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"In your chambers."

"Yes."

"Inside Fitzwalter's castle."

"Unfortunately."

I closed my eyes.

"The one thing in England that could help us hang that bastard is sitting in a room he controls."

"He's already searched my coat twice. He has no reason to start pulling stones out of my walls, particularly when he believes the documents he wants are hidden somewhere at Locksley."

I opened my eyes.

"Are they?"

"He thinks so."

Guy shifted slightly, careful of his wound.

"Robin, Fitzwalter told me something yesterday. He said your father emptied the strongbox beneath the chapel altar before his arrest. Then he gave something to his mother."

I went still.

"He also said he's spent six years trying to determine where those documents went. They never reached a court, a bishop, or anyone on the council."

"His mother," I repeated.

"Eleanor."

My grandmother.

Before I realized what I was doing, I'd reached beneath my shirt and pulled out the brass compass.

It rested in my palm, familiar from years of carrying it.

The brass had darkened with age, and a crack ran across one corner of the glass. The needle still worked, and the engraved letters around its rim had grown smooth beneath my fingers.

Roots hold when kingdoms fall.

"She gave me this," I said.

Guy looked at it.

"The night we escaped. We were in the kitchen passage, and the soldiers were coming up the drive. Grandmother was shaking so badly she dropped it twice before she managed to put it in my hand."

I ran my thumb over the inscription.

"She told me never to lose it. She kept repeating those words. Roots hold."

I swallowed.

"I've carried it every day since because it was the last thing anyone in my family gave me."

Guy slowly sat up.

"May I?"