The Dream Thief (24 page)

When he trudged back over the
hill, it was with a stitch in his side and self-recriminations ringing through
his head. He should have anticipated this, he should have known—

But he hadn’t. He’d never
entirely trusted the Roma, but he also had not believed in the worst of all
possible consequences.

He’d awoken to the jingle of
harnesses, the soft crump of hooves against snow. The horses were agitated; he
felt their uneasy snufflings as if they were standing just next to him. In an
instant his mind had pieced together what it meant. He’d bounded up, leaving
Lia beneath the blanket, and glared at the sight of the carriage vanishing down
the hill into the deceptive haze of a lavender dawn.

That son of a bitch. How had he
hitched the horses without waking him?

No time to care. Zane had slept
fully clothed; the night necessitated it, and at the moment he was bloody glad
for it, because he did not feel the rocky dirt beneath his feet as he ran, and
he did not notice the early-morning chill cutting around him. But the gypsy had
noticed him, and four horses were swifter than one furious man. With a high
“Sep!
Sep!”
he whipped the steeds into a gallop. The coach—their new trunks,
their new clothes, almost everything of use—bounced away down the mountain.

Zane ran and ran, and then slowed
to a stop.

It was a lengthy walk back up the
road.

She was waiting for him. She sat
huddled in her cloak by the burned ring of his fire, her hair mussed to her
shoulders, her arms wrapped around her knees.

She’d removed her tapes and hoops
for sleeping. Her gown melted around her like a puddle of royal-blue sky.

“I lost him,” he admitted, and
heard the anger tightening his voice.

Her head tipped; a shaft of
sunlight threw a halo around her, much like that endless stroke of time in the
tavern when his world had truly first begun to come undone. Her response was
mild.

“We need to find shelter. It’s
going to storm.”

It did not occur to him for one
second to doubt her.

This
was her world, not his.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

T
he mining tunnel they found was
wet and cold and definitely hewn by man instead of nature. Wooden support beams
braced the rock walls; as Zane explored beyond the easy light, he kicked up
against the stubs of two pocked tallow candles—no matches—that rattled in
uneven circles over to a mound of dirt.

Lia had discovered the entrance.
Decades of mossy bracken and uncut trees had nearly concealed it from sight,
but she’d felt its hollowness like a sore in the ground. From the depths of the
mine small songs still resonated, willing her closer, willing her deeper into
their blackness.

She tried to disguise her
reluctance to enter by acting as lookout near the opening, but soon she’d have
to go in. The forest behind her stretched into clouded, icy shadows, ancient
and thick, massive trunks, downy white snowflakes just beginning to fall.
Before long the meager path that led them here would be obscured. She wondered
if she could find it again. She wondered if she’d even need to.

Lia shivered, her arms closed
over her chest, and listened to Zane roam the cavern.

“What was this for, can you
tell?” he called, his voice echoing against the walls.

“Gold,
I think,” she called back to him. “It feels like gold.”

He emerged to join her at the
entrance, his boots grating against a sea of chipped stone. When he leaned past
her to glance at the woods, the wind sucked his hair across his face.

“At
least it’s not sulfur,” he said. “Come in.”

“Are
you certain it’s safe?”

“No.” He shook back his hair,
impatient. “Come inside.”

Inside the tunnel it wasn’t
precisely warmer, but her eyes finally ceased watering. They walked slowly down
the slope of the ground, just until the gloom devoured them both, until the
uneven floor became a smooth deception and the loudest sound was a faint
trickle of water striking a pool somewhere, caverns below. Then the thief
stopped and turned and wrapped his arms around her. Gradually, her shivers
subsided.

“Better?”

She
closed her eyes and laughed into his cravat. “Not especially.”

His face lifted; he rested his
jaw against her hair. “’Tis a small step down from St. James’s Palace, I’ll
grant you.”

“Somewhat,
yes.”

“Almost as drafty, though,” he
added, thoughtful. “Less ostentatious décor. I wonder where this tunnel goes?”

Lia
shuddered. “Let’s not find out.”

“No. Let’s not.”

She should move. She knew she
should move away from him, she knew she should end this embrace and think
practical thoughts, because the winter didn’t care if his heart beat warm and
he was scented of snow and spice and pine woods. The winter did not care if his
arms felt like safety, an anchor amid the black shadows and the white storm.
Oh, but she didn’t want to move. There was the sheepskin behind them and the
horse blanket, but they didn’t comfort her as he did.

“Have you really been inside St.
James’s?” she whispered.

