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“It’s dark, ” Freddy pointed out.

“I’ll go fi rst, Freddy, ” I told him. “You follow behind me. ”

“Fred, ” he corrected.

“Fred. Make sure not to lose John?”

“I will. ”

We went quick through the tunnel, and at the mouth, in the dark, Fred pressed close to my side. “I’m not good with climbing. ”

I crouched down. “I’m good with climbing. Hop on. ”

“Don’t be silly, ” John muttered, picking Fred up and slinging him onto his back. “As much as I’d like to see Will fall down Castle Rock, I’d like better for you, Fred. ”

“Everyone knows Will Scarlet can do anything, ” Fred told him.

John rolled his eyes.

I decided I’d steal Fred something extra this week for that. k

Fred were quiet most of the way back, and John and I walked with him in between us, staying pretty close to each other. I felt like Fred needed people standing close to him right then, and I got an inkling John might’ve had the same notion. Every step with the castle at my back meant I could breathe a touch easier, but even away from Castle Rock, and farther from Gisbourne, I didn’t feel no safer.

Edwinstowe were due north on the main road from Nottingham. It weren’t big like Worksop, and Lord Thoresby, the nobleman responsible for the town, didn’t have the sorts of 212-47765_ch01_1P.indd 19

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coff ers for his own private guard. So more often than not Edwinstowe bore the sheriff ’s anger like a little one bears a bully. Besides, past Edwinstowe the road snaked through the forest before it went to Worksop, and that were where we made most of our money, watching over the road in the shelter of the forest, if you will. It meant that the sheriff came down much harder on towns what were close to him than he did on those through the forest.

When we walked through the town, the Coopers’ home were the only one with a candle burning inside, and I saw John hesitate as we went close. He stopped at the gate, and I stopped with him. “Go on now, Fred, ” I told him. “We’ll wait. ”

Fred went forward slow, and in the low light he looked pretty white. Didn’t blame him. Mothers could be tough. His mother opened the door when he knocked and burst out sobbing, hauling him inside without a glance to us.

“Where are we taking him?” John asked.

I examined a scrape on my hand. “Much’s father will take in the family in Worksop until we can fi nd them something elsewhere. ” Licking my thumb, I rubbed out the dirt on my hand.

“You lied to me to night, ” John said.

I shrugged. “I lie to you a lot. Reckon you might want to be more specifi c. ”

“You said you’d wait at the top. You said we’d go together. ”

“Well, yes, that was a lie. ”

He turned his head. “I don’t give a damn if you lie to me, but if you do it when the life of a boy is on the line again, I swear I’ll knock your block off . ”

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My ears were burning, most because John were the type that wouldn’t even joke about smacking a girl, but I just shrugged. “I got him out, didn’t I?”

“How do you know Gisbourne?” he asked.

I froze. Most people, when they’re frightened or something, they shriek and run away and general make it fair obvious. I’ve learned you should be very careful about what you show, so I just kind of freeze up and try to think quick. “Don’t. ”

“Yes, you do. I’ve never seen you look one inch of scared, and to night you had a little touch of it, which I reckon means you were terrifi ed. Did he collar you in London?”

“I don’t know Gisbourne. I know his name. That’s all. ”

He shrugged. “You don’t have to tell me. But I will tell Rob, and he’ll get it out of you. ”

“Nothing to get. ”

Fred opened the door then with a small bundle of clothes, and his mother and sisters stood behind him. The candle in the window had been put out. “Ready to go, Fred?” I asked. He nodded. John put his arm on Fred’s shoulder, always the older brother.

k

We walked him to Worksop, and dawn were breaking as we got there. We went to Much’s father, a miller whose shop were set away from the market center. He always needed apprentices, so it weren’t too unusual to see a young boy there. He gave us some eggs and bread for breakfast and John and me went on about our way.

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“Sorry you didn’t get back to Bess, ” I said.

“Should have fi gured. ” He tugged a loose strand of dark brown hair that had escaped from my cap. “You’re coming undone. ”

I pushed it under the cap and pulled the cap down tighter. I felt heat on my face and hated that the sun would show me blushing.

“I don’t know why you don’t chop it off . No one would ever know you’re a girl, and isn’t that the point?”

“Why, so then you could knock my block off without feeling guilty?”

His face fl attened a bit. That were fi ne. Getting him angry meant I didn’t have to fess to the fact that I liked my hair. I liked even more that no one saw it but me. And it reminded me of someone who I liked to remember— just me. “I wouldn’t really ever hit you, Scarlet, ” he grunted. “You better know that. ”

“Then don’t talk about it. If you just said what you mean, you wouldn’t have to yap so much. ” I shot him a glare.

“Besides, you did once. ”

“I didn’t hit you that time, I tackled you. Which was a hell of a way to fi nd out you were a girl, by the way. Never would have done it if I’d known, and then Rob starts in on me with a holy fury, telling me not to hit a girl, because
he
knew. ” He scowled. “Why do you tell Rob everything fi rst?”

“Didn’t. He fi gured it out on the way up from London. ”

“How?”

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“I wouldn’t never bathe with him or pass water when he were near. He got suspicious quick. Seems real boys are awfully eager to parade their bits around. ”

He snorted. “You know, that one tackle was too long ago for you to still be complaining about it. Boys settle things by fi ghting each other. ”

I nodded. “That were right when I got to Sherwood. Before Much were one of us. Before there were even really an us. ” I kicked the leaves at my feet. It were strange how short and long that seemed in the same breath. Forever, and a blink. John spat. “Before Nottingham cut off Much’s hand, you mean. ”

I shrugged up. I didn’t like to think on it, much less to say it aloud.

