said as she reached the end of the alley and launched herself into the street.

"If the gate is locked, how—"

"She led us into a trap." Luther grabbed Reynolds's shoulder as they rounded the alley's corner and found themselves facing a brief cobblestoned walkway leading to a closed gate. The wooden beam used to bar the gate from the inside was still propped against the wall, which meant the girl was right—the villagers had locked the gate from the outside to trap the Befelynians.

"Watch your backs and wait for me." Flexing her gloved hands, the girl took a deep breath and ran for the wall.

Reynolds's jaw dropped as the girl seemed to run straight up the wall, kicking upward and out, lightly touching the wooden planks, and then flying upward again.

"Skies above, now that is a worthy human." Waltman clapped his meaty hands once and glanced over his shoulder. "Trouble coming. Better hope that girl can open a gate as fast as she can climb a wall."

"My sister can do anything." The girl's brother leaped from the roof of a building to Reynolds's right, rolled forward as he hit the ground, and came up to his feet like jumping off a building was as easy as walking down the street.

The gate swung open, and the girl met Reynolds's eyes. "Hurry up."

He didn't need to be told twice. The Befelynians raced through the open gate, followed by the girl's brother, and then she shut and locked it behind them. In

moments, she'd led them deep into the trees where the shouting from the village couldn't make a dent against the forest's hush.

As soon as she stopped moving and turned to face them, Reynolds dropped to one knee and touched his brow in the Befelynian gesture of fealty.

"Why are you bowing to me?" The girl took a step back and gave her brother a look Reynolds couldn't decipher. "You don't bow unless you're before royalty." A thread of worry wrapped around her words.

Reynolds slowly raised his head. "I'm not—this has nothing to do with royalty.

You saved our lives. We owe you an incredible debt."

The girl glanced at her brother again, who spread his arms in a grand gesture and said, "We humbly accept your fealty on behalf of the— Hey!"

The girl punched his shoulder and glared at him.

He frowned and rubbed at the bruise. "I was just—"

"About to say something you shouldn't." She gave him a look that must have meant something to the boy, because he dropped his eyes and kicked the ground with the toe of one boot. The girl met Reynolds's gaze. "You don't owe us anything. You should leave. Now."

"That's kind of rude," Luther said.

"Be quiet, Luther. Have respect for the human who can run up walls," Waltman said.

"May I have your names?" Reynolds asked.

"We're nobody." The girl's brown eyes were guarded. She had a smudge of dirt on one pale cheek, and her long dark curls were tangled from her sprint through the village, but even so, she was beautiful in a way that made Reynolds want to keep looking. He smiled to show her he'd meant no harm and slowly rose to his feet.

"You need to be much more careful. The people are starving, and they still owe taxes. Taxes they can't pay. Unless they find another source of coin or food, they'll either starve to death or be thrown in one of Elinor's dungeons. The last Befelynian refugees who came through here paid for food with jewels worth fifty times the price of their bread. The lucky people who gained those jewels were able to take their families and escape Gruidarid. Walking into one of the poorest villages in the kingdom looking as rich as Befelynian royalty is a tremendous risk."

Waltman cleared his throat and stepped forward. "We look as rich as Befelynian royalty because he"—Waltman pointed at Reynolds who suddenly felt like his collar was too tight—"is royalty. I present to you King Erhard Gottschalk, son of Ragvanisnar III, holder of the sky scepter and supreme ruler of Befelyn."