You know of the Omens and signs and how to look down your nose at everyone, but nothing of what really goes on in the hamlets.

… You call wasting your time dreaming of signs living, Diviner?

“Are you married?” I asked abruptly.

Hamelin laughed, drawing looks. “Not even close—”

“Fantastic.” I turned to One. “I’m taking a turn in the grass. Don’t wait for me.”

Her brows lifted over her shroud. “Really?”

“Really.”

I took Hamelin’s hand. He followed me without question, grinning, and the two of us trampled off the road through greenery, slipping away between trees like we, too, were sprites in the glen.

The Diviners whistled, a few knights applauding, as they watched us go.

I doubted Rory was one of them.

I hopped over a fern, lost sight of the road, and then my back was being pressed into a particularly wide beech tree. Hamelin dropped his helmet in the grass, and I withdrew my cloak.

When I kissed him on the mouth, he seemed dazed. Awestruck. Then reason caught him up. He kissed me back, then down my neck, his mouth a stranger upon my skin. “I meant it,” he said, lips drawing up my throat. “You’re lovely. Yesterday’s Divination—” He cupped my breast through my dress. “You looked mythical—practically fearsome. I couldn’t look away. No one could.”

It was a nice thing to say, and it, along with his touch, did nothing to stir me. “Do you need help out of your armor?”

He shook his head. “Wouldn’t be knightly of me, begging your assistance.”

“I don’t mind.”

He reached down and caught one of my legs, hooking it over his hip as he pressed me harder into the tree. “Why did you ask if I was married?”

“Wouldn’t want to lie down with a married man.”

“Do Diviners marry?”

Did we? “If we wish to after our ten years are up, I suppose. I haven’t really thought about it—”

Hamelin cut me off with a kiss. Our tongues touched. It was warm, and so was the night air. “Imagine the influence,” he murmured against my mouth, “being wedded to a daughter of Aisling.”

“Perhaps we shouldn’t talk.”

He chuckled breathily, his hand rising up my leg. “Sorry. I’m a little overwhelmed.” His teeth grazed my bottom lip. “No one back home in the Peaks is going to believe I fucked a Diviner.”

What little desire I felt fled my body. How rough the tree suddenly felt against my back. How cold his gauntlets over my skin, how brutal his armor between my legs.

I pulled away from the tree so abruptly Hamelin had to brace himself to keep from falling. “What—” His nostrils flared, pupils wide in the dim light. “Are you well?”

“I was under the misconception that it would be good for me, having a bit of fun.” I scrubbed my hands down my wrinkled dress and picked up my cloak. “But I can see I am not suited for this variety of it. Besides”—I kept my voice cold—“I’d rather remain practically fearsome than be someone you fucked in the glen.”

Hamelin tried to grin. “Surely you could be both.”

“Would you still be able to take pleasure, knowing I was not enjoying myself?”

That shut him up, virtue muzzling his desire. He looked so disappointed I almost apologized, but then he said, “Can I at least see your eyes? Or have your name? Some token to prove we were together?”

I left him panting in the glen and hurried back to the road, the colored tents of Coulson Faire beckoning in the distance.

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CHAPTER SIX HIT ME AS HARD AS YOU CAN

Coulson Faire was brilliant. A span of merchant tents in a vast field. On the far side of the field was the great castle that could be none other than Castle Luricht. The king’s castle.

I’d outdistanced Hamelin upon the road, and now walked beneath colorful banners. Writ upon them was the hamlet’s creed: The only portent, the only prosperity—the only god of men—is coin. Beneath it, a coin I knew all too well was depicted. Smooth stone on one side, rough on the other.

I forgot the risk of wandering alone in a place I’d never been, too mesmerized by the colors, the noise, the vivacity of the Faire. Aisling Cathedral suddenly felt as lifeless as a graveyard to this place.

In the distance, pyres burned, dancers moving around them. I could hear the fiddles, drums, but for every tent I passed, the sound of coins falling on counters, coins slapping into palms, coins clinking in pockets, was louder.

Coins, coins, so many coins.

If what the abbess believed was true—that the Omens took corporeal form and visited their hamlets—how the Artful Brigand must grin at his domain. The king’s castle was near, yet it was coin that reigned.

“Toss it. Oh—smooth side up. A good portent. Order more silks.”

“Nay, an uneven sum. A bad sign. Reduce the price or I will work with another vendor.”

“No, I will not pay. The coin fell strangely. I could be ruined.”

I tarried through the Faire, feeling close to Aisling Cathedral still, as if dreaming of falling onto a bed of coins.

Ahead, a few hooded Diviners and their accompanying knights came into view. I hastened after them, only to skid to a stop at the mouth of a stall.

A merchant was there, selling finely carved limestone busts.

“Did you make these yourself?” I asked in wonderment.

He was an aged man with thick knuckles and thinning hair who didn’t look up as he spoke to me. “Why would I sell wares ’sides my own?”

“Just a question.” I leaned close. The nearest bust was of a child, so detailed I could see the tiny chiseled marks between its teeth. “It’s extraordinary work. I wonder—is it a difficult occupation? Working with stone?”

The merchant snorted. “You gonna buy something or not?”

“I don’t have any money.”

“Well then, Miss Questions, kindly sod off—”

He finally looked up. Saw me, leaning close to his work. Quick as a flash, he raised his lantern. “Aisling’s waters,” he murmured. “You’re a Diviner.”

He caught my wrist, bobbing up and down in my face, trying to peer under my shroud. “Didn’t mean to tell you to sod off. I’m on hard times, you see. My business, it’s failing.” He wet his lips. “But if a Diviner came to my stall, gave an endorsement, said that the Omens favored me, perhaps? That would be such a blessing.” His voice dropped. “Or maybe let me have a peek at your eyes. Everyone says that that is how the Omens reach you. Through the spring water, into your eyes—”

“That’s not how it works.” My pulse cantered. “Let go of me.”

He didn’t. He reached his other hand to my shroud instead. “Please, Diviner, all I need is a sign—”

And then he was thrown backward, falling with an ungracious thud onto the floor of his stall.

I felt a presence at my back—saw an armored arm. When I turned, my shoulder hit a breastplate.

Two eyes, unfathomably dark, combed my face.

Gods.

Rory didn’t touch his sword. He didn’t even appear angry. And that made him all the more frightening. He spared me one more moment of his attention, then turned it on the fallen merchant, rounding the stall to look down at the man. “What do you think, Maude?” he called. “Shall I take his hands, or his throat?”

I turned. Maude was behind us, along with Three and Five, who both held cups of ale. I couldn’t see their faces, but given the way they kept bringing their cups beneath their hoods, and swaying with laughter, I imagined they found the commotion, and my mortification, wholly delightful.

Maude shrugged. “Why not both?”

“Please.” The merchant whimpered, knuckles bulging as he held his hands in a steeple. “My business. The Diviner offered to—”