New York was a few hours' ride away, and when we arrived the day had turned to a hot, stuffy evening, with elongated shadows following us where we went. Barely above the birds' songs, Connor and I talked quietly - or, rather, I reprimanded him for his behaviour with Achilles. Time and fresh air had calmed him down, and though he was not apologetic, he was no longer seething with anger.

Once we passed by the first little cottages in the outskirts of New York, Connor addressed Tallmadge. "So, what is your stake in all this?"

Tallmadge, riding slightly ahead of us, looked over his shoulder to answer Connor. "Same as you - peace; stability; a land in which all might live side by side, free and equal."

"Why not join the Brotherhood, then?" I asked.

"My father was an Assassin," he replied, steering his horse away from a particularly stony patch in the road. "Quite good at his job, too, as I understand it. But I hope to have children some day. It's hard to live in two worlds at the same time - so I choose to live in one."

His words struck my core deeper than I liked to admit, because I knew he was right - I was foolish to ever have hoped that I could lead a normal life once this was all over. The ghosts of the Templars would follow me no matter where I went to escape them. And though I wanted a family, one day, I could not subject them to a life lived in fear and stained with blood. But did this mean that the notion of having a family of my own was a faraway one - that it was impossible?

Connor, too, was considering this, and said, "I understand."

I wanted to change the topic before I could start to think too much. "What can you tell us of Thomas Hickey?"

Tallmadge's face was grim. "He's been running a counterfeiting ring in the city. Locate the source of his operations, and we can have him arrested. He cannot harm the commander if he is in prison."

He did not know where Hickey was located, as his sources had not yet disclosed that information, so for the time being, Connor and I were stuck sitting on our hands. Days turned to weeks, and as we carried on investigations of our own, we discovered that Hickey had set up an elaborate scheme to counterfeit money from various business owners throughout the city, though we had yet to discover where his primary base of operations was set up.

We spent the winter in New York, and the spring, too - and as spring turned to summer, we began to see progress. Hickey was using a printer's shop as his cover, while he ran his counterfeiting through the business.

Tallmadge had, very kindly, set us up with accommodation in the city, though we were careful to discuss matters of our business very discreetly - primarily because I had found a drawing of an eye on one of the walls in our room and I became paranoid that we were being watched.

On a warm day in June, when Connor and I had split our duties between us, I found myself shopping in the market for something to make for dinner. The evening was soft and golden and smelled of honeysuckle. Well - some places smelled of honeysuckle. The rest of the city smelled distinctly like horse.

This did not deter me. At that moment, in the sun, with a basket hooked over one arm, I felt as though nothing could burst the bubble of quiet joy I was enveloped in. I slipped a few extra pennies to the young boy at the stall I was leaving, if only to see the joy in his face, too.

A dog whined at me from the shady shelter of a doorway, and I reached down to stroke its soft, golden head. The ears flattened back, and one paw lifted to prod my leg; I couldn't help my smile as I fed the dog a sliver of ham and received a grateful snort in response.

The city smelled like wet horse: not the most pleasant of attributes, but one I had grown accustomed to nevertheless. The people, too, I also began to like. Cities were almost like their own countries, when compared with the soft, green countryside: in place of the gentle birds in the forest, the city pigeons had no fear, no remorse; the people of New York were loud, brash, crude - nothing like the softer country folk with whom I was accustomed. I could almost feel the city's air buzzing with a barely-contained energy, crackling like snow underfoot. It both fascinated and intimidated me: it reminded me of my childhood.

It aggravated Connor. And because it aggravated him, it amused me.

I still did not know what I would make for our dinner; I had only a humble request from Connor (gravy) to inspire me. I paused by the window of a book shop, eyes narrowed at a cookery book, and debated going inside to flick through the pages.

Feeling someone stop next to me, also looking in the window, I took a small step to the side. I caught a glimpse of pale golden hair a heartbeat before I heard him speak. "Cassandra?"

I looked towards him, and my heart froze. Tobias was looking back at me, his green eyes bright and quizzical. His mouth was twisted in a half-smile that stretched and puckered the scar on his cheek.

"Tobias," I said weakly.

"Cassie. I haven't seen you for months." He touched my elbow. "I was worried I had done something wrong."

You did, I wanted to say. "Sorry. I've been busy."

While his smile was still amicable, I noticed that his eyes were cold and unfeeling. The eyes of a snake. "What brings you to New York?"

"I'm visiting a friend," I said. That wasn't exactly a lie: Thomas was in the process of moving into his new home, and Connor and I liked to pay him visits on occasion, when our work allowed it.

