The Dream Thief (12 page)

Lia saw something new enter her
expression. She saw her quick, darting glance to the younger two, a silent
message exchanged over his bent head.

The dishes were cleared, the
soiled cloth removed. Fresh bleached linen was whipped across the table, more
wine was being poured—Zane very openly pressed a gold coin into the hand of the
maître d ’hôtel
—and then he was bowing a third time, clearly preparing
to back away. When he came up again, the older woman touched her hand to his
arm and spoke. With his back to Lia, Zane leaned in close and turned his mouth
to her ear.

What Lia saw best then was the
blue-veined hand upon his sleeve. How the matron’s fingers abruptly clenched,
hard enough to pull the wool into puckers. How she let go of him very quickly
as if repelled, her fingers spread.

Zane straightened. He nodded to
the other two and walked on to the exit without looking back.

The woman turned her gaze slowly
around the room. Lia dropped her chin and studied what was left of the fish,
silently counting to ten before raising her eyes again.

No one was looking at her. The
matron had gathered up her charges and was hastening them out of the chamber,
their shawls trailing, their wineglasses still brimming—much to the dismay of
the country squires.

Five minutes later, Zane
returned. There was no hitch to his gait now; he moved as smoothly as a cat
through the staggered tables.

“Dessert?” he inquired, flicking
the skirts of his coat as he resumed his seat.

“What did you say to her?”

“Only that she’d do better
elsewhere.” He lifted a hand for a waiter. “With the dowagers, for example, at
the table by the fire. Those appear to be real pearls at their throats.”

Lia’s jaw dropped. “You sent them
to rob someone else instead?”

“Well, you could hardly expect me
to warn her off without sweetening the deal. She looked frail enough, but she
was a tough old mare, believe me. I think she bruised my arm.”

Waiters appeared, silent and
bowing, taking away the fish and cheese, bringing mints and hot coffee and a
tray full of petite sugared cakes. Lia waited until they retreated out of
range.

“How could you do such a thing?”

“Very
easily. I can’t imagine why anyone would wear pearls in this rustic backwater
of a town unless they craved the attention.”

“Zane,”
she hissed.

“Dearest wife, didn’t you notice
the foursome of men at the side door? Yes, go ahead and look. They’re guarding
the dowagers, and their pearls. I noted them when we first arrived; we were all
in the lobby together. There’s not a chance in Hades our little band of
pickpockets will step anywhere near those women tonight, nor any other night.
Trust me.”

He picked up one of the
pastel-sugared cakes, tapping it until the grains sifted down onto his plate.

“So. Are they?”

“Are they what?”

“Real pearls,” he said. “I’d
wager my soul you can tell.”

She didn’t answer. His voice grew
gentler, more insistent.

“Are they, Amalia?”

She closed her eyes. The scent of
the coffee was a sudden heat in her head.

“Yes,” she said.

He was silent. When she looked at
him again, he was gazing out the window, his expression serene, the cake
forgotten in the center of his plate. The light from the candles above them
slipped bright and dark along the contours of his face. He looked elegant and
severe and very distant, a phantom of a man fixed in a roomful of gay
strangers.

It was
chance, and only that, that pinned his gaze precisely where the song of
Draumr
seemed to float from the hills.

“The
rabbits and the birds,” she said, inching forward in her chair. “Did you really
feel them in that park?”

His lips creased in smile.

“When did you have time to wash
your hair?” He glanced back at her, his hand reaching for her shoulder. His
fingers cupped and released a falling, amber-lit lock. “It’s most becoming. But
I do wonder at your priorities. It would have been more practical to keep the
powder in.”

They stared at each other without
moving.

“Do you know,” said Lia at last,
in the most even tone she could manage, “I find that I’m far more fatigued from
the day than I first realized. I believe I’ll retire now.”

“Excellent,” replied the thief,
in exactly the same tone. “Let’s.”

CHAPTER FIVE

I
n the realm of the
drákon,
as in the realm of human men, there are hunters, and there are prey.

We, of
course, excel at hunting. It is who we are: that hard carving wind, that swift and
fatal talon through a hammering heart. We are the fog draped in circles around
the forest pines; we are the golden eye of the sun, shining terrible and bright
upon the earth and its lesser beings. We hunt because we breathe. Animal or
mineral, diamonds or blood, if we desire it deeply enough, it will be ours.
This is nature. These are our Gifts, and we are entitled to them as surely as a
lion is entitled to his roar, or a mouse to her hoard of autumn seed.

