The Rogue Queen's Rise
Younger than Piper, maybe, or close to it, wiry in the way wolves get when they haven't eaten regularly in a while, and there's a smell on him I recognize immediately because I used to carry a version of it myself — fear, old and constant, the kind that becomes part of a person's scent instead of a passing thing.
"Let him breathe," I tell Wells, and she does, though she doesn't step back, doesn't lower her guard, just gives him enough room to talk instead of choke.
"Who are you," Renata asks, flat, already between the boy and any direction he might think to run.
"Nobody. Nobody important. I heard—" He stops, swallows, tries again. "I heard there's a place two states over that takes in rogues