Tobias did not inquire further; I wondered if he already knew, if he was familiar with Thomas. "Well," he continued, "now that you're here, and I'm here, I wonder if you might like to have dinner with me."

He phrased it as a statement, not a question. "I'm sorry, but I have plans."

The smile slipped from his face, then, and was replaced by something harder, something colder. "Oh, so now you're too good for me?"

"I didn't say that."

If he heard me, he didn't acknowledge me. "Yes, you think you're so entitled because you're an Assassin - and don't pretend you don't know what I'm talking about. Don't pretend it wasn't you who ruined my face. You are an Assassin, but you are worthless - less than worthless. You are a worm. You Assassins are worms. And we all know what happens to worms." His grip on my arm tightened to the point of pain, and he leaned closer to me, until his hot breath on my ear made me squirm. "They get stepped on."

He let my arm go with a shove, and stalked past me, roughly bumping his shoulder against mine. I glared after him, but I felt like I couldn't breathe.

I bought a bottle of wine (to conclude my shopping trip) and managed to walk back to our makeshift home without further incident. For the past few months, Connor and I had been living in the attic of Tallmadge's aunt's house (though said aunt had been away for three months (and counting) visiting a cousin): the attic was one room, long and dusty, with two windows set in the roof. We had divided the room into two halves using a dressing screen.

I arrived back before Connor did, and had scarcely shut the attic door behind me before it all hit me like a brick. Tobias knew me. I ruminated on this while I stirred up a pot of gravy. If he had known my identity from the beginning, why had he pretended to be kind when we first met?

To gain my trust in order to get close and kill me, I decided. One less Assassin to worry about. And, in killing me, he would thus lure out Connor; and if both of us were to fall, there would be nothing left of the Assassins.

Or, a little voice inside said, he wanted to unite the Assassins and Templars in the only way he could think.

That was certainly a more pleasant option to consider. I sighed heavily and pressed my forehead into my arms as self-loathing began to fill me, like dirty water in a cup.  I had ruined our chance for peace - perhaps our only chance.

He wanted peace, and I had blown it. And because of that, he had no choice but to revert back to his first option: to kill. The only option that Connor and I entertained. 

By the time Connor returned, quiet and tired (for today he had been given the more grueling task of keeping eyes and ears on Hickey's lackeys), I was sitting on the floor with my back against the wall, pulling the cork out of the wine bottle with my teeth. When he saw me, he paused, and tilted his head slowly. "Drinking without me?"

I spat the cork across the room; it hit the opposite wall with an empty thunk. "Join me, then."

The evening sun turned the room golden, and quite warm. Connor sat next to me, unbuttoning his shirt as he did so. I passed him the bottle, and distantly I thought that I had not prepared anything for dinner: just a pot of gravy that was coming to the boil over the fireplace. 

I could see him looking warily at me. "Are you going to tell me what has happened?"

He always could see through me: he was the only one who could. Maybe he was the only person I allowed. "I saw Tobias again."

Though he said nothing, I could clearly picture the look on his face - wary, and yet patient all the same. He passed the bottle back to me, and I drank. "He knows who we are."

He was quiet for a few moments before saying, "Why has this upset you?"

I released a slow breath, and, to stall a moment longer, I took another mouthful of wine. "Because I messed up," I said finally. "What if he wanted to unite us with the Templars? What if he wanted peace?" 

He reached out and took the bottle - I thought at first that it was to keep it from me, but it was only to take a sip for himself while he gathered his thoughts. "Would you have done it?" he asked. "Subjected yourself to unity with him for the sake of peace?"

I thought of all of the lives that could be spared. "I would do what needs to be done."

When I looked into his face, I saw sadness in his eyes - sadness and understanding. "You know," he said softly, "you do not have to do everything for the good of others. You can do things for yourself, too."

"But that's selfish," I said. "I've messed everything up. Did I make the wrong decision?"

He took a few moments to think, and I found myself wanting to smooth the crease that formed between his eyebrows. "You did what your heart told you," he said. "With that as your compass, you will not make the wrong decision."

Trust him to be the voice of reason in the middle of my storm. I swirled the bottle of wine half-heartedly. We were down to half a bottle, and my self-pity was clearing like clouds on a sunny day, making way for something sharper, more acute. We sat in silence for a few more minutes, passing the bottle back and forth and watching the shadows creep across the dusty floorboards. This attic had been crammed with boxes and boxes of junk (we had decided that Tallmadge's aunt had a hoarding problem) that we, in our first few weeks of lodging here, had moved aside to make space for us to breathe.

