"She's not finished!" Martina said. She lounged back against some pillows and gnawed on an apple she'd stolen that afternoon.

"One of the guards started chasing me," continued Talia, "so I used one of the old hiding passages to get away from him. But he found me on the other side. He had his sword right here," she said, pointing to her throat. Maria's eyes were wide.

"But I wasn't about to let him arrest me, so I kicked him," said Talia proudly. "Ran away from him, and he almost got me again, but he crashed into some wagon or something. I didn't see him after that!" She laughed and drank some more from her flask. Maria wondered if there was something other than water in Talia's flask.

"You think that's funny?" she asked. "Talia, you could've been killed!"

"Oh, right!" said Martina. "Those guards wouldn't risk getting gypsy blood on their swords for anything!"

"We are the vermin of society," said Arianna, laughing. "Some guard actually told me that before he decided to chase me once."

"So you're really not performing for the festival?" Martina asked Maria.

"I'm really not performing," said Maria. "My luck, the guards would come after me and stab me with their swords."

"No, they wouldn't," said Talia, still sipping from her flask. "Gypsy blood is bad luck to them. Or so I hear." Maria looked at her curiously. Talia's eyes were slowly glazing over.

"Does she look right to you?" Maria asked. Arianna and Martina looked closely at Talia. "Talia, what're you drinking?"

Talia looked down at her flask. "I don't know. Some guard grabbed it from me and poured something in it."

"And you're still drinking it?!?" Arianna gasped, yanking the flask away from Talia and sniffing at it.

"It jusht tashtes like wahter," Talia slurred, suddenly very dizzy.

"Why don't you lay down and--" Martina was cut off by the sounds of shouting outside. She flung open the tent flap in time to see a group of guards on horses, setting fire to the gypsy camp. "It's an invasion!" she cried, closing the tent flap as if that would save them.

"What?!?" Maria shrieked, jumping to her feet. She looked around the tent for any sort of weapon with which to defend herself. "We have to get out of here!" But she was talking to no one. Arianna had dragged Martina out of the tent and probably right into some guard for all Maria knew. And Talia was out cold at her feet. Maria groaned. How the hell was she going to get Talia out of there? She dug around in Talia's trunk, searching for a sword, a dagger, anything.

"In here!" Maria spun around when she heard a voice shout the command. The tent flap flew open and two guards brandishing swords charged in. She screamed bloody murder when one of them grabbed her. Kicking and shrieking, she clawed at the guard, wrestling for her freedom. He carried her outside, trying to hold her still. He succeeded when Maria went limp upon observing the destruction of her village. The entire gypsy camp was in flames, the thick, black smoke billowing high into the sky. Caged cartloads of gypsies were being taken away, but more lay on the ground, bleeding from wounds. It looked like something out of a war.

Maria was tossed into an empty cage. She landed on her arm and winced in pain--not broken, but definitely sprained. Talia was thrown in next to her, still unconscious. Maria crawled over to her as a few more gypsies were shoved into the cart. A guard shouted a command and the cart jerked as they started moving. Maria held onto Talia out of fear as they were driven away from the burning camp toward the second largest building in all of London--the prison.