WE DIDN’T HAVE to go far before we were out of any search radius.
The Indigo Order would find the spilled firefly. The dead Nightmares and guards. The manufacturing and storage facilities. Everything would be cleared away and explained without mention of a vigilante and rogue bodyguard.
When we slowed to a limping walk, I took as many painkillers as James would allow.
“Now what?” James asked. “After you recover, I mean. Your shoulder is going to take some time.”
He was definitely right about the shoulder. The rib, too.
“There are a lot more problems in Skyvale than just Hensley,” I said at last. “A lot more than just the Nightmare gang.”
And the Nightmare gang wasn’t even gone, just cut in half. It seemed unlikely we’d ever truly be rid of them, but if I kept pressure on them, maybe they wouldn’t be so powerful anymore.
“Does that mean you have to be the one to do something about it?” James checked around a corner on the border of Greenstone and Thornton, but the way was clear. It was both late and early enough that most people in the market district were sleeping. “You’re going to be king one day. Can’t you take action from that post?”
I shrugged with my good shoulder and stepped into the shadows of rich, well-tended buildings. The scent of baking bread pushed through the streets, warm and normal. “There are so many corrupted officials in the city. I don’t trust them to stop shine-makers and flashers. Not yet. I’ll root out other people who worked for Hensley, and those like him. I’ll make sure I can trust the people policing the streets. But trusting them doesn’t mean I won’t want to keep an eye on them—the kind of eye they wouldn’t expect.”
“You’re going to spy on your own police force?”
“If you want to call it that, yes.”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Thank you.”
“It wasn’t a compliment.”
I grinned. “It was.”
“Shut up. So what are you going to be called?” James eyed me askance. “Right now I’ve heard people refer to you as the black-mask vigilante, which, I’m sorry, is stupid. But it’s better than the Saint Fade Christopher burglar.”
“I didn’t steal anything, either. Technically everything in the palace is mine—or will be, one day.”
James rolled his eyes. “Pick a name. I have a few people in the city I can pass on a little bit of gossip to. If I happen to slip the vigilante’s name . . .”
They’d spread it to everyone else. Instant reputation, if we worked this right.
I paused and lifted my face to the sky, sucking in a deep breath—as deep as I could without aggravating every injury I’d taken on in the last week. I’d very nearly been skewered by the black-handled knife I’d—
Well, the knife was gone now. No sense in brooding over where it had come from. But what Hensley had nearly done to me was important. What I’d survived was important.
But was there a name in there? Something to reclaim, or something to own. Something to remind me why I was doing this. Maybe . . . “What about the Black Knife?”
James cringed. “That’s even stupider than the black-mask vigilante.”
“It’s meaningful. And memorable.”
“Meaningful to you, perhaps. We’ll see about memorable.” James smirked and motioned me onward again. “At least drop the the. You’re a person, not an object.”
That seemed reasonable. “So you’re going to help me do this?”
“Do I have a choice?” He laughed, though, and didn’t notice the way I winced. “You’re going to be a vigilante whether or not I like it.”
“You could join me.”
“And choose a name like Black Knife? No, thanks. I guard a prince; there’s plenty of excitement in that.” He looked at me with a faint smile, though. “But I will help you. We’re going to practice every day. We’ll work out the stories we need to tell to excuse your injuries. And you’ll always tell me your plans for the evening so that if you’re going to go off and do something stupid, I can be there to save your tail, like tonight. No more of this falling off roofs and getting ambushed nonsense. If the prince gets killed on my watch, even if he’s out being a vigilante against pretty much everyone’s better judgment—not to mention against the law—I’m the one who’s going to get in trouble. And I hate getting in trouble.”
“We’ll just have to make sure I’m good enough there will never be a need to question you about my nightly activities.”
“Saints,” he breathed. “We’ve got a lot of work to do.”
I started to jab him with my elbow, but movement caught my eye. A pair of girls on a Thornton rooftop. “Look.”
James followed my gaze. “That’s her? Braid Girl?”
“Nameless girl, I think. What if she cuts her hair short enough it won’t braid?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Have you picked out your children’s names, too?”
I snorted. “I’m confident she thinks I’m a bug. Watch this.” Checking that my mask was firmly in place, I stepped out of the shadows and allowed a mirror to catch my reflection, but only mine. I didn’t need anyone associating James with Black Knife.
Nameless girl touched her friend’s shoulder and they paused. Looked down at me. Then, like she recognized me—my clothes anyway—she leaned toward her friend and said something too soft for me to hear, and both of them twisted their little fingers at me.
“Oh yes,” James said, still hidden in the shadows. “She hates you. I doubt she’ll want your attempts at romantic attention any time soon.”
“You know I’m going to ask Meredith to marry me, don’t you? In the next few months. As part of my plan to pacify my father.” Father finally believed me about Hensley. I had James as my guard. Maybe we could move forward now, even if I never had the chance to go to the Academy and I had to keep secrets about James’s origins.
“Nameless girl will be so sad to hear of your engagement.”
What had I done to deserve this teasing?
It got worse. Nameless girl pulled a familiar gold-handled knife from her belt. It was too hard to see from here, but it seemed like all the gemstones had been popped out. Likely sold to unsavory types around Skyvale. She gave the knife a quick flip before putting it away, then she and her friend were gone, on another roof.
“Wasn’t that your knife?” James strode up next to me, his arms crossed. “The one she stole while she was rescuing you?”
“Pretty sure the rescuing was a happy accident. And yes, that used to be my knife. I suppose it’s hers now. She and her friends earned it. I’d rather be alive than have that knife.”
“You sound so impressed with her.” James grinned. “Are you going to go after them? Arrest them? They’re thieves.”
The Hawksbill clock tower chimed five. Dawn was near, and if I wanted to pull off this vigilante nightlife, I needed to pull off my prince life as well.
“Not right now.” I looked up at the palace, rising over the Hawksbill wall. Mirrors gleamed with starlight, calling me home. “I’ll meet her another time.”