By the time the bottle was finished, I was not thinking of Tobias. I was not thinking of the Assassins or the Templars. I was admiring the way the last of the sunlight outlined Connor's face with gold, like he was stitched into a tapestry.

A feeling was growing in my throat: like roses were crawling up my neck, smothering me in their perfume. I wanted to open my mouth and say something to him, but everything would be a song filled with rose petals and molten gold. I wanted to be loved so desperately that my fingers shook with it.

He spoke, then, while peering into the empty bottle. "Sassy, we are out of wine."

I ignored the rest of his statement: I focused only on one word. "Sassy?"

The look he gave me was momentarily blank, like he had not thought through his words before saying them. "Should I not have?"

I rather liked the way he said it. It sent sparks of heat through my blood. "No, I like it. My family call me that. But you're my family, too."

He was my family, I realised. He was closer to my heart than any friend, any brother. I found myself smiling at him, if only so I could see him smile back. He reached out, then, and brushed stray hair away from my face, tucked it behind my ear.

The wine made everything feel slow and golden, like we were breathing in honey. I wished I had bought a second bottle; I wanted to drown in it; to drown in him.

Connor's hand trailed along my hairline, along my jaw. I leaned into it, closing my eyes. "Sassy," he murmured again. His hand slipped lower, his thumb moving to circle the jut of my throat. I made a surprised noise, but he didn't clench, didn't threaten - or if there was a threat in this motion, it was the softest one I had ever received. A notion flickered in the back of my mind - Connor was the only person in seven years to touch me with this much tenderness.

Or maybe he was the only one I had ever allowed. Maybe the only one I ever would allow.

He used his forefinger and thumb to gently tilt my face up, and when he kissed me, it was deep and tasted of wine. 

I was startled, but I leaned into him, giving myself freely to him, to his hand on my throat. The empty bottle rolled away - I registered the hollow sound getting further away - but I didn't care, I didn't care; I reached up and touched his cheek and he did not pull away. My eyes were closed, but somehow my inability to see him only brought him closer.

He pulled back ever so slightly; not far enough for us to truly part, for his mouth still moved against mine as he murmured, "Íse'. . . íse' khok." (You. . . just you.) This time, I was the one to kiss him, and with each one, thoughts of Tobias grew more and more distant.

Time seemed to fold together, slowly, softly, like kneading dough. Like we were inside our own hourglass, but our time was not running out: it was only beginning. When we eventually parted for breath, only one coherent thought formed in my mind, but it was a rather urgent one. "The gravy!"

It was only a little burnt. I had forgotten to prepare anything else for food, so we ended up sitting on the floor with the pot of gravy between us, dipping chunks of bread into it.

By the next day, we were both quite hungover. I found myself cranky and tired and full of regret - I never should have kissed him - and the sun was too bright; it hurt my eyes. My headache was like a flower, unfolding petal by petal, until it was everything. We left the house in subdued silence, and Connor squinted into the bright day. 

We had a plan for today: tail Hickey's accomplices to their base of operations. Finding them proved easy enough, as Hickey's cronies were not subtle in their ways. After they fled from the market square, having been caught circulating counterfeit money, Connor and I followed from a distance, listening intently as they mindlessly discussed their business with Hickey. 

Connor barely spoke a word to me for the duration of our walk through the baking hot city. I wasn't sure I wanted him to. I had ruined our friendship by kissing him. But he kissed me first. So, either everything was shattered like glass, which I feared. . . or there was something softer, something warmer, like new leaves in the spring. What did that mean? I told myself it was nothing. We had had too much to drink, that was all. 

But he had called me Sassy. That surely had to mean something - because he was the only person who did not call me by a shortened name, until yesterday. And he had kissed me like he meant something. But now, today, I felt as though we were both pointedly ignoring it.

But, as with an illness, ignoring it would make it worse, in the long run. Love is not so different from a cough: it cannot be hidden. 

So lost was I in my thoughts that I almost tripped over a stray cat, and I would have fallen had Connor not seized my arm and hauled me along. His grip was strong, and he did not look at me - and my attention, too, was snagged when the men we were tailing finally started talking about something interesting.  

"Boss wants everyone back at the shop," the first muttered. "Says we strike tonight."

His partner - a squat, bald man with a face like a chipmunk - snorted. "He worried about that business with the guards? I'm telling you, it's nothing. Haven't had a spot of trouble since we slipped away. 'Course, we're taking care to keep our distance."

