body was braced, ready for that horrible, suffocating clasp of wet wool and metal when he caught at her cloak again. Any moment, and he’d drag her down off the wall . . .
And then her grasping hands met with air.
Marian blinked rain and sweat out of her eyes and focused on her palm as it pressed against flat stone. The top of the wall. She pulled herself up, shaking, and looked down. Gisborne was lying in the mud where she’d left him, and for a moment she sat there, one leg still hanging over the edge of the wall.
Had she killed him? Perhaps that terrible moment in Sherwood, when she’d sighted down the shaft of her arrow at his back, was prophecy, not warning.
She ought to be frightened. Horrified, as she’d been in the forest. But her blood was pumping hot and fierce, and the knot of resolve and fight in her heart was unchecked. She looked down, and for a moment, she was glad.
Then Gisborne’s legs moved, and he groaned and rolled over.
And Marian slipped over the wall, hung down as far as she could on the other side, and dropped down into the marshy trench. Her legs ached with the impact, and she looked around wearily. She saw distant shapes, blurry through the rain, but no one nearby. With an involuntary moan of reaction, she dragged herself up out of the trench, peeling the heavy wool cloak from her shoulders. She’d intended to hide it in the thatch of a house closer to the castle, to be retrieved that night in darkness, but she couldn’t risk moving with it now. Gisborne might go after the carts if he was well enough to ride, but Marian thought it was more likely he’d go after Robin Hood. Which meant that Alan and John and Will would be safe, if she could only stay out of Gisborne’s grasp.
She went to the nearest hovel, kicked at the mud at the base of its wall until she’d made a dent, and shoved the cloak in against the boards as far as it would go.
In the rain, it looked like a boulder, or an empty burlap sack. She’d come back for it later, if she could. For now—Marian clawed at her face, remembering the mask, and threw it down after the cloak. Shaking hands moved to unbind her skirts from her legs, and after another moment of thought, they pulled the tie from her hair as well. It fell wet and heavy against her neck, for an instant so like the strangling touch of the cloak that she nearly cried out.
She wasted one more breath, pausing, trying to remember if there were any other alterations she had to make to become Lady Marian again. Her mind was blank. She could not think.
So she moved instead, venturing out into the little alley between houses. A figure appeared in front of her and melted away with an intake of breath. Others appeared and vanished, voices crowded at the edge of her consciousness. She wondered what she must look like, and could not imagine.
She stumbled sideways, her shoulder hitting the edge of a house, and she paused, clutching at the wood and plaster, trying to catch her breath. The air felt like fire in her throat, and she could not help the tears that mingled with the rain on her cheeks. Keep moving, she ordered herself. Marian had to be “found” so close to Robin’s appearance that it would seem like they were both there at once, with no time for one to change into the other.
She shoved herself away from the corner she leaned against, and out into a bigger laneway. But her feet slid again, and this time the muscles in her legs had given up, and when she tried to catch her balance, she fell.
She was braced to hit the ground, too tired to roll or protect herself. Instead she fell into a hard grip, a grip that hauled her upright. A hand brushed her sodden hair from her face, and someone let out a strangled sound of surprise.
She looked up, and in her exhaustion, she let out a muffled scream. The face inches from hers was covered with blood and dirt, rivulets of bloody mud dripping from his chin and from the hair plastered to his head.
The grip relaxed but did not let go. Instead an arm circled her waist. “Easy, easy.” Gisborne’s voice was thin and remote, but in a strange,