“Hear ye, hear ye!”

  Just as Estel and Alice stepped out of the seamstress’ shop, a familiar sing-song voice rang across the vilge square. Both women froze. The crisp morning sun bathed the cobblestones in golden light, and in the center of it all, a rickety open-top cart rolled into view—creaking and wobbling like it might fall apart any moment.

  Perched on the front pnk with one boot propped zily against the sideboard, Robin grinned like a conquering war hero, the shadow of his green hood casting a rakish glint across his eyes.

  “What is he doing?” Estel asked, taken aback.

  Alice just sighed long and deep, as if she’d expected something exactly like this.

  The cart rattled to a stop in the middle of the square, where a curious crowd had already begun to gather. Chickens squawked, children squealed, and the butcher’s dog barked somewhere in the background. Robin stood tall atop the cart, sweeping a dramatic arm across the sky like an orator at a royal festival.

  “Hear ye, good people of Revent!” Robin decred, voice booming with mock-regal pomp. “By the will of fate and fortune, your dear Viscount’s hoarded riches are now liberated from his oh-so-locked treasury vaults and ready to fulfill a higher purpose: yours!”

  There was a stunned silence—then the crowd erupted into cheers and screams as he began to toss sacks and bundles from the cart onto the cobbled square. Fine silk garments fluttered like fgs in the air. Bottles of rare liqueur clinked together in wooden crates. Loaves of bread, jars of honey, sacks of grain and bundles of tallow candles—all tumbled from the cart into the waiting arms of vilgers.

  “Step right up!” Robin crowed, beckoning even more vilgers to join in the frenzy. “Come cim your blessings, direct from the Viscount’s personal stash! Gold-pted forks! Fancy boots he never wore! Even the man’s second-best toothbrush, lightly used and questionably cleaned!”

  “Lumina have mercy,” Estel murmured, watching a silver-pted chamber pot being handed off with ceremony to a toothless old man. “Is he actually giving away the Viscount’s toiletries?”

  “Damn, he’s gotten way more efficient than I expected,” Alice said with an impressed look. “To raid the Viscount’s entire estate clean in one night must have been no easy feat. And he’s even throwing in next-day delivery for free…”

  As the final bundles were handed out, Robin cpped his gloves clean with a theatrical snap and tipped an imaginary hat to the crowd.

  “That’s it, my darlings! The curtain falls on today’s show!” he called, raising his arms as if to quiet a rowdy audience, and picked up the reins. “It has been an honour—and till we meet again!”

  The vilgers responded with a round of whoops, appuse, and a few blown kisses. Children ran alongside the cart for a final few paces, waving and giggling as Robin tossed a handful of coins to them.

  “Don’t say I never gave you anything nice!” he called over his shoulder, guiding the cart around the fountain and towards the edge of the square where Estel and Alice were standing.

  “So, what do you dies think?” He grinned as he pulled to a stop and gestured for them to hop on. “Enjoyed the show?”

  “I see that you’ve become even more of a show-off in the years that we haven’t seen each other,” Alice said wryly, climbing up into the cart first. “Here, Estel, grab my hand.”

  Estel hesitated only a second before reaching up. The Witch helped her into the cart with a firm tug, and together they settled on the worn pnks beside Robin as the cart slowly rattled down the vilge ne. Behind them, the vilgers gradually scattered back to their homes, their arms full of newfound treasure as ughter drifted like incense on the wind.

  “They look happy…” Estel murmured, eyes lingering on a girl clutching a new pair of shoes to her chest. “But is this really alright? Won’t the Viscount punish them harshly once he finds out?”

  Robin gave a low chuckle, the reins loose in his hands as the cart trundled along the dirt road leading back to the dukedom. “The world’s cruel enough as it is, what more can a penniless Viscount do to add insult to injury? Yell from his empty pantry?”

  He paused, then added more quietly, “Besides, that kind of problem is better suited for you to solve now, isn’t it?”

  “Me?” she echoed, surprised.

  Robin gnced over at her then—just a flicker of his gaze beneath the dirt-caked green hood—and offered a smile so unlike his usual smirking bravado. It was gentler. Sincere.

  “I may not know much about vilinesses, Your Ladyship,” he said, “but I know what a good heart looks like.”

  “…”

  Estel felt her chest tighten at his words.

  For a moment, she didn’t know what to say. The breeze brushed past them, carrying the scent of pine and far-off hearth smoke. She looked down at her hands, pale against the rough weave of her borrowed robe, and curled her fingers slowly into her p.

  “I don’t feel like I’ve done anything good,” she admitted softly. “All my life, I was told who I was meant to be: the Crown Prince’s future wife and Queen of our realm. Graceful, obedient. Everything was neat and perfect. And now…that future’s gone. And I don’t know who I am without it.”

  Robin didn’t respond right away. The cart rolled on, wheels crunching over loose gravel, the surrounding forest a patchwork of rustling branches and slivers of te sunlight.

  “…has Alice told you about my past yet?” he asked finally.

  Estel gnced at the Witch, who said nothing—only watched with her usual cool indifference. She shook her head.

  Robin exhaled and tugged gently on the reins, guiding the old horse around a bend in the path.

  “I was born the son of a Muscadist procurator. My father worked for the Empire, managing taxes and nd in our province. Not exactly the noblest title, but we were part of the system. So when the Crusade came, my father was ordered to seize nd, livestock—anything the common folk had left that could finance the war effort. It didn’t matter that we were already poor, that our people were starving. The Senate demanded, and so he had to obey. But starving plebeians don’t care about orders…they only see the hand that takes their st loaf of bread.”

  A long pause.

  “In the end, the people revolted. They dragged my father into the square and strung him up. Called him a tyrant’s dog.” He let out a bitter ugh. “And maybe they were right. I don’t know, really. But the boy who came to collect the body never saw his father again—just another name added to the list of traitors. And for being his son, mine was carved into the list of exiles.”

  The sound of the wheels crunching gravel filled the silence between them again. Estel swallowed hard, throat tight with emotion.

  “…that’s awful,” she whispered. “I’m sorry.”

  Robin gnced at her, and though his face betrayed no emotion, there was a glint of something softer in his eyes.

  “Don’t be. I’m not telling you this to make you feel sorry…I just want to say that I know what it’s like to have your entire future dictated for you, and then ripped away,” he said. “And the worst part? You’re left with nothing but guilt and anger and questions. Who am I, if not what they told me I was supposed to be?”

  Her breath caught in her throat.

  “But that’s the thing, you see,” Robin continued with an easy smile. “You now have the chance to rebuild yourself, piece by piece. And from what I’ve seen of you, Estel, you’ve already taken your first steps.”