I stopped at Jack Tailor’s cell. We had tried once to help him get out of there, but he wouldn’t go; he didn’t want no backlash on his family. He said it weren’t worth the price of being free. That were a few months ago; I wondered if he might change his mind if he thought there’d be some hangings soon.

He came to the front of his cell, meeting my eyes and then looking over toward the back of the prison. I drew my finger down between my eyes, trying to ape the nosepiece that were on the guards’ helmets.

He shook his head.

I nodded. It weren’t a guard, then. That meant it could be someone I didn’t need to bother ’bout none—or Nottingham. Or Gisbourne.

Either way, I had to move quick. “Mason?” I mouthed. Tailor pointed to a cell farther down. I would have to be quicksilver. I nodded my thanks and moved into the darker end of the prison.

I could feel someone there. I could hear soft breathing, measured and even, and, worse, I could feel his eyes on me. Watching me. Hunting me. Somewhere in my gut, I were sure it were Gisbourne, standing in the shadow just beyond me like he’d always done.

Didn’t matter none. Couldn’t turn back now.

I slid the package from my back. It would fit through the bars. I moved quiet along the cells, looking for the twins. My heart were drumming up a storm. I just had to be steady, I kept reminding myself.

It were nineteen paces and six cells in that I found them. They rushed forward and I pressed the package through the bars. “Have faith,” I whispered, gripping Ravenna’s hand on the bar and meeting her eyes, trying to somehow show her everything that I couldn’t tell her and her brother.

A huge hand came out and grabbed my neck, ripping me back from the bars. I fell back against the other cell across the row, and even in the dark I knew the Devil when I saw him.

“Gisbourne.”

He pulled back, surprised that I knew his name, and I didn’t sit around gawping. I bolted. “John!” I barked as I cleared the prison gate. He threw off the guards and snapped a couple quick punches, and we set off running.

Rob were running ahead of us, and Much were on the roof, waiting to grab him with his good arm and toss him up. Then Rob hauled John up while I scrambled up the wall. We were over the wall as archers started setting in.

The archers shot, but there were big brass bowls full of fire right on the parapet, and they couldn’t see into the dark beyond that. We skittered right down the wall and scampered quick into the forest.

We ran for a while, and Rob called us all to stop by a stream. We drank, and I pulled onto a tree branch. “Well?” Rob asked.

“Went perfect,” I told him. “Now that they think we’ve tried and failed, we’ll be set to get them out tomorrow. Got the package in, so they’ll think we’ve been getting people out dressed as guards. And they did keep a man inside, like I thought they might.”

John sighed. “Christ, you had me, Scar. When you came running hell for leather, I thought everything was done.”

I shrugged. “It were Gisbourne. But the twins looked hale and hearty, and we’ll get them out tomorrow.”

Rob nodded. “So far, your plan is flawless, Scar.”

I started to smile, but him saying he wished he never saw me popped into my ears. I looked down instead. “We’ll know tomorrow.”

He nodded again. “We should all get some sleep. Tomorrow will be complicated enough.”

When we rose, my heart were unsteady. Seeing Gisbourne’s face so close had rattled me sure, and though it had been dead dark, there were some tiny terror in me that he’d known me.

He couldn’t have known me. It were too dark, and besides, I’ve changed.

’Course, there were the eyes. He could know the eyes. And the scar.

But the light were too low for him to get a fair look at either. He couldn’t have known me.

Every bit of me hollered to run away and go nowhere near the castle, and I did nothing of the sort. It were unbelievable foolish to not trust one’s own bits; this were the sort of stupid muck that you got into by caring ’bout other people. I were haunted by the feel of my hand on Ravenna’s all night through.

I waited by the side of the road until I saw Tuck’s wagon round the corner, just like we planned. I hopped up beside him when he slowed. “Robin thanks you for this, Tuck,” I told him.

He nodded. “I do love Robin, but I’m doing this for those twins. You just make sure it runs like sunup and sundowns, Scarlet.”

My stomach pushed into my pipes. “Yes.”

“And I’m sorry already for having to hit you around in a bit.”

I nodded and put up my hood, and we rode to the castle in quiet. It were strange; the pitch of the wagon were gentle and fair even, and for a breath I felt like this might have been the way of my life, if I were a boy in true, if I hadn’t had the cursed luck to ever be born a girl.

The guards stopped us at the gate, and they inspected Tuck’s barrels. This weren’t the hard part, ’course. This were the “no yap, no trap” part, and all I had to do were keep my mouth shut.

They let us pass, and the slow and easy pitch of the wagon continued. We rolled through the lower bailey, and there I slid off the wagon. I went quick to the air vent, trusting that Rob, Much, and John would uphold their own parts.

With a twist and a jump I slid down the vent, bringing dry dirt in behind me. I dropped to my feet; my knee hit a touch hard and smarted, but it weren’t broken. I stood, running for the twins’ cell.