higher we make his bounty, the better the bounty hunters get. Soon you’ll have the kind of fights you’ve been searching for.”
“Fights seem to find us no matter what Eli’s bounty is,” Josef grumbled, but he was grinning when he looked at her. “Still, that Coriano and his awakened blade will be a challenge worth remembering. If the higher bounty attracts more of that sort of opponent, all of this stomping around in the woods will be worth it.” He paused. “Which isn’t to say I’ll agree to another of your idiot kidnapping ideas, Monpress.”
He turned around and folded his arms over his chest. A moment later, Eli stepped out of the underbrush with an enormous sigh.
“Too much suspicion will lead to an early grave,” he said, strolling over to stand beside Nico.
“I would argue it’s the other way around,” Josef said. “So, did you need something, or did you just come out here to bother us?”
Eli made a great show of looking hurt. “For your information, I came out to see if you were all right. Nico was still putting your chest back together when I drifted off last night, so when you weren’t in the hut when I woke up, I decided to investigate. Now I’m glad I did. What’s this about an awakened blade?”
Josef plunged the Heart of War into the soft ground and leaned on it. “The swordsman I fought had an awakened blade.”
“Must be a good one considering it put a hole in your tough hide,” Eli said. “Good thing yours is better. We’ll make short work of him if we see him again.”
“I’m not going to use the Heart,” Josef said solemnly.
“Josef, not this again,” Eli groaned. “You’re the swordsman; you decide how you fight. I respect that, but every time you get this way, half your blood ends up on the ground. If things go down the way they’re looking like they will, we’re going to have to make a quick exit, and that’s hard enough without Nico having to drag your sword- riddled carcass across the countryside. The Heart of War chose you for a reason, and it wasn’t to get carted around the world on a strap. Can’t you just smash the swordsman and take the easy win for once in your life?”
“An easy win is meaningless,” Josef growled. “If I’m going to get stronger, I have to defeat Coriano on my own, the right way.”
“Nonsense!” Eli smiled. “We think you’re plenty strong already, don’t we, Nico?”
Nico stared at him. “Do you think your bounty is plenty high?”
Eli’s grin faded. “Point taken.” He shook his head. “Fine, do whatever you want. Just don’t do something stupid like die on us, all right?”
Josef snorted. “Who do you think I am?”
“For the sake of our friendship, I’m not going to answer that.” Eli met Josef’s glare with a wry grin. “Now, I’m going back to the hut to mind our guests. Can you two handle getting the costumes?”
“Shouldn’t be a problem,” Josef said, pulling his iron sword out of the ground and resting it on his shoulder. “The real question is, will the Spiritualist follow orders?”
“Oh, yes,” Eli said, nodding. “She’s in this neck deep now. When Renaud showed his true colors, he put her duty to Spirit Court doctrines on the line. She’d break just about any law to keep her oaths to the spirits. So while she may try and moralize us to death, I think we can count on her not to flub the plan.”
“Just make sure you actually
Eli folded his arms over his chest, glaring at the swordsman’s bandaged back. “Do you believe that?” he grumbled. “And after all the scrapes I’ve gotten him out of.”
Nico shrugged. “With all the scrapes you get him into, I think it works out about even.”
“Don’t you start, too,” Eli sighed. “In the year you’ve been with us, have I ever let us down? Don’t you trust me yet?”
“Josef trusts you,” Nico said, starting toward the hut as well. “That’s enough for me.”
Eli sighed again, louder this time, but Nico didn’t look back. Shaking his head, he jogged after her, stopping a moment to say good morning to Gin, who was still growling, before joining the others in the hut.
“You know this is a terrible plan,” Gin growled.
“Yes,” Miranda said, pulling the long tunic dress over her head. “You’ve told me so every ten minutes since sunrise.”
They were in the tiny space behind the forester’s hut, wedged between the trees and the crumbling stone. Gin was slouched by the hut’s corner, his body blocking the opening to the clearing so Miranda could have some privacy while she changed into the costume Josef had shoved into her hands a few minutes ago, when he and Nico had finally returned from wherever they’d been. She’d never been so happy to see them. A whole morning alone with the king and Eli had almost been more than she could stand.
“Disguise yourselves and sneak into the castle?” Gin snorted, making the low-hanging branches dance. “How are you going to get through the doors with no spirits? Wait for the thief to charm them all? And he didn’t say a thing about what you’d do when you actually got in. I’m telling you, it’s never going to work.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure about that,” Miranda said, finding the opening for her head at last. “Eli’s terrible plans have an interesting habit of working out.”
Gin rolled his eyes. “Because his kidnapping plan went
“Up until us, yes it did,” Miranda said, giving him a sharp look. “I don’t like this any more than you do, mutt, but we’re in deep now, so we might as well do our best.”
Gin kept grumbling, but Miranda ignored him. She smoothed the bulky dress over her shift with a final wiggle, and then, reaching awkwardly behind her, tied it with the strings sewn into the back. Next, she reached up and pulled her hair as tight as she could, knotting it in place at the base of her neck with a bit of twine. She grabbed the thick veil from a waiting branch and draped it over her forehead, letting the rest hang down her back so that her red hair was completely covered. Last of all, she fixed the small cap at the crown of her head with a long stickpin that held the whole affair in place. She gave her head an experimental shake to make sure the veil wouldn’t slide off. When it stayed put to her satisfaction, she turned around.
“There,” she said, putting her hands on her hips. “How do I look?”
Gin eyed her up and down. “Like a librarian.”
“Such flattery!” Miranda folded her hands over her chest dramatically. “Be still, my trembling heart!”
“What? That’s the point, right?” Gin said, getting up.
Miranda grinned at his confusion and tucked her discarded clothes under her arm before pushing her way through the giggling trees. Gin padded after her, muttering under his breath.
The tiny clearing outside the hut that served as Eli’s hideout had become quite crowded since Nico and Josef had returned. Most of the space, however, was taken up by the new additions. Laid out on a ratty blanket, two men and a woman, dressed only in their underclothes, were sleeping peacefully in the tree-dappled sunlight-castle servants, the sources of the costumes. King Henrith was crouched beside them, his hands moving in worried circles on his knees. He had traded out his filthy silk clothes for what looked like a set of Josef’s spares, though it was hard to tell without the knives. The bad fit and the king’s dour expression as he hovered over the unconscious servants made him look like a refugee from a tragedy play.
“I don’t see why you had to knock them out like this,” he muttered.
“It was the simplest way to get the sizes correct,” Josef said in a bored voice. He was lounging beside the hut, with his back propped against the ever-present camouflage thatch of branches provided by Eli’s arboreal admirers. His enormous sword was stabbed into the ground beside him and a pile of throwing knives was spread out in the grass at his feet. His normal array of cross-belted sheaths was gone, and in their place he wore the chain and blue surcoat of a House Allaze royal guard, which, judging from the gaps at the shoulders, had recently belonged to the narrower of the sleeping men. “They’ll wake up soon enough, no worse for wear.”
“And you’ll be here, sire,” Eli chimed in, fastening the cuffs of his valet’s coat. “A free evening off work and a touching reunion with their monarch. I’d say we’re doing them a favor.”
“What I don’t understand,” Miranda said, kneeling beside the distressed king, “is why we’re stealing costumes to sneak into the castle when Josef and Nico already snuck into the castle to grab these three.”
“We did nothing of the sort,” Eli said. “Every servant doesn’t live in the palace, you know. Josef spotted this lot walking into town from the outlying village. He merely gave them an involuntary night off. Oh, don’t look like that.” He waved his hands at Miranda’s horrified expression. “If Josef says they’ll be fine, they’ll be fine. He’s a
