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And that was my first clue about why Conner had taken us We were all in terrible danger

I knew Tobias He one froe so quickly But in st the others He was no ordinary orphan He’d been educated as a child and continued to read anything he could get his hands on He was given special privileges at the orphanage because it was felt he was one of the feith any hopes of one day lanced "

I brushed at the cut mark on my neck "It’s mostly stopped"

That was as much concern as he wished to invest "Do I know you?"

"I stayed here about six o"

"Yeah, I ree for an entire night, didn’t you?"

The grin on my face becaht For once"

"It’s not funny," Tobias scolded "Maybe we don’t eat well most of the tio around You gave out a week’s worth of food that night It was a very long, very hungry week after you left"

My grin faded I hadn’t known that

We rode for over an hour through a lonely plain covered in gorse and nettle Tobias remarked that he found it beautiful in a desolate sort of way I saw the desolation, but the beauty escaped ested we find a place to stop for the night The closest toas still Gelvins behind us rather than anything yet ahead, so I didn’t think it should matter too much where we caetation changed and he found a s surrounded by talltrees and thick bushes

"They’re hiding us," I muttered to the other boys

Roden shook his head back at me and said, "It’s safer here than out in the open They’re protecting us"

Mott ju orders at each of us for what to unload froon and where to put it, ned to reround

"Afraid I’ll run away?" I asked

"Any trust you get here will have to be earned," Mott said "And I’d say you have a great deal more to earn than the others" He nodded at a sack near h Conner was theour show running He was no ordinary, useless vigil At least, I noticed that he didn’t need to ask Conner’s peran, Cregan did as he was told While orked, Conner stationed hi to peruse a tattered leather-bound book Every now and then he’d glance up, studying each of us with more than a casual exaot a fire going, and afterward, Mott instructed us to gather around so that Conner could talk to us

"Talk to us?" I said "When do we eat?"

"We eat after the talk," Conner said, closing his book and standing "Coon and squeezed onto the edge of a log Roden and Tobias had dragged near the fire They weren’t too pleased to have round I considered offering hiuessed he wouldn’t take it anyway

Conner coughed too, although his was the kind h wasn’t necessary We were already watching him