We hit the main road from Worksop to Edwinstowe, and there were a brewer with barrels of grain for his beer on a wagon. It might’ve even been Tuck, but I didn’t catch the front end. I ran up to it and hopped on the back, and John followed me. I gave him my hand to pull him in.

We hid behind a barrel of grain— not from the brewer, mind, because few tradesmen around here would refuse us anything, but sometimes the sheriff ’s men patrolled these parts.

“Wonder how Rob fared, ” John said.

“I saw some deer meat at the Coopers’. Edwinstowe will eat today. ”

“I saw some bread on the step at the Woods’ house. ”

I didn’t say a word.

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“Take it that was you, then. ”

“You think I bake?”

“No, I think you steal. Despite saying that you’re in this because Rob blackmailed you into it. ”

“I ain’t Rob’s servant, you know. Honestly, you people think I’m chained to the man. ”

“Aren’t you?”

“No. ”

“Well, how did that all work out, then? You’re blackmailed or you’re not. ”

I sniff ed. I didn’t want to admit none that Rob caught me stealing from him. Less than that did I want to remember the awful days leading up to that. “Rob gave me a dev il’s choice. Told me I had to help him or he’d send me to the prison— not the gallows, with a nice quick drop and a sudden stop, but the bloody prison, where you die slow with your inner bits rotting out. But Rob ain’t the sort to really throw me in prison, is he? Didn’t know that then. But I could leave now. Fact, I might not stay much longer. ”

His eyebrows pushed together. “What?”

Honestly. Why all the questions? He’s not deaf.

“Why?” He leaned forward. “Why would you leave after, what, two years of us being a band? Two and a bit. Now, when things are worse than ever? Why just change your mind?”

“I’m not from here, John. ” Lie. “It’s not like these are
my
people. ” Lie. “I don’t owe them anything and I’m getting fair bored of you and Rob always acting like you’re my fathers, ”

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I said with a sneer that I couldn’t hold back. That were a lie and a truth. Kind of.

He shook his head. “First off , it’s daft to say I’m your father. We’re both eigh teen. It’s not even possible. ”

“Then quit actin’ it. ”

“You know, I always thought you just liked us to think that you’re a rat. But you really are a yellow-bellied coward of the fi rst order. How can you save Freddy and then think you have nothing to do with this? ‘Will Scarlet can do anything, ’ ”

he mocked. “ ’Cept be a good person. I used to wonder how a girl like you could be a thief, but I guess it fi gures perfectly. ”

He spat on the wagon bed by my feet, and to my horror I fl inched a little. He didn’t notice, though. He were too busy scooting to the back of the wagon and jumping off . I pulled my knees up away from the spit and stayed on the wagon as it jostled deep into the forest. So I lied to him and poked him a little. Still, that kind of hurt. I weren’t a rat. Not by my own making, at least. Besides, the only thing that made me blurt that out in the fi rst place were Gisbourne. He were the one person in the world I should be keeping far away from, and I couldn’t ever tell the boys why.

Last I’d seen Gisbourne’s foul mug, I had been thirteen, bare days before my birthday, but I ain’t forgot a bit of his face. Now Gisbourne were in Nottingham, and he were coming for Robin and the lads. And me.

If there were ever a good time to leave everything and run as far and fast as I could, it were now.

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I jumped from the wagon when I were close as I could be to our spot in the forest and made it back to the camp before John. I ignored Rob, climbing up the Major Oak. It were a broad, tall old tree, but I were the only one who could climb to the top, and I had built a little hammock up there. It were rare for birds to make perch that high. Instead of looking at great green forest and brown earth, all I could see were trouble-gray sky and spiny treetops, a whole world of Sherwood no one else could know. Rob’s band couldn’t follow me up there, and it were the only place I felt like I could sleep. 212-47765_ch01_1P.indd 26

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C H A P T E R

I
woke to the sound of Rob banging a pot in my direction. I leaned over the edge of my bed.

“Luncheon, Scar, ” he called.

Sighing, I rolled back into the hammock. John would have talked to him by now. And John were probably down there as well.

My hat were half off my head, so I twisted my hair back and pulled the hat down low over my eyes. I began hopping through the branches— I liked that part. The branches were a little rough underhand, and I gripped one, then the next, dropping through the tree and wending a path through the branches. I fancied going where lugs like John couldn’t. With a fi nal jump, my feet hit the ground and I crouched over them. Robin were standing right in front of me. “We need to talk, Scar. ”

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Much were over by the fi re, stirring a pot, and John were sitting in the crook of one of the lower branches, but he didn’t look over to me.

I crossed my arms. “Talk. ”

“Walk, ” Rob said, pointing to the trail. I scowled. We began walking away from the others, and I kept a fair distance from Rob. I always have. He’s just . . . he’s the type you get attached to pretty easy, and I don’t want that. I always fi gured staying away from him is best. He weren’t a lug like John by any stretch, but he had broad shoulders that took up most of the path, and I shrunk into some shrubbery to keep away.

“Gisbourne is the thief taker?”

I nodded.

“How bad is that for me?”

“Bad. ”

“And how bad is that for you?”

“Worse. ” It popped out of my mouth before I could stop it. Rob had that eff ect on me.

He fell silent for a while, and the dry leaves were pretty loud underfoot. I counted out paces in my head.

“Will you ever tell me how you got that scar?” he asked. I covered it with my hand. Why did he think of that? “Not if I can help it, ” I told him. “But it’s old. From a whole diff erent life. ”

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