familiar scent. Instantly her mind flooded with memories. She was fourteen, and Robin was wrapping his cloak around her shoulders in the rain; she was eleven, looking at his face after disarming him for the first time during a swordplay bout; she was in his arms, feeling the scrape of his beard against her cheek; she was riding at his side, listening to his laugh.
Marian sank down onto the stool, clutching the soft white linen of Robin’s shirt. She tried to turn off the memories, to think of something else—anything else—and keep at bay the wrenching pain of remembering Robin. She could not afford to weep.
Let yourself cry, said Robin. There’s no shame in it.
She buried her face in the shirt and imagined what Robin would think of her now, impersonating him to buy Will more time. They’d broken the rules as children all the time—sneaking out at night, riding out unsupervised. But she could not think of a time when Robin had broken the law.
It’s mad, Marian thought, lifting her head and staring down at the clothing now scattered around her. I’ll be caught, Father will lose his lands, I’ll be jailed. Masquerading as Robin might buy Will time, but it won’t set him free. And Gisborne will not let ghost stories stop his rise to power for long, no matter how many people claim to have seen Robin.
She wiped at her eyes and stood, crossing the room to the window and pushing its thick shutter open. From the city below she heard a distant cry, a young child somewhere clamoring to eat. And suddenly she saw in her mind the two brothers standing there, the ones who had heard Will’s tale, the ones who had recognized her as the beloved of the man who’d come back from the dead to help his people.
Robin’s voice in her thoughts was gentle. Will you take away their hope because you have none?
Perhaps Will had been right. Robin’s spirit was not at rest, but it wasn’t Sherwood Forest he haunted—it was Marian. She carried him in her thoughts, and she would carry out his will with her own hands.
Marian pulled off her shoes, fingers going to the laces of her kirtle. At least this time, she thought as she reached for the slate-gray leggings, I won’t have to fight in skirts.
Marian slipped into the corridor, pulling the hood of the cloak up over her head. She felt half-naked without fabric swirling about her ankles, and even more so without the weight of a sword at her side or a bow at her hand. And though the castle was quieter this late in the night, it was never truly silent—it never slept, not completely. Somewhere in the distance something metal clanged to the floor, and when she paused, she heard a woman’s muffled laugh from the hallway behind her. The occasional opening or closing of a door somewhere in the castle made a fitful breeze sweep down the halls and tug at Marian’s clothing, giving her the unsettling feeling that someone was just behind her.
Next time, she thought, pausing in an alcove to listen for signs of life ahead, you need to do this outside.
Next time? Robin echoed, amused.
She caught her breath and leaned back against the stone for a moment. I don’t know if you are real, she thought, closing her fingers around the ring that hung from her neck. Or if I simply want you to be.
Robin replied, Does it matter?
She traced her way back down the staircase Midge had told her about, each soft step resounding in her ears, until she reached the corridor that led to the armory. The door was closed, and Marian pressed her ear to its surface, listening for sounds that might warn her that someone was inside. The dice game Midge had mentioned had surely been over for hours, and if she was unlucky enough to venture here at the moment the guards changed, she’d hear them in all their chain mail and heavy boots.
The air was utterly still, and after a few breaths to calm her heart, Marian lifted the latch and slipped inside.
The dice players had left a torch behind, and it burned low in its sconce. It cast barely enough light for Marian to avoid tripping over the racks and tables of equipment. The nearest tables held chain-mail vests and shoulder plates, the shelves above them full of helmets. Marian paused by the chain mail, reaching out to run a fingertip along