"Are you the King's Guard?" she asked. Siles knew that she knew who he was, otherwise she wouldn't have tied him up in the windowless room in the first place. But there were others watching now. Others who hopefully distrusted Sonia just enough for him to convince them that he was nothing more than a bookbinder.

"No," he said. "But I'm very hungry. Do you have a spare loaf of bread? Or maybe some wine? I prefer red wine. I heard it gets you drunk faster than white." Siles smiled, noting that several of Sonia's followers smiled back. They couldn't possibly believe Sonia. The King's Guard wasn't friendly.

Sonia looked like she wanted to slap him, though given her temper it would probably turn into a punch. Siles wouldn't be able to avoid it at this point. He barely had the energy to lift his head let alone make more complicated movements.

Siles had blacked out shortly after the kidnappers had brought him to the foul-smelling room, so he no longer knew how long it had been since he had last eaten. Normally a few skipped meals didn't have such an effect on him, but he hadn't been eating much in the first place. Meals were boring without someone to talk to. That someone being August. Siles hated himself for caring. He had survived perfectly well when he had worked under the Queen.

At least the smell of rotten meat made his hunger less noticeable. Sonia's people crowded around Siles, standing too close to each other and to him in order to fit in the small room. Siles couldn't tell whether the stench was from them or the wooden boxes stacked along the far wall. He doubted they had created the smell as an interrogation tactic; the crowd and the disorganized yelling that arose whenever Sonia stopped talking reminded him more of the castle soldiers' new-recruit hazing than an actual interrogation.

Sonia yelled at the others to shut up before turning her glare back to Siles. "You're the Guard. I know you're the Guard. And now you're stuck here. So why don't you do us all a favor and admit it so we can get to the more important issues."

Siles slumped, choosing to examine his boots rather than waste energy holding his head up. "Contrary to popular belief I am, in fact, a bookbinder. I worked all night repairing miss Georgia's books and haven't eaten in at least a day. That's the most 'important' issue to me."

Georgia's daughter stood beside Sonia, and a glance upward confirmed Siles' hope that she was more sympathetic than her friend. Gillian wrung her hands as she looked between him and Sonia. "He's telling the truth. I brought the books back to my mom yesterday and she said they were all bound beautifully. He didn't ask for payment, you know. We could at least give him some food."

Siles shut his eyes, hoping to look pitiful. He heard Sonia scoff. "Fine. Mirko, get him some food."

"Wine, too?" a boy's voice responded.

"Of course not."

Somebody laughed, though Siles didn't know who. The waiting and anticipation made his stomach writhe. The smell was worse with his eyes shut – he focused on listening.

With Sonia's silence, a low hum of chatter had filled the room. None of the rebels talked about anything important; a farmer's sheep had been healthier since he had switched to a new type of hay, a seamstress had learned a new stitching technique she was excited about, a woman talked about interviewing with the new school. Siles had spent enough time taking down rebellions to know what they were usually like, and this wasn't it. The people surrounding him seemed to be there as a hobby, casually going along with Sonia's demands when her spying efforts had led her to Siles because they had nothing better to do. They wanted change, of course. The inherent risk of rebellion prevented casual participation. But if they really felt strongly about their cause, they wouldn't be talking about sheep and stitching with a kidnapped member of the royal city sitting in front of them.

Mirko came back with bread and soup, and they untied his hands to let him eat. It would have been the perfect time to escape, except Sonia made everyone retrieve their weapons before allowing Siles' hands to be unbound. Siles knew his limits, and reaching the door in a room crowded with weapons was not something he could do.

The questioning continued as he ate, giving him the opportunity to spit food in Sonia's direction each time he answered.

"Admit you're the King's Guard," Sonia borrowed a knife from the man beside her to jab threateningly in Siles' direction.

