I paced back and forth in the kitchen, trying to resist the last two cups that sat on the shelf. Aveline sat at the table, watching me. I did my best to ignore everything. After finding Adé, dead, in the middle of the street I had been cautious and suspicious of every movement. If Shay could kill Adé...

   A chair scraped on the floor behind me. I whipped around, but it was only Aveline standing up. I relaxed.

   "You're jumpy," she said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "What happened out there?"

   I took a deep breath and looked into her brown eyes. "Adé's dead," I said quietly. "Shay killed him and took the anchor. Edward is teaching Ezio the tongue of the assassins so that he can understand what we say to each other. But that doesn't stop Shay from using it to find us."

   Aveline frowned and looked out the window. "I'll bet Edward wasn't pleased about that."

   I didn't say anything. I figured that she knew her statement was true. Out of habit I reached for one of the cups. Aveline grabbed my hand. "Oh, no you don't," she said with a smile. "You've already broken at least twenty-two."

   I frowned. "That many?"

   Aveline gave me her "I'm-not-that-stupid" look. "That shelf was almost overflowing before you got up, now there's only two. I think you should go get more."

   I sighed. "I was hoping to avoid that."

   "I know," she started pushing me towards the door. "But somebody needs to get more. We have two cups and eight assassins that probably don't want to use bowls. Go get cups."

   "Fine," I walked outside and went to the stables. A black horse that I didn't recognize stood right in front of the door. The assassin symbol was branded onto the horse's saddle. I moved forward slowly making sure I didn't spook it. Next to the symbol on the saddle was a name. A very familiar name. "Altaïr." I ran my finger over it. I looked at the bridle and saw Altaïr's name there as well. I looked back at the house where Altaïr was arguing with Aveline. "Altaïr! I found your horse!"

   Altaïr stopped arguing and came over. "Really?" He walked around the horse. "Blade, what on earth did you do?!"

   The horse snorted. "You get into enough trouble without my helping, but that stall got really boring."

   I was surprised that this horse could talk. Altaïr didn't even blink. "Blade, this is Connor. Connor, this is Blade. She brought me to Nassau when I was searching for Edward."

   Blade dipped her head. "Greetings and good fortune Connor Kenway."

   Altaïr gave Blade a reproving look. "You could have told me you knew him."

   Blade flicked him with her tail and trotted into the woods. Altaïr sighed. "I don't understand horses."

   "I guess I don't either," I said. "I'll go get cups now."

   Altaïr looked at me oddly. "Cups?"

   "Yeah... I broke all but two this morning."

   "I could go with you," Altaïr offered. "I don't have anything important going on." He glanced over at Aveline, who was glaring at him, and coughed. "Yeah. Let's go."

   I smiled. "I won't object," I took my horse out of the stable, and Altaïr called Blade back.

   Before long, we were on our way.