The inn was one of the largest buildings in town, and judging by the freshly-painted sign out front and the light pouring from the windows, seemed to be in the best condition. Inside, there were a handful of people seated at tables throughout the room, and they all seemed to recognize Wyatt instantly. Most nodded in respect and turned back to whatever they had been doing. A few watched me warily as I tailed Wyatt toward a woman lounging near the back of the room.

“Rose, dear.” Wyatt flashed the woman a beaming smile. She glanced up at him with a frown. “Would you lend a room to…” He gestured in my direction, trailing off and furrowing his brows at me. He looked genuinely surprised that he hadn’t gotten my name yet. “What’s your name, lad?”

“It’s Kas,” I said, smiling at Rose, who was now eyeing me curiously.

“Would you lend a room to Kas just for tonight? He rushed all the way here from Gradice to help us out, so it only seems fair we offer him our hospitality.” I was surprised by the positive introduction, especially since I’d led him to believe ‘my’ town was taking advantage of his. In fact, it seemed like he was deliberately leaving out anything that might tell Rose he didn’t trust me.

Or anything that might tell me he didn’t trust me.

“I suppose,” Rose said nonchalantly, scanning me up and down. She took a long breath, then pushed herself to her feet. She was quite a bit shorter than me, and appeared even more so next to Wyatt’s tall, lanky frame. “This way,” she said in the same monotone, pushing past us and heading for a stairwell.

“She’s more talkative when you get to know her,” Wyatt told me with a wink before starting after her.

I raised my eyebrows at his back as I followed.

The inn’s upper floor was one long hallway with identical doors down either side. Rose ran her fingernails down the wall as she walked, then stopped outside one door and clicked them against it. She unlatched the door and jerked her head at the room beyond. “This one’s open. Washroom’s at the end of the hall. Food downstairs at seven in the morning.”

I glanced at Wyatt, who shrugged. “That should be all, then. I’ll meet you downstairs tomorrow morning to discuss how Gradice will be paying for the horse we’ll have to give you.” He grinned, and I would have thought he was joking if it weren’t for the anger buried behind his expression. It appeared my story about Gradice’s schemes had gotten to him.

I nodded, forgetting how to smile back. “Right. Thanks for your help.” I nodded to Rose as well, then stepped into my room.

Rose closed the door behind me, and I was alone.

In Hashton. At night. Without the Sheriff’s knowledge.

“I’m not bad at this,” I murmured to myself, smiling slightly.

My room had one window, directly opposite the door. When I unlatched it, it swung open cleanly, letting me look down at a dimly-lit alley. I was on the side of the building opposite the main street. Perfect.

The inn was constructed of well-placed, sturdy wood, most likely brought down from the mountains. It was an ideal surface to climb down, and it took me less than a minute to make it to the ground. From there, I headed back the direction Wyatt and I had come, moving parallel to the main street. I wasn’t the stealthiest member of the Starwatch’s crew, but I could at least move quietly enough to be unnoticed by the occasional casual onlooker.

As the Starwatch’s scouts had promised, Hashton’s jail was just off of a side road near the back of town. It was a large building, and not all of it was cell space; rumors said Sheriff Carter’s living quarters were in there, just so he could keep watch. If you asked me, he took his job a little too seriously.

There was only one door to the building, and an unfamiliar man was standing outside it. He was impressively tall and broad-shouldered, and in addition to the gun at his belt, there was a thick chunk of wood resting against the wall behind him. I could guess what that was for.

There was no good way to sneak up on the man, and I didn’t stand a chance fighting him. So I shrugged to myself and jogged forward in plain sight.

The gun was in his hand in a moment. “Stop right there.”

I cringed at the volume of his voice; Sheriff Carter was probably somewhere in that building, and I didn’t know how sound-insulated it was. “Wyatt sent me, Sir,” I said, skidding to a stop.

He frowned, twisting to glance at the building behind him.

I paused. I’d been about to say that Wyatt needed his help at the inn, but that movement told me Wyatt might be inside this building. “He had a question for the guard at the back entrance of town, but didn’t have time to ask it himself,” I said cautiously. “Told me to give him the answer in here.”

“Oh, I see.” He turned to open the door for me.

