*Lord Sevenson, not Baron. I've been reading too much Rangers Apprentice. If I make any other grievous mistake, tell me. I can't find these books in any bookstore and I haven't read them in over a year. Plus I've read so many since then that the semi-photographic memory is on overload. And if anyone who has the book has no life like me, maybe you should help the wiki out. It's pathetic.

"Message for Judith Fisk."

"That would be me." I said, holding out a hand.

He handed me the envelope and walked away whistling. It would be a letter from Michael, probably. There was always one every month, almost right on the day. The recipient was usually me, though Michael had written with information to be passed to my sisters too. This one was two weeks late.

However, when I opened it, I found Fisk's writing.

Judith:

Mike isn't feeling well and we're travelling on a tight schedule. He won't be able to write you for at least three months, maybe longer.

Love,

Fisk

Fisk had always been able to lie effectively to sheriffs and judges, even in person. But he'd never been good at lying to me. And he never signed anything "Love, Fisk". Either this was the end of the world, or they were in danger and Fisk was out of clever ideas.

And I didn't really care one way or another.

x-x-x-x

"If we buy cheap and barely respectable lodgings, we could hire men to fight with us." Fisk was telling a girl in a cloak.

"It won't matter that we've got money if our throats are cut or the coins are stolen." The girl responded, pushing her spectacles back up her nose. "We'll stay in a not-so-cheap, clean, respectable inn."

I'd followed them from the address where Fisk had written the last letter to here, a small town call Gorgepoint with a gaping hole in its land.

I tapped Fisk on the shoulder. "Or we could make a camp outside of town for free." Okay, so it was a bit melodramatic to jump into the conversation like that, but I owed Fisk a fright for the letter.

He leapt at least a foot into the air and spun around. "Judith!"

"Fisk." I replied coolly.

"What are you doing here?" He asked.

"I got your letter. You suck at lying."

"I hate to be rude, but who are you?" The girl said politely.

"I'm Judith. Fisk's sister."

"Oh! Now I see the resemblance. I'm Kathryn, Michael's sister."

"Great to meet you." I said, without looking at her. "Fisk, where the hell is Michael?"

Kathryn looked back and forth between me and Fisk. "Didn't he tell you? Michael's been captured by Jack Bannister and Fisk is trying to save him." She explained, still seeming puzzled by my lack of information.

"So it's true. He's back."

Michael had told me about Jack Bannister, Fisk's former partner in crime, returning. He'd been asking me for help getting through to Fisk, not that I was any good at it. No one got through to Fisk.

"You need to go home, Judith. It's bad enough that Michael's little sister is tagging along without you coming."

"If a kid can come, so can I."

"I'm not a kid!" Kathryn protested.

Okay, so I would've said the same thing at sixteen. But this wasn't about being fair to Kathryn. It was about Michael—and, subsequently, Fisk—being in danger from the creep who'd helped rip apart my family years previously.

"You can't send me home. You're not in charge of me. If you're allowed to go after Michael, so am I."

"Fine. Come or don't come. But I'm the squire here, and there's no knight. So I'm in charge."

"Does that make us page-girls?" Kathryn asked.

"Whatever you want to call yourself. But you have to follow my orders, or I'll disappear with the gold at the first chance I get and save Michael by myself."

"Yes, sir." I replied sarcastically. "Your wish is my command."

Fisk muttered something about being screwed and stormed off down the road, towards the gorge.

x-x-x-x

"Does he ever sleep these days?" I asked Kathy.

Fisk had been awake all night the previous night, staring vacantly into the fire. And then all day, as we'd questioned a few street people, he'd kept zoning out and getting lost in some sort of reverie. It wasn't like him to be so quiet. He used to have those stupid "what's the difference between a bandit and a…" jokes to make whenever we bumped into new people. Now he was sitting just of earshot, fixing a tear in a blanket.

She shrugged. "He did, for a while. The sound of him thrashing around in his bedroll kept waking me up. I think he's losing it a bit. Between Mike being in danger and that Jack guy showing up, he seems to be constantly on edge. We have to save Michael soon or it'll be too late for both of them."

"Got any bright ideas on how to do that, rich girl?" I replied.

"I have a name."

"Your point being…?"

"My point being, use it."

"Would you like me to call you Lady Kathryn?"

"You consider noblemen biased because we only allow nobles to marry each other and become friends. But lower classes are just as bad. Your social rules say that sons of farmers marry daughters of other farmers, that lower class people befriend only lower class people."

"We have no opportunity to marry anyone but lower class people because of people like you being biased—"

"Enough!" Fisk snapped.

He was standing up and looked absolutely furious. Even I flinched backwards.

"This isn't helping Michael at all. Not only is it wasting time, it's something you'll regret later. Do you know what the last thing Michael and I did was? The last time I spoke to him we got in shouting match. How would you feel if you woke up and found one of you was dead or gone?"

"I'm going to bed." Kathryn said. "Fisk, you should probably be sentry first."

"Michael and I usually just sleep. I'm a light sleeper."

"You'll be awake all night anyway." I pointed out as I spread out the spare bedroll.

He didn't bother arguing with that. Maybe this was the end of the world.