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faster along the cobblestoned street, splashing through shallow puddles.
    His lover was out there somewhere, out in the dark and alone, with wolves on her heels.
And I should be with her
, Felix thought, balling his hands into angry fists.

Chapter Five
    The buckboard wagon leaned from side to side, swaying with every pit and stone on the backwoods road as its old wheels groaned.
Felix
, Renata thought, sitting in the open back with an moth-eaten blanket over her lap,
I should be with you
.
    Hedy slumped beside her and shared the blanket, her heart-shaped face pressed into Renata’s arm as she snored softly. That was some small relief. The fourteen-year-old had two speeds, breathlessly fast and sound asleep, and had barely stopped talking since they left Mirenze. They shared the wagon with a clutter of casks and barrels and one other traveler, a former soldier named Vanszetti who hoped to find work in the papal guard. Vanszetti was sound asleep too, with one calloused hand riding protectively on the hilt of his sword.
    They’d hitched a ride with an old Murgardt who ran a trade route from Reinsbech to Mirenze and back again. He peddled odds and ends, buying low and selling a tiny bit higher. “I earn just enough to fill my belly and keep me moving,” he’d told Renata when they negotiated for the trip. “That’s all a man can rightly ask for in this world.”
    Renata craned her neck, careful not to jostle Hedy, and whispered up to him. “You must be tired. If you want to take a break, I know how to handle a wagon. I’d be happy to help.”
    The old man squinted up at the evening sky, then gestured to the thick pines squeezing the road.
    “Mighty kind, miss, but I’ll pull us over for the night soon enough. There’s a wayhouse about five miles up. They’ll have fresh feed for my—what’s this, now?”
    He tugged the reins. The big bay horses pulling the wagon clomped to a stop. Holding his small lantern out before him, the driver clambered down from his perch. Hedy shifted in her sleep and murmured something that sounded like “Mum?” as Renata carefully pulled away, getting up in a crouch.
    “Shh,” Renata said, “I’m just taking a look. Here, sleep.”
    She bundled Hedy up in her half of the blanket and jumped down from the wagon. Vanszetti started to stir, behind her, but her attention was drawn to the puddle of lantern light just ahead of the horses. The lightning-seared corpse of a tree blocked the road, brambles and broken branches strewn everywhere.
    “Just my luck,” the driver muttered. He set the lantern down and started rolling up his sleeves. “Don’t worry, miss, I’ll lug this to one side and we’ll be on our way.”
    “Let me help,” Renata said. “I used to roll kegs of ale up and down my father’s cellar stairs all night long. A log’s no different.”
    “If we both grab hold on that end, reckon we can swing it—”
    A whistle and a snap split the air. The next sound was the
thump
of the old man hitting the ground, choking up blood around the arrow lodged in his throat. A triumphant cry welled up as men poured from the thickets on both sides of the road, ruffians in cheap leathers and burlap hoods that made them look like an army of scarecrows. Renata reacted on instinct, turning to run as one of the men lunged at her, only for muscled, sweaty arms to grab her from behind in a bear hug and lift her off her feet.
    Vanszetti jumped down from the wagon, and his steel sang as he whipped his sword from its sheath. “Stay behind me,” he shouted at Hedy and put his back to the wagon. The first brigand to charge went down screaming, sliced open from neck to belly. The second one was faster, flailing at the veteran soldier with a pair of rusty hand axes, but his head hit the ground two seconds before the rest of his body.
    Another pair of scarecrows, eyes wide behind their misshapen hoods, danced around him. Neither wanted to make the first move. They didn’t have to. The