Firelight lurched as bodies moved through it. Horses screamed and reared, lines snapping taut. The neat rings of Etienne's formation shattered into hard, fast motion.

  Another bolt hissed through the air and cracked against a carriage wheel. A blur tore out from behind the carriage.

  Rocher.

  He went straight for the outer ring, where a shadow had just broken from the trees. Steel fshed in his hand, and when it came down, it came down with the kind of force meant to end things.

  The bandit never got to raise his bde.

  Rocher's sword cut through him with brutal efficiency. Blood hit the grass in a dark spray. He turned and struck again, then again, driving into the next bandit with the same relentless focus.

  Evelyn was there too, already deep in the chaos.

  A knife left her hand and buried itself in a man's throat. Another flick of her wrist dropped a second bandit. She finished him without breaking stride.

  Etienne's voice cut through the noise, sharp and controlled. Orders snapped out. Lines began to reform. The honor guard surged where he pointed.

  But not everyone was where they were supposed to be.

  I spun, searching.

  Where were they?

  Doug and Dougs were not with Evelyn. Not with Rocher. Not anywhere I could see.

  A shout went up behind me.

  "Sister!"

  I turned.

  Two figures were charging straight at us through the firelight. Big. Fast. Shields raised, maces swinging.

  Doug and Dougs.

  I brought my dagger up. "Lumiere, get behind me!" I hissed.

  They did not slow.

  Just as I was about to strike—

  "Wait."

  Lumiere's hand closed around my wrist.

  They charged past us.

  A shield smmed into something just over my shoulder. A mace came down with a sound like breaking wood. A body hurled past us into the dirt.

  I stumbled as the shockwave of their impact went through me.

  Doug appeared at my side, voice urgent. "Are you alright, Miss Cire? Are you hurt?"

  More shadows were coming. Dougs was moving to meet them.

  My grip tightened on my dagger as I recalibrated.

  "I can handle myself," I said without looking at him. "Protect the Saintess."

  Doug nodded, joining Dougs to meet the attackers head-on.

  But there were too many for them to hold.

  A shape darted around the edge of their csh, too fast, too low, knife glinting in the dark.

  Toward Lumiere. Toward me.

  He had seen the robes. The ck of armor. The illusion of softness.

  Behind me, Lumiere incanted. Light fred, hard and blinding.

  I stepped sideways. A bde sshed through where my ribs had been a second before.

  I twisted with the movement, closing the distance instead of opening it, my fingers dipping into my satchel.

  The man's eyes widened when he realized I was too close.

  I drove a needle into the soft skin beneath his jaw.

  He made a wet, strangled sound and staggered, hands cwing uselessly at his throat as the paralytic took hold. His muscles locked. He dropped to his knees, then to his side, rigid and gasping but alive.

  I breathed and turned to Lumiere. "Are you okay?"

  She nodded briskly.

  The rest of the camp was already turning against the attackers.

  Rocher drove his bde through another bandit's chest and wrenched it free without slowing. Evelyn cut down one who tried to flee from him.

  Doug and Dougs advanced like twin battering rams, forcing the remaining raiders back toward the trees.

  Someone shouted. Someone else screamed.

  Then they ran.

  Some did not make it far. Arrows and bdes found their backs as they fled into the dark. Others vanished between the trees, leaving only blood and silence behind.

  The sudden quiet was almost as violent as the fight.

  Fires crackled. Horses snorted. Bodies y scattered across the grass.

  Rocher stood in the middle of it, sword dripping, chest heaving. His eyes were dark, distant, as if he were still seeing enemies that were no longer there.

  Evelyn was nearby, wiping her bde on the grass with a practiced care that made it look like she had never been shaking behind a closed door. When her eyes met mine, something in her expression tightened. She nodded once, then walked toward Rocher.

  I looked down at the man I had stabbed. He was shaking, eyes wild with terror, unable to move.

  "You're not allowed to die," I told him, breathless. "Not before we get answers out of you."

  Etienne moved through the aftermath with grim efficiency, checking the lines, counting the living, issuing low, clipped orders.

