I shrugged. I’d never actually spent one this far north. “Guess we’ll see.”
Without warning, she grabbed my elbow and spun me around to face her. “If you turn us in or abandon us or do anything to hurt them, I will hunt you down, carve out your eyeballs, feed them to the dogs and flay you. Got it?”
“Is that all?” I said lightly, and she glared at me. “Tuck, I’m on your side. Believe me. I meant what I said this morning, about family and all.”
“Yeah? What’s someone with your skills doing anyway, running away from yours? Aren’t they starving without you?”
“Hardly.” The idea of Zeus wanting for anything was laughable. “They know how to take care of themselves.”
“I bet,” she muttered. “Still, you know why I ran. Why did you?”
I didn’t know her reason why, actually, but it didn’t seem like the time to correct her. Not when she was finally talking. “How do you know I’m running from anything?” I said, and she rolled her eyes.
“You’re not nearly as mysterious as you think you are.”
I set my hand over my heart. “You wound me.”
“Not as badly as I will if I find out you’re a spy. No one walks around in the middle of these woods without so much as a satchel or a skin of water.”
“I’ve already promised to show you how I do it,” I said. “This would all be a whole lot easier if you at least tried to trust me.”
“The last time I trusted someone I didn’t know well, my mother wound up dead.”
I was quiet for a long moment. “How did it happen?”
Tuck shook her head, her gaze distant. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Come on, it’s just up ahead.”
She changed her angle, as if she was circling around something, and I followed. Right—she didn’t want anyone to know which direction she was coming from. She was smart, smarter than the rest of the council would give her credit for, but I still had no idea what answers she was supposed to give me. And it wasn’t as if I could come right out and ask. She’d think I was crazy.
So for now, all I could do was watch her. Not that that was the worst job in the world—there was something inherently pure about her, despite her sharp edges. She cared for those boys more than Zeus had ever cared for me, and the thought of staying here with them in the woods sounded a hell of a lot better than returning to Olympus.
I still had to find the answers—no matter how my family treated me, I couldn’t walk away from them. But in the meantime, I could enjoy this life, too. I could enjoy being part of something, being appreciated, being needed. Being more than the one who constantly made mistakes everyone else had to clean up.
We arrived in a clearing alive with chirping crickets. Tuck lingered on the edge, cloaked in darkness, and I remained behind her. Together we waited, letting the forest drown out the sounds of our breathing.
At last something rustled in the trees, and a weedy young man stepped out from the other side of the clearing. He was older than Tuck, but still gangly, as if he hadn’t adjusted to his long limbs yet. Or maybe he was just too thin.
“I know you’re here,” he said. “I haven’t got all night.”
Tuck held her finger to her lips, and we remained still. The young man paced up and down the length of the clearing, sighing often and dramatically.
“I heard ’bout your job this morning. The whole bloody village has. I’ve got buyers, so how about we stop all these games and get down to business?”
Even in the darkness, I saw Tuck’s posture change. Crooking her finger at me, she stepped into the clearing, her shoulders square and her blue eyes bright in the moonlight.
“What kind of buyers?” she said, and I followed a few paces behind.
“The kind that pay with anything you want,” said the young man with a gap-toothed grin, and he trained his focus on me. “You must be the thief I’ve heard so much about. Seems you gave our dear earl a right scare. I don’t see it, personally.”
“Yeah, well, wait until he has a knife to your throat, Barry,” said Tuck. “Now let’s talk price.”
I stayed quiet as the two of them bartered. Tuck only accepted food that would keep and things we would need to survive in the forest—clothes, weapons, the essentials. Anytime the young man, Barry, mentioned gold or silver, Tuck shook her head and steered him back toward useful trades.
There had to be something I was missing—something the Fates needed me to see—but what was it? A thought nagged in the back of my mind, but every time I tried to get closer, it moved just out of reach.
Perfect. Wasn’t as if the entire fate of my family was on the line or anything.
At last they seemed to reach an agreement, and Tuck moved back toward the trees. “Meet me back here at dawn with the goods. I’ll bring the loot. If anyone follows you, I’ll hang you from a tree using your own innards.”
Barry grinned, and there was something unnerving about it. “Couldn’t possibly turn you in, m’lady. That wouldn’t be at all chivalrous.”
He slipped back into the darkness, and as Tuck and I headed through the trees—a hundred and twenty degrees in the wrong direction—I realized what felt so wrong about this whole thing.
“He didn’t mention the pendant,” I said as we started to turn back toward camp. “He knew exactly what was taken, down to the bean, but not a word about the earl’s most prized possession.”