The first shook his head. "I can't believe we're really going to do this."

"We'll be heroes!" insisted the shorter one. "The ones who ended all this talk of revolution. They'll set us up like kings."

His companion scoffed with disdain. "Revolution. Bunch of trouble makers looking to upset the apple cart 'cause some fool filled their heads with rubbish. Ruining it for the rest of us good folk."

"Good folk? Really?" 

"Of course," said the first. "You and me and Hickey. Just some hard-luck lads trying to survive in this cold, cruel world."

One of them glanced over his shoulder, then, and I hurriedly pulled Connor back, looked innocently at a display of knitted socks in a window; the two men opened the door to a printer's shop and slammed it shut behind them. Hickey was in there - he had to be, else they would not have discussed their business with him. 

Connor's thoughts were on the same track as mine - or, I assumed they were, as he had still not spoken to me.

The heat of the day was making my headache worse (it made me want to throw up), and I knew Connor was not much better, but he strode up to the door, and his face shifted, minutely, into a mask of quiet anger. When he pushed the door open, I heard Hickey's voice inside saying, "What's this?"

I forced a window next to the door open and swung myself inside. The room was thick with cigar smoke, but I recognised Hickey at once. His blackened teeth were bared in a smile that was more akin to a grimace.

"Ain't supposed to be none of your kind left," he drawled, his eyes sliding slowly from Connor to me. "Suppose I'd best be rectifying that, then."

He was faster than he looked; in one movement, he stood and flipped the table before him, and coins went scattering across the room. Two men sitting at the table fell from their chairs, but Hickey was already halfway out the back door.

"Get him," he spat, and eyes me with a slow, lecherous smile. "And keep the girl for me."

Connor darted after him, quick and agile as a deer, and left me to deal with the two winded men on the floor. The first was dealt with easily: I kicked his head and he was knocked unconscious. The second was more of a problem, because he hauled himself to his feet and made to grab me.

I ducked under his reaching arm and seized it with both hands. He hissed and tried to yank me towards him, but I slammed his arm into the hard edge of the overturned table, and felt the arm bend.

He howled and staggered back, and I bolted out the door after Connor. Though I could not see him, for this door opened onto the street, I followed the sound of disrupted traffic to find him forcing Hickey against a wall, driving the Templar hard enough to make him wheeze.

"Be still," snapped Connor, who had not yet seen me. "You will do no more harm."

Hickey sneered, even when Connor's grip tightened. "You're a right fool, meddling in affairs you know nuffin' about."

The pounding in my head was so strong, so blinding, that I leaned against a wall, trying to take deep breaths for fear of passing out. I could see a sheen of sweat on Connor's forehead. When this was over, I fancied we would both collapse where we stood.

"Washington is the only thing keeping the Continental Army together," Connor was saying. "You kill him, and you end all hope for freedom."

Hickey, who was decidedly not hungover, gave a sardonic laugh. It was taking all of Connor's breath just to speak, and Hickey could see that. "Wrong, boyo. With him gone, they'd have no choice but to promote Lee, and then–"

Connor suddenly hissed in pain, as a soldier I hadn't seen approaching dragged him away from Hickey and snapped at them, "You're both under arrest."

Horror filled me, from the depths of my heart up my throat like climbing vines. I was supposed to protect Connor. I had neglected to look out for him because of my stupid choices and my stupid hangover and now–

"Ah, we was just having a scrap, officer," Hickey bleated as a second soldier seized him, and a third pushed the muzzle of a rifle in his face. "Ain't nuffin' wrong with two men settling their differences the old-fashioned way. Can't we come to–"

"Quiet," snapped Connor, then addressed the soldier. "What are the charges?"

The soldier gave him a look of particular disgust that I knew was related to the colour of Connor's skin. "Counterfeiting."

"I had nothing to do with that," insisted my friend.

The soldier arched an eyebrow. "Of course not."

I had never heard Connor sound as desperate as he did then. "Listen, there are more important things at stake here. This man is planning to–"

The third soldier slammed the butt of the rifle into the back of Connor's head, and when my friend fell, he did not get back up.

They were taking my friend away. I had to do something.

But I would be of no use to him if I were taken away, too. For his own sake, I had to stay out.

I could only watch, helpless and frightened, as the three soldiers dragged Connor and Hickey into the back of a wooden wagon. Two of the soldiers got into the back with them, and the last took up the driver's seat. As they drove past me, I saw the sign painted on dry wood and nailed to the wagon. Bridewell Prison.

I knew where I had to go.