“What about me?” I demanded, made angry by my panic. At the moment I was caught between the devil and the deep blue sea: the grinding judicial system of the Empire and the savages I was rooming with. I couldn’t decide which prospect was more terrifying.

“You will have to come with us,” Mithos replied with a dissatisfied look in his dark eyes and a sigh in his voice.

“What? He’s a child!” exclaimed the girl. “He will get us all killed! At best he’ll slow us down and risk exposing us. And if he decides to turn us in, what then?”

“He won’t,” said Mithos grimly. It wasn’t so much a vote of confidence as a threat, and I recognized it as such. “You need us, Master Hawthorne,” he said with a half-smile. “And we can’t take the chance of leaving you behind to inform on us. If that offends you, consider us your ticket out of Cresdon. Your crime is a small one, but the Empire would brand you a rebel for it, and you know how they love to make examples of rebels. How many of the bodies that hang from the basilica gibbets are rebels, and how many are shopkeep ers, blacksmiths, and actors who the Empire decided were rebels?”

“I try not to concern myself with politics,” I muttered, trying to stop my hands from trembling. He had a knack of saying all the things I didn’t want to think about and making them sound even worse than I had thought they were.

“You are concerned with them now,” said the girl bitterly. “Would that you had been concerned about them before. Though what you could have contributed to the cause I don’t know.”

“Renthrette,” said Mithos swiftly, “we have no time for bickering. The boy will leave Cresdon under our aegis whether he likes the idea or not.”

“I’m not a boy!” I exclaimed. “I’m eighteen. A man.”

The girl-who couldn’t have been more than a year older than me-snorted with disdain.

Mithos, ignoring my indignation, told me my options in a matter-of-fact tone: “Should you decide, once we’re outside Cresdon, to ride with us to Stavis, you’ll come as one who must earn his keep and keep his place. Or we can part company when we are a comfortable distance from the city. It’s your choice. You will find us trustworthy unless you endanger our mission.”