But the Others forever come and
upset our balance and try to cheat nature. They lie and slink and steal from
us, because they know in their bones they can never truly touch our splendor.
They’re weak and jealous—but not helpless. It is the most jealous of creatures
who can blossom into the most dangerous.

On the unfortunate occasion when
the
drákon
become prey, it is always the Others who cast us there.

This is what happened to Amalia
and her consort as they drew closer to our homeland.

CHAPTER SIX

“L
ia.”

“Yes, Zane.”

“Where is your mother now?”

“Behind the door to the blue
parlor. The fire’s gone out. It’s darkest there.”

“Weapons?”

“A pistol. A rapier. She’ll use
the pistol first. Before you can speak, she’ll fire through the door.”

“Wait
here. Do not follow me. Do not leave this chamber, no matter what you may
hear.”

“Yes,
Zane.”

“I’ll
be back very soon.”

“Yes.”

But
he didn’t leave. A single, rough finger stroked fire along her cheek.

“Tell
me you love me,” he whispered.

“I
love you.”

“Tell
me you’ll do what I say.”

“You
know I will.”

His
hand lifted away. “Good. Stay here.”

“Yes.”

He was up before she was, which
didn’t surprise him. Zane never needed a great deal of sleep; as a child he’d
taught himself to drowse with his eyes open, to sink into a slow, stuporous
awareness that passed well enough for respite when times were dire and he
couldn’t afford genuine rest. But although he was uncomfortable, and he was
worn, the fact that the most disturbingly beautiful being he’d ever seen was
warm in her bed just a room away didn’t truly qualify as dire. Not yet.

So he allowed himself a few
hours’ slumber, letting the night take him. The steel of his dirk remained a
firm, familiar shape beneath his pillow.

He did not sleep well. The hotel
room was musty. He’d cracked a window to freshen it, but all that did was add
to the chill. The wallpaper was peeling at its seams and the rug badly needed
to be beaten. The smell of dust and motes settled into a persistent itch in his
nose.

Close to daybreak, when the door
opened silently, he came instantly alert. It was only the chambermaid, creeping
into the room with a broom and bucket of coals and his boots, which she placed
carefully by the armoire.

He watched through slitted eyes
as she stoked the fire in the grate and then swept up whatever small mess she’d
made. She crept out again as quietly as she’d come.

To hell with it.

He dressed as the room began to
illume to a faded grandeur, the cool, foggy sunrise softening all the rough
edges. The little fire didn’t come close to denting the chill; he was half
tempted to linger in bed until breakfast…if it weren’t for the fleas. And for
the fact that past the wall against his headboard, there slept a woman who
snored.

It wasn’t Amalia. He couldn’t
hear anything at all from her room.

So he dressed, his buckskin breeches,
his cleanest shirt, the Parisian dun surcoat that wore best against the grime
of the road ready upon the bed. His boots had been polished; he shook them out
upside down, one at a time. No hidden needles, no spiders, no poisonous scent
rising from the freshly oiled gleam. He found a tie for his hair and crossed to
the door that separated him from Lia, testing the handle.

Locked.

He smiled at that. She was game,
if nothing else.

He bent down, took a look at the
keyhole, and went back for his tools. The lock was old, just like the rest of
the place, so clumsily antiquated he wondered why they bothered with it at all.
He closed his eyes and let the pads of his fingers guide him, trusting the
delicate edge of his pick, the hook, the turn, the tumblers releasing—

There was a time when the muted
click
of that release would bring with it a small, physical rush of satisfaction
through his veins. It meant success: escape or invasion, wealth or information,
or all of them at once. Before he’d reached his teens, before he knew about the
particular pleasures of money or power or women, that rush of sensation had
been the finest feeling in the world. He’d apprenticed to one of the best
cracksmen in the business, had procured him cash and whores and whatever else the
bastard demanded, up until the very night that Dirty Clem, stinking drunk, had
stuck a boning knife into Zane’s ribs—all because Clem had taught him this:

To turn a lock.

To open doors.

To slip
in where he was not invited, and never would be. Zane placed his palm upon the
paneled wood, giving it a little push. At least the hinges were greased; the
dusk of her room swept over his feet without a whisper. He stood there a
moment, allowing his eyes to adjust.