Chapter 16 · Bankrupt the Banner

"You want the name?" The knight spat blood across Matthias's boots and laughed through the mess in his teeth. "Ask the capital. Ask who signs the warrants."

"Who?" Ryan seized the man's jaw and forced his face up. "Say it."

The knight's eyes rolled back. Something cracked between his molars.

"He's biting something!" Ivy shouted from the ground beside the wagon wheel.

Ryan jammed two fingers into the knight's mouth, but the poison was already working. The man's back bowed. His boots hammered the frozen dirt twice, then stopped.

Matthias crouched, pressed two fingers to the knight's throat, and shook his head. "Poison capsule. Sewn into a back tooth."

"A King's Ledger trick?" Ryan pulled his hand free and wiped it on the knight's cloak.

"That, or worse."

"What's worse than the crown?"

Matthias stood. "Things that don't need the crown's permission."

He wouldn't say more. That scared Ryan worse than the corpse staring at the sky.

Ivy tried to push herself upright and hissed. Her hand clamped over the arrow buried in her shoulder, blood running black beneath her fingers in the torchlight.

Ryan crossed to her before he could think better of it.