His eyes closed, and he nodded. “You have more faith in me than I do for myself sometimes, Scar.”

“Well, that’s right as rain,” I told him. “You don’t need to be sure of yourself all the time. Fact, it’s a little more bearable when you ain’t.”

He smiled a little, looking at me. “You think I’m unbearable?”

I shrugged. “Sure. You ain’t like nobody else. Sometimes I don’t know what to make of you at all.”

“This coming from the thieving, knife-throwing outlaw girl. As if there were anyone like you in the wide world.”

“Yeah, but you see right through me.”

“It’s not that I see through you,” he told me. “It’s that I see you. You don’t want anyone to see you, but I do.”

I nodded, and my old bruise started beating under my hat. “Wish you didn’t, sometimes.”

He sighed. “Sometimes I wish I didn’t too. It would certainly be easier,” he said soft.

That knifed into my belly like a hot ax. I knew that, as far as souls went, mine were black as tar and, like my face, it were strange and scarred. Somehow, some part of me always thought Rob saw me as different than all that, though, saw the good bits of me as better than the ugly bits.

That weren’t the way of it at all, clear as day. Rob saw the tar and the scars and wished he never peeked at all.

I didn’t look up or speak the rest of the way there.

We spent several hours in Nottingham, which were tough for Rob. People could recognize him there, so he stayed out of the castle proper while I found a way in.

When I met up with Rob again, it weren’t with good news.

“Gisbourne is fussing with everything. He’s changing the guard shifts—he’s doubling them on the prison and on the gate and ordering them to move around at night. He knows I can get in but he don’t know how.”

“How many ways do you know?”

“The tunnel’s my best way in. I can get over the wall in a trice without them seeing me, but the tough bit is getting others over.” I stopped, my eyes going wide. “I know what we can do.”

“Tell me.”

“Well, they’ll be expecting us to break Godfrey and Ravenna out, won’t they? They’ll be guarding the prison extra just for it.”

“So?”

“So let’s give them what they expect.”

His eyebrows pulled together tight. “You want us to walk into a trap? Or, rather, a heavily guarded prison that might as well be a trap?”

I grinned, setting off. “Nail on the head, Rob!”

“Wait, Scar, that makes no sense.”

I kept walking.

“Scar!”

“You’ve gone completely mad,” John told me, again. Again and again. And again. Rob and Much said nothing, but they were with me too.

“Stop saying that. It’s bad luck.”

“You don’t need luck—you need to not go in there.”

“Since when are you antsy about scaring up some trouble, John?” Much asked.

He glared. “Since she’s taking far too much risk on her shoulders. They’re little shoulders, if you lot haven’t noticed.”

“She’ll be fine, John. It’s a good idea,” Rob said, rougher than I would have thought. Honestly, the lug were just worried.

“I’m holding you responsible, Huntingdon,” John snapped. “Remember that you’re the one who agreed to all this.”

I slapped John’s stomach. We never called Rob by his title. “In case you forgot, John Little, we don’t look back once we agree on a plan. Stop casting bad luck round.” I spat on the ground; it were supposed to send off bad spirits.

I looked up at the sky. It were a dark, clouded sky without a moon, like a better thief than me stole the light to help us hide. We climbed the wall, scaling the rough stone by moving quick and never searching out much of a foothold. Only Much couldn’t fair get it, and John climbed back down and did it again with Much on his back, like he’d done Freddy the other time.

Rob and I went over the wall to the parapet, looking for the roving guards. One came through and we separated, each flipping over the side of the guard’s walk at the top of the wall to hide in the dark. The side I flipped over, of course, left me dangling above the castle residences. I lowered myself onto one careful, hiding on the back of the roof.

Rob came down, and then John and Much came a few minutes later. Once we were all there, I dropped down into the central courtyard, looking straight into Gisbourne’s chambers. The room were lit, but he weren’t there, and that chilled me a little.

One by one we dropped down, then ran across the upper bailey and down through the gauntlet. There were more guards on, and they were moving, but they still tended to group together and leave areas unprotected. We knew how to move in the darkness unseen, but I knew the Mason twins wouldn’t be so good at it.

Once we got to the prison, I went round the side of the lads while John came in from the front, bumbling like a drunk. The two guards from the front threw their gaze to him, and I slid in behind them. I heard John shouting at them as I ran deep into the prison.

The rough rock walls gave way to cells, a lone candle guttering in the front to cast light over the place. I could see the cells and the people within, and I stopped dead.

Something were wrong. ’Ever I set foot in the prison, they’d all be whispering and calling to me, begging for help or helping me find who I needed. They were all dead quiet, and I didn’t flatter myself that they couldn’t see me.