Marlowe slapped a small handful of coins on the table for the ales and marched towards the door. I hurried after him, no longer caring who saw me. I couldn’t let this be the end of our conversation.

I elbowed past a few patrons blocking the exit and caught up with him just outside. “You’re just going to walk away?”

He wouldn’t look me in the eye, clearly intending to move towards the main road. “Get away from me.”

I couldn’t let him leave—I blocked him as he tried to pass. “I won’t stop until you agree to help me.”

He scoffed. “Help you? Don’t you understand what you’ve done?”

The tavern door burst open a few paces behind us as a couple of drunks barged out, laughing, their voices jarring against the tense atmosphere. Marlowe grabbed me by the wrist and, checking to make sure we weren’t being watched, pulled me off the street and into the narrow alley between the tavern and the burnt-out, abandoned building beside it.

“You schemed to kill the princess,” he whispered urgently, “Using me. And you failed. But now, in your foolish attempt to save yourself, you’ve dragged me into it.”

I shook my head. What was he talking about? He had dragged me into this situation by killing me instead of his supposed target, and now he was blaming me for his involvement? That couldn’t be possible.

He grabbed me by the shoulders and shook me. “Don’t you see? You’ve made me part of the curse!”

He seemed resolved in his thinking and I didn’t know how to prove to him his actions were his own when they hadn’t happened yet. I was getting desperate. Instead I stuck to what he did seem to believe about the situation. “If that’s true, you’re going to need my help in trying to break it!” I argued.

Marlowe scoffed. “We both know curses can’t be broken. It’s a lost cause.”

“That’s what we’ve been told,” I admitted, grudgingly, “But that doesn’t mean it’s always true! At least if we work together, we stand a chance.”

He went still, looking at something over my shoulder, and in a moment he had stepped further back into the alley, cloaking himself in shadow. I took a look behind me—a couple of royal guards were on patrol, deployed here to keep an eye on the rougher side of the neighborhood.

“That’s what I ought to do,” he said, looking at me again, and gesturing towards them, “Turn you in.”

My heartrate spiked, and I grabbed him by his muscled biceps. “Think,” I told him, “Who’s going to believe you? You’re an assassin. I’m a lady.” I smiled, grimly. “It’s your word against mine.”

He paused for a moment, thinking, and then shook his head. The guards moved on, unseeing. “Just stay the hell away from me, okay?”

And before I could say another word he moved past me into the street, taking all my hopes for fixing this situation with him. His walking away now was going to lead to my absolute doom, and I spent a despondent moment wondering if I’d somehow made things much worse—if that were even possible.

Because now, Marlowe knew not just about my plot to kill Calliope. He also knew that it had failed and I was cursed.

If he did tell the authorities, they might be intrigued enough to call me in for questioning—and under those circumstances they would surely discover the curse mark. It was a nightmarish scenario. My position as a lady wouldn’t save me from it.

Marlowe headed further away; I tracked the movement of his head through the afternoon crowd. I couldn’t afford to lose him. I hurried to the post where I had tied my horse, but she was gone. Was it possible that in my haste and anxiety I had failed to secure her properly?

Panic rose in my sternum. I reached into my skirts for my dagger—only to find the hilt empty. That was right, he had taken it.

Damn. I was in a dangerous part of the village with nothing to protect me and no easy means of getting back home. I looked around me, nearly dizzy with anxiety.

What was I supposed to do now?

I was just contemplating how many hours it might take to walk back to my estate when I heard the telltale sound of an approaching horse. Looking up, fearful of roaming bandits, the man I saw was not a random brigand but someone even more fearsome.

“What are you still doing here?” Marlowe asked, leaning down from his mount to peer at me.

I couldn’t help it—I started laughing. I didn’t need him looking at me like I was a madwoman again, but it was all so absurd I could barely catch my breath. “My horse,” I wheezed, then pulled myself together, “Someone—she was stolen, or, she walked off, maybe. I don’t have a way to get home.”

He took in this display with a sigh. “Alright. Hurry up, then.” He reached an arm out, as though gesturing for me to get onto his horse, with him. Who was this man and why did nothing he did make any sense whatsoever?

I looked up at him, utterly bewildered. “What?”

He beckoned me closer. “I’ll give you a ride.”

How was that for mixed messaging? “You just told me to stay away from you,” I said, warily.

“And I stand by that,” he replied, “But I’m not going to leave you alone, not in this part of town.”

He lifted me onto his horse, settling me in front of him on the saddle. I slipped one hand into the thick mane of his black horse and felt my whole body go rigid as Marlowe wrapped an arm around me. He pulled me close and whispered directly in my ear: “Hold on.”

Marlowe eased the horse into a trot, my heart pounding as I bounced in the saddle against the assassin, his muscular arm wrapped around the front of my body; his rock-hard stomach pressed along the back of my spine.

Once the tavern was a memory fading behind us, I startled as Marlowe moved his hand onto my thigh. “What—what are you doing?”

He held up my dagger, the blade glinting in the sunlight. “I was only trying to put it back.”

“Fine,” I said, tersely, and within moments I felt his hand against my thigh again. I held my breath as the dagger breached the hilt and slid home.

The silence that followed was not an easy one. I watched as we cantered past farms and alongside rivers, trying my best to focus on anything other than the bulk of him pressed up against me.

“I ought to kill you,” he muttered, suddenly.

I felt a pit form in my stomach. Did he really mean to—

“But what good will it do,” he added, “I’d still be cursed.”

I sagged with relief against him, just for a moment, but then he said, “I don’t understand why you went through all this trouble to hire me. The prince chose to marry Calliope and Calliope chose him.”

I sniffed. That was certainly one way of looking at it, and not one that I ascribed to. “It’s not nearly as simple as all that,” I said, “The prince and I were in love. And it wasn’t until he met that manipulating, scheming princess that he turned his affection away from me.”

Behind me, Marlowe sighed. “So, is this about love, or revenge?”

“Does it make any difference?” I asked, sharply.

There was nothing but silence from Marlowe, but I could almost hear him thinking. We rode by a sawmill, water cascading down the wooden wheel and into the waiting river below. The sound filled our ears for a moment and made speaking to be heard impossible.

“Calliope poisoned the prince against me,” I added, once the mill was out of earshot, “She has to pay for that.”

“Poison for poison?” Marlowe mused, and we spent a few moments riding in silence once again.

“I think you’re the one who’s paying,” Marlowe observed. He was an astute observer, but I suppose one has to be when they kill people for a living.

“That’s why I need your help,” I pleaded, “If we’re both cursed, we can help each other break it.”

He didn’t reply, as we were approaching my estate, and he slowed the horse to a walk and then to a halt. “I shouldn’t go any farther.”

Behind me, he slid off the horse and turned to lift me down, boxing his arms around me so I was between him and the horse. He stared me down, and I nearly looked away from his piercing gaze. “You tried to use me,” he said, quietly.

Something inside me shrank at his words. “I tried to save myself. I was wrong, I know that. Please…” I didn’t know what to say, how to fix this.

But then he placed a hand on my shoulder. “Perhaps we can use each other,” he said, “I will help you break the curse.”