I stared, a little incredulous. After how hard it had been to convince Wyatt, this guy seemed laughably gullible. Before he noticed my hesitation, I said, “Thanks,” and hurried into the building.

A voice drifted through the still air, and I froze, straining to hear a direction. It seemed to be coming from one of the doors further down the hallway, and when I tilted my head, I thought it was most likely coming from the right. There was no light coming from the door directly to my right, so I opened it as silently as possible and slipped inside. A quick glance around showed a cleanly organized room with cabinets lining the walls and a desk in the center. I didn’t have time to look through them. Instead, I went to the wall that I hoped bordered the conversation, squeezed between two cabinets, and pressed my ear to the wood.

“-want to talk with him again in the morning before we send him back.” That was Wyatt’s voice. “See if we can get anything else out of him.”

“You think he’s in on whatever they’re planning?” an unfamiliar voice responded—that had to be Sheriff Carter himself. I’d imagined his voice to be gruff, but it was surprisingly warm despite the wary tone.

“My best guess is no. Poor kid just wanted into town for the night.” Wyatt chuckled. “But I’d like to know who exactly he got his information from, and whether they work for the Mayor…”

“To know if the people plotting against us are the same ones who sent the warning,” the Sheriff finished.

Wyatt hummed uncertainly. “I dunno. That wasn’t what I was going to say.”

“What, then?”

“I think it’s possible that someone there is working against their Mayor. She could be trying to help us while their Sheriff is secretly taking advantage of us.”

“Unlikely,” Carter said. “It’s more likely that they’re all in on it, and they’re trying to build trust by helping us out.”

“So they sent the warning to get on our good side?” I imagined Wyatt frowning.

“That, or the warning was never meant to help us.”

My heart took a leap up my throat and lodged there.

“Elaborate?” Wyatt asked cautiously.

“I agree that the kid wasn’t supposed to tell you what he did. But that doesn’t mean he was sent here to tell us about pirates we’d already dealt with.”

I found my breath stalling, but couldn’t remember how to fix it.

“He got here a full twelve hours after the pirates had come and gone,” Carter continued. “It takes a ship about four days to sail around the peninsula from Gradice to Hashton. I know the ride through the mountains can be difficult, but it shouldn’t take four and a half days. Especially if someone is trying to ride quickly.”

There was a pause. They hadn’t connected me to the Starwatch in any way, but the terror of being suspected was seeping through my body despite my efforts to swallow it down. How difficult would it be for Carter to make that last connection?

I’d come to this town to rescue a friend, and to prove my worth. But neither of those things mattered if I never made it out.

“He did seem awfully unsurprised that he was too late,” Wyatt mused. “You think he took the journey slow on purpose?”

“The question is,” Carter said without confirming, “Why would Gradice send a fake warning?”

I knew the answer he’d come up with, and I squeezed my eyes shut.

“I’m not sure, Sir.”

“To get someone into the town, Wyatt,” the Sheriff said tiredly, like he was explaining it to a child. “To listen in on things, then report back to Gradice with whatever they wanted to know.”

“Aw…shit.”

Chairs scraped the floor, a door opened, and footsteps approached down the hall. I kept my eyes shut, breath held, body frozen, as they hurried past and the door to the building slammed closed. There was a faint shout of, “Don’t let anyone in while we’re gone, Easten,” and then they were gone.

I forced myself to breathe out and stretch my fingers. In a way, this was good. The Sheriff was conveniently away from his post.

It also meant I had one hell of a time limit.

I slipped back into the hallway and then into the room Wyatt and Carter had just been in. The lantern was still lit, showing a small sitting room comprised mostly of two large couches. There was also a desk in the corner, but other than that, the room was discouragingly bare.

I took a few precious seconds to poke through everything anyway. A half-eaten plate of food sat on a low table between the two couches. A few stacks of papers were positioned neatly in the drawers of the desk. A well-polished pistol hung on the wall; it looked like one of the newer revolvers, and a fancy one at that, with an ivory grip and golden inlays in the frame.

But no keys. Nothing that would get me into Sterling’s cell.

Of course not; the Sheriff probably carried those with him at all times.

My eyes landed back on the revolver, and I bit my lip. It’s not like we’re going to get out of here quietly anyway. I grabbed the gun and slid it into my belt, then left the room and beelined for the stairs at the end of the hall.