to tell me about it?”
“Not really.” Ethan couldn’t help but feel that sharing such intimate details with a man he didn’t trust was a bad idea. “Just dreams about the war in my world.”
Jonas curled his lip. “Are there dragons in your world?”
“Dragons? No.”
“Then it’s odd that you would talk about them in your sleep.” He kept his eyes fixed. “There were rumors that your mother could see the future in her dreams, though personally I never believed it.”
“I told you,” Ethan snapped. “I was dreaming about the war back home.”
“If you say so.” Jonas stood up and stretched. “We should get moving soon.”
A few minutes later Kat began to stir. Jonas distributed a breakfast of bread and some dried apricots. Kat ate greedily and even nodded a thank you to Jonas – a gesture that he did not return. By dawn they were well on their way.
Kat sat in the back of the wagon and crouched down low whenever they came across a fellow traveler.
“Afraid you’ll run across someone you know?” asked Jonas.
“I’m afraid to be seen with you,” she replied disdainfully.
“Then perhaps you should go your own way,” he shot back. “Then you wouldn’t have to worry over it.”
She curled her knees into her chest. “I told you. A princess always pays her debts.”
Jonas shook his head and chuckled. “Ah, yes. I almost forgot.”
“How long have you been on your own?” asked Ethan.
“I’ll tell you about me if you tell me more about you,” she replied.
Jonas shot Ethan a quick glance of warning.
Kat laughed. “You’re too nice to be an outlaw. And your servant is too soft and doughy. So I’d say…hmmm…you’re on the run from the Empire.” She scrutinized Ethan. “And from what I heard last night, I’d say it’s because you found out that you can use magic.”
Jonas stiffened. “That’s enough from you. You should learn to mind your own business.”
Kat shrugged. “Don’t worry. I won’t tell. Not as long as you keep me around, anyway. Of course, if you leave me behind, who knows what I might say? Or to whom?”
“No one would believe a whelp like you,” snapped Jonas. “Say whatever you want, to whomever you want.”
Kat grinned playfully. “You’re probably right. Who would believe me? But I’m not the one trying to hide, am I?”
“Who says we’re hiding?” Ethan jumped in quickly before Jonas could speak.
“I do,” she replied. “And if you don’t want to get caught, you have to promise not to leave me in Miltino.”
“Why would I do that?” Ethan asked, feigning ignorance.
“Because you think I’m just a child,” she answered flatly.
“You are a child,” said Jonas. “And if not for Ethan, you’d be a dead one. So show a bit of appreciation.”
Kat ignored him and kept her attention on Ethan. “You’ll never get in the city without my help.”
“What do you mean?” he asked.
“I know all the secret ways into Miltino. You don’t.”
“And why would we need to sneak in?”
She laughed and laid her head sideways on her knees. “Because you don’t want to be found. And you have to register with the magistrate if you enter the city.”
Ethan and Jonas exchanged worried glances.
“Oh my,” said Kat. “You don’t have the proper papers…do you?”
“Of course we do,” Jonas lied. “But as you rightly guessed, I would rather we go unnoticed.”
“Then it seems you need me after all.”
Ethan cocked his head and smiled. “She’s right, Jonas.”
Jonas huffed but made no reply, instead focusing his attention rigidly on the road ahead.
For the rest of the journey, the time passed pleasantly enough. Ethan noticed that the longer Kat was with them, the more she began to act her age. He figured that she was unaccustomed to being treated kindly by strangers. Even on Earth, life for a street kid could be cruel. Here, where people were permitted to lop off someone’s hand without so much as a hearing, it must be downright brutal.
As the city walls came into view, Kat said that they should pull off the road and wait for night to fall. “I’ll go ahead and check that the way is clear,” she told them.
Jonas looked displeased but was in no position to argue.
“I don’t like this,” he remarked, once she’d gone. “Trusting our fate to a child thief is stupidity.”
“I really don’t get it,” Ethan said. “Why don’t you like her?”
“She’s a thief. I don’t like thieves. They can’t be trusted.”
Ethan smirked. “Well, according to her, she’s a princess.”
Jonas sniffed. “We’ll be lucky if she doesn’t turn us in to