He dipped the bread in the soup and took his time answering. "I don't understand why you think I'm the Guard. I've told you twice now that I travel alone because the King doesn't care about the education program. The absence of soldiers by my side isn't because I'm some elite warrior, otherwise you wouldn't have caught me in the first place."

"But you have the same voice as the King's Guard," Sonia replied, her tone less confident. She still jabbed the knife towards him to punctuate her sentence, but even her arm wavered.

Siles was grateful for the fact that he had been starving when the rebels had attacked. Otherwise his abilities would have been suspicious, especially for a bookbinder. Unfortunately, now that he had been captured, he was in an especially difficult position; he had to find a way to escape that didn't require skill.

"You've met the King's Guard?" Siles spat food in Sonia's direction in mock-surprise.

Sonia took a step backwards. "Yes. Don't pretend you don't know that."

"And our voices are similar?" Siles asked.

"They're the exact same," she said.

"Voices aren't like faces, sweetheart. They aren't unique." To be fair, some voices were unique. He had never met someone with a voice like August's. His voice was smooth like a river - nothing like Sonia's raspy snarl.

Sonia took a step back, an expression crossing her face that looked suspiciously like the one she had worn upon recognizing him at the inn. "If you worked all night fixing the books, then you hadn't slept much before we arrived, right?"

Siles stopped eating for a moment, thinking through the possible consequences of his answer. Sonia had something clever in mind, otherwise she wouldn't look so smug. "Yes," he said.

"And you hadn't eaten all day, so you were feeling weak?" she asked.

Siles paused again. He still didn't know what she was thinking. "Yes," he said.

"So how exactly does a starving, sleep-deprived bookbinder escape from a room full of armed citizens and then take down several more before being taken down himself?" Sonia smiled as she spoke, like a cat cornering its prey.

She was clever for a teenager. Siles held up a finger, forcing her to wait as he finished the last of his soup. Unfortunately for her, in the time it had taken her to find the fault in his logic, he had found a way to escape.

Siles set the bowl on the floor by his feet, rubbing the marks the ropes had carved into his wrists. He cleared his throat to speak, but Sonia turned the other direction to call for the man holding the ropes to tie him back up. That worked just as well. Siles made his move before the moment passed; he lunged forward and plucked the knife from her hand. He had pulled Sonia against his chest before she could even think to fight back, holding the blade to her throat.

"Alright, folks. You're going to give me a nice, clear path to the door, otherwise miss Sonia's going to lose her head." Siles made a sawing motion with the knife, nicking the skin on Sonia's neck in the process. The cut was shallow, but just deep enough for a ruby droplet to rise to the surface.

"I knew it was you," Sonia hissed.

Siles shoved her forward as the crowd parted. "If you think it takes someone of the Guard's skill level to disarm you then I am very impressed with your self-confidence," he said, loud enough for the other rebels to hear. Her argument was strong enough that he doubted any of them believed he was just a bookbinder, but he could at least convince them that he was some other guard. They were peasants; they couldn't possibly know that the Guard was the only Royal City soldier without magic.

The door led him to a staircase which led him to the first floor of a farmhouse. Muddy hay coated the ground like a carpet, a trail of hoofprints leading to the extra-large door. A goat stood in the corner, chewing hay and watching them like a spectator at the fair. Siles made eye-contact with its horizontal pupils and quickly looked away. He followed the hoofprints to the door, hoping that the farm would be close enough to the town to be able to see it. He didn't want to drag Sonia all the way there, but he didn't trust her to tell him the right way to go.

Footsteps thudded against the stairs and Siles spun around, pressing the knife closer to Sonia's throat. Several sets of rebel eyes peered over the edge of the staircase, frozen in place.

"You're all going to go back down the stairs, or the girl's throat gets a new ruby necklace." Siles made another small cut, this time deep enough to make Sonia flinch. The rebels retreated back to the basement. The goat continued to chew hay.

Siles couldn't help but find the situation absurd. He was accustomed to playing mind tricks with the citizens, saving the actual fighting for the Queen's vendettas against the other kingdoms. The peasants were too easy to take down in a game of brute force.