  When his gaze found the paralyzed bandit at my feet, something in him eased.

  "Good," he said quietly. "You left me one."

  "I did."

  He didn't waste any time, kicking the bandit's boots. "Who hired you?"

  The man spat. It nded short of Etienne's. "Nobody. We heard there was money on the road. White carriages. Shiny armor. We thought we'd try our luck."

  "I don't believe that." I looked up at Etienne.

  He shook his head and called out to his guards. "Search the bodies. Now." He looked back at the man. "You have five minutes, give or take. Either you tell me who really hired you, or your dead friends will. You don't want to know what happens in the tter case."

  I crouched near his face, brandishing several needles.

  The man's eyes widened. "I'm not lying! I swear!"

  The guards moved through the bodies with methodical efficiency.

  Pouches were cut free. Boots were pulled. Sleeves were rolled back to check for hidden marks or seals. They knelt beside each corpse, searching for anything that would expin why they had been there at all.

  They found nothing.

  No writs.No crests.No tokens.

  Just knives, cheap steel, a few battered charms, and the thin, desperate clutter of people who thought we were easy coin.

  Etienne stood very still as the reports came back to him.

  "Nothing on this one."

  "Just silver and rations."

  "No sign of contracts, Your Grace."

  He did not react at first. He only listened.

  Lumiere joined him, her hands folded in front of her, gaze fixed on the ground as if she were watching the road itself rather than the dead.

  "As it appears, they were not sent," she said quietly.

  Etienne exhaled through his nose. "No."

  "So it's just a regur bandit attack then?" Lumiere tilted her head.

  My eyes narrowed. It couldn't be that simple.

  I looked toward the paralyzed bandit at my feet. The man was still alive, eyes wide, breath shallow and fast. Fear had done more to him than any bde.

  "Whoever sold you the information on us wanted you dead. Give us a name and we'll see that they're dealt with."

  The bandit huffed a shaky ugh. "You think we're Thieves? We're men. Those who don't work don't eat. We just got unlucky is all. The other marks didn't put up nearly such a fight."

  Etienne's eyes widened at that. "How many have you attacked?"

  "Six. Seven, including you lot. Ever since the road became open, it's been easy pickings."

  Etienne crouched so they were eye level.

  "Who told you it was open?" he asked, his voice icy.

  The man swallowed hard. "Everyone. The padins don't ride like they used to, they said. We thought..."

  "You thought what?"

  "That the Duchy had abandoned it."

  Etienne's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly.

  "How long has it been this way?"

  "A week. Maybe two. The word's been spreading."

  Spreading.

  I looked out toward the dark tree line, where the bandits had vanished. Toward the invisible paths that fed into this road.

  Rumors traveled faster than armies.

  "That's right after we left, Etienne," Lumiere whispered.

  "Did you hear anything about it?" I asked.

  "Nothing."

  Etienne grimaced, then rose slowly.

  "Bind him," he ordered. "He goes to Crossreach."

  One of the guards hesitated. "Your Grace?"

  "He is not a threat now," Etienne said. "I want him alive for questioning when we arrive."

  The guard nodded and moved to secure the man.

  Etienne turned back toward Lumiere and me.

  "This road is one of the Duchy's main arteries," he said quietly. "I pay a tithe to the local diocese to keep it safe."

  "Then I don't think you're getting your money's worth," I said.

  "No," Etienne agreed. "And that means either the patrols have been withdrawn, or someone has convinced people they have."

  I thought of Corveaux. Of the Church. Of the way institutions moved by quiet redirection rather than open force.

  Neither of them needed to send bandits.

  They only needed to stop stopping them.

  Etienne looked toward the dark horizon where the road vanished into night.

  "Crossreach sits at the midpoint between my nds and the capital," he said. "The vicar of this region is stationed there."

  "That is where we will find answers," Lumiere said.

  "Yes," Etienne replied.

  Behind us, the camp began to settle again. The others moved as if the danger had passed.

  It had not.

  The road that had once gleamed like gold now looked, to my eyes, like a long, exposed throat.

  Waiting.