Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves 1)

“How did she get your ring?” Mason asked. “Do you think she was working with the labor hunters?”

“No. She stumbled into them, the same as me. And ran for her life the same as me.”

“It could have been a trick,” Samuel offered.

I told them no again, it was no trick, but I still couldn’t figure out how she got the ring either. I had seen the hunter dump all the goods they had taken from us into a box beneath the wagon seat. When we escaped, there was no time to dig through it. “I’m not sure how she got it, but I’ll be asking.”

“Can she be trusted?” Aram asked.

Titus laughed. “Of course she can’t be. Not if Jase had to post two men outside her room.”

For now, she was in my room while guest quarters were prepared for her. I had posted Drake and Charus at the end of the hall so as not to be obvious. I still had made it clear to everyone at Tor’s Watch what the limits to her wandering were. There were some places no one went but the family.

“She can be trusted in some ways,” I answered. “But she is Vendan, and she did come here to investigate treaty violations. We’ll have to be careful.”

“Violations,” Gunner grumbled. A seething rumble echoed from the others.

“So, just what happened out there between you two?” Priya asked.

“We were chained at the ankles. We had to work together to—”

“Don’t be coy, Jase. You know what I mean.”

Titus chimed in, “There were a hundred other things you could have said to Paxton to explain your absence. Why imply that you were holed up with her?”

“Because that excuse could not be refuted,” my mother said. “No witnesses.”

“Nor delicately discussed in depth,” Mason added. “It did end Paxton’s interrogation.”

“He could have said he was sick,” Samuel said.

My mother shook her head. “No. The healer would have been summoned, and the last thing we want to suggest is that another Patrei is in poor health.”

Everyone jumped in with their own opinion on why it was or wasn’t a good excuse. Priya finally held her hand up to stop the discussion. “Jase, you still haven’t answered me. What happened between you two? You think I didn’t see how you looked at her?”

I didn’t remember looking at her in any particular way, only with a long moment of trepidation when I stretched out my hand, wondering if she would take it. I had taken a calculated risk that she would help me again, just like she had in that alley the first day we met, that she would choose me over wolves like Paxton, just as she had chosen me over labor hunters. She could have walked away that day, as the hunter had ordered. Instead she drew her sword. She may have hated me, but she hated some people more, and maybe I hoped th

at after all we had been through I wasn’t just the lesser of two evils. Maybe I gambled that she would choose me because she wanted to. “If you imagine you saw me looking at her in any way, it’s only because we managed to stay alive together.”

Jalaine pouted like she was disappointed, but her eyes were lit with a smile. “So, you weren’t really making little Ballengers?”

Aram and Samuel snickered.

Mason shrugged. “I was convinced.”

I shot them a frigid stare to let it go.

“Well, we need her now,” Priya said. “She’s going to have to write a letter to the queen and actually tell her to come now that Gunner—”

“No,” I said. “We’re not going down this path again. After Father—”

“We have one of the queen’s premier guards in custody,” Gunner argued. “She’ll come! We are through being snubbed by the kingdoms.”

My mother nodded in agreement. “And now the citizens are expecting it. Did you hear the murmurs from the crowd?”

Mason sighed as if reluctant to concur. “It’s spread to the whole town by now, Jase. Getting her to come might help the leagues back off.”

“And they were all there today,” Priya said, “supposedly paying their respects, but mostly licking their chops.”