He turned back to the door, stepping out into a gust of icy wind that became painful within seconds. He never should have left the castle during the winter time. Siles retreated back inside the farmhouse, thinking despondently of his winter coat still hanging from a rusty hook on the wall of the inn.

"Do you have a coat?" he asked Sonia.

"It's in the basement," she said. Her face was turned away from him, but he could hear the sneer in her voice.

Siles took a breath of the warm, foul air of the farmhouse and stepped outside again, this time using Sonia's body to block the wind. The tower of the Amery town hall rose just above the northern horizon. At least that meant the wind would hit his side instead of his face.

Siles pulled the knife away from Sonia's neck. "Well then. Thanks for nothing. Your brother is much nicer than you." He released her and began to run, dropping the knife by the door. He would have preferred to keep the weapon, but his hands were freezing and he didn't feel like peeling his skin off of a wooden handle at the end of the day.

The wind made his skin feel like it was peeling off regardless. It whistled into his right ear, burrowing through his brain like a termite. By the time he reached the edge of the town, he could no longer feel his face or his fingers, and his ears felt like needles had grown inside them and were forcing their way out. He wanted nothing more than to sit in front of a fire and thaw the ice that had replaced his hair and eyelashes, but he couldn't stop.Sonia's people had followed her out to that desolate farmhouse, so there was no doubt that they would come chasing after him the moment she gave the word.

Except he had no choice but to stop. Siles knew the way back to the castle by heart, which meant he also knew how long it took. He wouldn't survive the trek without warm clothes. So he stopped at the inn, sprinting up the stairs to find his room unlocked. The rebels had taken the books but not his hat and coat; he just had to hope that they hadn't thought to take his horse.

Siles dashed down the staircase and out the door, nearly slipping on ice as he skidded to a halt. They had caught up with him. Not all of them, since the rebels surrounding him weren't nearly as numerous as the ones he had seen in the basement, but at least a dozen with more on the horizon.

Siles paused before acting. There was a chance that they still thought he was a guard. Not the Guard, but a less skilled non-magic guard who worked as a bookbinder. Siles didn't know which one was more unbelievable, since the bookbinder factor was equally baffling in both situations.

He made a split-second decision as the rebels closed in. He fought back, and this time he meant it.

Siles didn't always enjoy fighting, but predictable opponents made fighting feel like a dance. They always swung their weapons in the same way and they never protected themselves from attacks, so he knew which steps they would take and responded with his own flair. Siles swayed with them, using the slipperiness of the ice to knock them to the ground. He twirled with them, plucking the hammer from one rebel's hand and passing it like a baton to the center of the next one's head. The last few were more hesitant, so he changed his dance, kicking instead of punching to extend his reach.

Siles stopped to catch his breath afterwards, trying to remember the location of Amery's stables. He hadn't knocked all of the rebels unconscious, but the ones who still had their wits about them made no attempt to attack again. Instead, they stared at him, and then beyond him.

Siles followed their gazes to the other end of the street. Soldiers patrolled every peasant town, and although their main role was to collect information and report possible rebellions, they also broke up the occasional fight. From what Siles had seen in the past, "breaking up a fight" usually involved cheering and placing bets. Amery was no exception; all five of its assigned soldiers had arrived at the fight, and based on their shocked expressions, they had seen most of it.

Farewell to anonymity. The moment Siles looked their way, the soldiers looked down. They were afraid; they had realized who he was. Siles knew what would happen. Word would travel like the whistling wind, reaching castle ears before Siles returned to the castle itself. The bookbinder and the King's Shadow were one and the same.

But his cheeks hurt from the cold and his stomach ached from the emptiness that bread and soup hadn't been enough to fill, so Siles decided he would care another day. Today, he needed to get back to the castle. He walked past the soldiers, found his horse at the stables by the school, and began the long and cold ride back.