Chapter 7: Prove It

Cassian walked out to the gate alone.

I followed him to the archway. Nobody could have stopped me.

Through the bars I saw torches.

Ten men stood in the blue of the Avenmoor city watch, around a carriage with gilt on the doors.

Ottilie stood in front of it in a fur cloak, golden curls shining in the torchlight.

The guard was at her side. Of course he was.

"The Thornwood opens its gate at dawn," Cassian said through the bars. "Not before. You can wait or go home."

"I'll have that gate down," Ottilie said.

"With ten men?" He sounded almost interested. "You can try."

She looked at his face in the torchlight and took a step back without meaning to.

They waited.

By dawn the whole village had heard. They came up the hill in the cold, still in their aprons and their work boots.

Some of them were carrying saws and bill hooks because they'd been on their way to the orchards.

The steward opened the gate.

Ottilie walked into the courtyard. She looked around at the broken roof and the crows and wrinkled her nose.

Then she saw me, and she smiled.

"There you are, Cinders. Mother is beside herself."

"I'm sure she is."

The captain of the watch unrolled a paper with a red seal.

"Clemence Merriwether," he read. "Charged with the theft of a rope of pearls, the property of Lady Ottilie Vane."

"To be brought before the magistrate in Avenmoor."

The villagers murmured.

"I gave the pearls back on the bridge," I said. "In front of six men."

"You were caught with them," the guard said. "Giving them back doesn't undo it."

He wouldn't look at me. He looked at a spot just past my shoulder.

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