“Once or twice.” His top hand
shifted along her back, rubbing a slow circle. “I’ve enjoyed a few odds and
ends the king wasn’t using, paintings, silverwork. He’s got a Michelangelo
bronze of Diana stashed in a dusty corner. I’m considering it mightily for my
parlor.” His hand stilled. “I’ll show you when we get back, if you like.”

It was an invitation, one perhaps
he hadn’t even meant to make, because as soon as he said the words he changed;
like the drift of a cloud passing over the sun, he was suddenly darker, and
different. A new tension leashed his body as his arms pressed against her; the
pulse in his throat became a rush against her ear.

“Amalia,” Zane said, but nothing
else.

Her hand lifted, tracing his arm,
the lapel of his greatcoat, her fingertips coming to rest against the sleek
damask of his vest. With her eyes still closed she turned her cheek against his
shoulder, breathing him in through parted lips. She drew her fingers downward,
following the woven pattern of the damask over his chest to the narrow pocket
near his waist. Then behind, where the heat of his body was trapped against his
wool coat. She spread her fingers against his back.

He said her name again, hardly
audible. His arms were still fixed around her. He felt primed as a bowstring
beneath her touch.

“You do realize,” she said
quietly, “that we’re going to freeze to death in here.”

The thief made a sound, not quite
a chuckle. “Is that what this is? The doomed maiden, prepared to sacrifice her
virtue”—she turned her face again, pressing a kiss against his shirt; he
exhaled very sharply —“at the altar of practicality? How tediously noble of
you.”

“You have your clichés all
muddled. I’m not the maiden but a beast.”

“Well, damned if
I’m
the
maiden.” He set her away from him with both hands at her shoulders and gave her
a little shake. Even with the dark, she could see his words frosting into
vapor. “Do you really think this is how—that this is what I want?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Listen to me, love. This cave is
nothing. This storm is nothing. I’ve been stranded in far worse circumstances
than this. We’re going to survive today, tonight, and many long nights to come.
Save your noble intentions for your future husband, God bless his unwary soul.
I have a plan, and a good one. You’re going to Turn and guide us out of here.”

“What?”

“Turn,” he repeated, with
exaggerated patience, “to smoke. To dragon. Either. To guide us to the nearest
town. And if you happen to catch sight of that Judas of a coachman along the
way, you have my permission to eat him.”

“No,
I…” Her hands dropped. “Did you say ‘eat him’?”

His
voice gentled. “I know you can do this, Lia. I’ve seen your miracle.”

“I’ve been trying, but—” She
ducked her head. “I haven’t been able to fully manage it. Not since that first
time.”

“This seems like an excellent
opportunity for further practice.”

When she glanced up at him, Zane
offered her a smile, one she had seen him make countless times before and for
countless different people: charming and impersonal, heartless as a rake. It
was his professional look, without an ounce of warmth behind it.

You’re going to fail,
whispered the dragon inside her.
You want to fail. You want to undo the future, but you can’t.

“Forgive me,” he said. “You seem
a bit cornered. But we need this very badly. And I suspect that all that’s
truly holding you back is ordinary fear.”

She stood mortified, that he
could read her so easily, that he could smile at her like that and her heart
still ached. “Oh? Do you know so much about it?”

“More than you’d think.”

“You’re naught but a human man.
You couldn’t possibly understand.”

He lifted a brow, still smiling.
“Liar.”

“Cutpurse.”

“Runaway.”

“Swindler!”

“Coward,” he said softly, and she
jerked back.

“Bastard!”

“Undoubtedly true.” He made a
short bow. “But do begin. I’d rather not spend my last day watching your pretty
nose freeze black.”

She glowered at him, feeling the
cold air, and the sharp walls, and the sad, small songs of whatever minerals
lay yet buried beneath them.

“I’d like the sheepskin, if you
please,” Lia said, rigidly polite. “It’s easier to concentrate when I’m
seated.”

The bow he offered her now was
polished enough for the king and all his court. He took up the skin and laid it
out for her with a flourish.

“Your very wish, my lady wife,”
murmured the thief.

Her hair. Her right hand. Her
foot.

Her pump and worsted stocking
fell off and she kept them off, because every time she slipped them back on
they only fell off again when her foot went to smoke. It was snowing now in
earnest beyond the tunnel entrance, a dotted field of pearled light. When they
weren’t actual fumes, her toes were very cold, even beneath her skirts.
“Relax,” advised Zane, seated across from her with his back against the wall.
His coat was buttoned up to his chin; his hands were pushed deep into his
pockets. He’d recovered his cocked hat at the campsite and had it pulled down
low on his head. “Don’t consider it so much. Pretend that you’re floating in a
calm Caribbean sea—”