faces. And they wanted that more than they wanted their dead friends to leave with dignity. They got what they wanted. Why shouldn’t we?”
“And who decides if you want too much?” Clearly Prince Jasimir was still sore from cutting the oath. “What if you demanded half their cattle? Or a year’s wages? Or the rest of the bones, while they’re still warm?”
Fie glared. “The Oleanders would gut us all before sundown—”
“Perhaps if you didn’t give them a reason—”
“Jas.” Tavin cut him off. “Taking the teeth was a message. A harsh message, yes, but that village will think twice before trying to cheat Crows again. It’s no different from our court games.”
Either the Hawk was starting to ken their trade, or now that half the Crows liked him well enough, he was working double-time to woo the other half. Fie snuck a look out of the corner of her eye, wondering if a Crane would smell a falsehood from him. All Fie saw was a lordling with a haircut and a new scar—
She blinked. It was a tiny thing, a thin line through the Hawk’s right brow, but it was a mark the prince didn’t carry.
The Peacock glamour would keep breaking with her every blink. With his hair shorn to his ears and a face almost his own, soon no one would mistake him for the prince.
The Hawk boy had cut his hair for Pa, he’d had the sense to not push the guards, and he’d reined in the prince. Fie didn’t trust him as far as she could shove him, but perhaps he’d earned the benefit of the doubt.
Tavin flashed a broad, too-pretty grin at her. “Besides, taking whole bones, that’s just impractical. Or do I have it wrong? You strike me as someone who would tear a man’s spine out if she fancied it for a new necklace.”
Fie’s newfound goodwill withered.
She narrowed her eyes at the road ahead. “You got one part awry,” she said. “I don’t truck with jewelry.”
“What do you truck with, then?” Tavin’s grin hadn’t faded one bit; if anything, it curled wider. “Flowers? Poetry? I know I can rule out patchouli.”
The prince pulled a face like he’d found a hair ball in his sandals. It was plain he’d seen this dance before, and that told Fie all she needed to know.
“Silence,” Fie answered. “I truck with silence.”
“And punching corpses,” Tavin added. “I’ll concede I have that effect on people. So you’ve a shine for silence and violence. What else?”
“People who can take a hint,” Hangdog gritted.
Tavin remained undaunted. “And?”
“And I think I’m starting to fancy a new necklace,” Fie said, cold.
“So you do truck with jewelry.”
Behind him, Madcap made a crude gesture that suggested exactly what they thought Fie trucked with. Swain snorted and waggled his eyebrows at her.
Fie’s temper ran thin. His charm was a ruse; the Hawk had no intent of courting her. He just aimed to see what could knock her off-balance. Two could play that game.
“I truck with people I can trust,” she returned, direct as a warning shot.
It did the trick. Wretch and Swain traded looks, and Tavin straightened, donning mock-innocence.
“Now that’s hardly reasonable,” he jested, “when all we did was use you to help fake our deaths and commit blasphemous fraud on the entire nation of Sabor for personal gain.”
That got a round of chuckles. He’d wanted them to laugh it down. Fie mummed along, cracked a humorless grin herself, but her voice stayed sharp. “Aye, but that’s not why I don’t trust you.”
The laughter dried up.
Tavin gave her the same look as when she’d kindled Phoenix fire last night—measuring.
Now who’s off-balance?
“Is there just the one reason, or did you draw up a list?” A good parry. He meant to paint her as shrewish, petty.
And Fie meant to remind her Crows who he really was. “We don’t even know who you are. Or who might be looking for you. You never told us your whole name.”
He shrugged. “Is that all?”
The look the prince gave her could have kindled her own funeral pyre. “Tav, you don’t have to—”
“It’s fine,” Tavin said, but that warning line in his brow was back. Fie had hit the nerve she’d dug for. “My full name is Taverin sza Markahn. Does that answer your question?”
It did. Sza meant “son of.” A clan like the Markahns, high enough to whelp the crown prince, should have flaunted Tavin’s own parental pedigree in the name that followed. Instead, he only had the broad clan name.