The Dream Thief (5 page)

His mouth flattened into a smile.
“How charming. Perhaps you’d care to inform your father as well.” He disengaged
their hands. “I believe that’s him at the window.”

And the locked shutters blocking
the broken pane began to rattle and shake.

CHAPTER TWO

September 1773

Five
Years Later

B
efore his eleventh year on this
miserable planet, the street urchin known simply as Zane would have scoffed at
anything that even hinted of the supernatural. He was a being of bones and
flesh; so was everyone else. It was what made them so vulnerable. It was what
had left him flat on the cobbles in a welling pool of his own blood one cold,
cold winter evening, a knife wound to his ribs and the world pulsing blue and
gray and snow, his back warm, his face numb.

By all rights, he should be dead.
He’d known plenty who’d died from less, and good riddance.

But then, that night, Rue had
found him. And the urchin had lived after all.

He’d never had a family, not that
he remembered. For a precious few years, he’d had only her.

She sat comfortably on the
settee, the sunlight from the tall windows behind her picking out the silver in
her chestnut hair, her hands slim and steady as she poured tea into the
paper-thin china cups that they used, for some reason, here in the deep
countryside. She looked relaxed and perfectly at home in the magnificence of
the room, at one with the delicate furnishings and velvet draperies, the
crystal chandelier silently sparkling just over their heads. She did not look
at all like what he knew her to be.

“Sit down,” the marchioness said,
without glancing up from her pouring. “You’re making me jittery. You pace like
a cat.”

“As if you would know.”

“
Touché.
Sit.”

But he didn’t. He went to the
windows instead, gazing out at the view that rolled and spun autumn forest and
hills as far as he could see. Empty forest. Empty hills.

Darkfrith
had no wild animals. It was perhaps the detail that bothered him most about
this lush and cloudy shire. There were no hidden burrows in the woods, no small
lives struggling for survival, celebrating the dusk or the dawn with mating or
tussles. There were insects, and a scattering of birds. Once he had spotted a
lone gray mouse skittering nervously along the edge of the stables. But in all
the years he had been visiting the Marchioness of Langford and her husband,
Zane had seen naught beyond those few pitiful creatures.

Little wonder. Even the smallest
of beings surely sensed what dwelled in this place.

So Darkfrith was shining and
barren. It was occupied purely by a people who moved without brushing the air,
who watched him from shadows with gleaming eyes, who smiled with sharp teeth
and bowed in false acquiescence. He felt the creeping chill of their looks
every moment, every second he stayed in this place.

If it weren’t for Rue—and what
she offered—he would never come.

“Lemon?” she asked, into the
silence.

“No.”

There was a flock of sheep
speckling a nearby hill, an effective decoy for anyone truly curious about the
affairs of the farms or fields. A pair of young boys were loping toward them,
slowly but steadily; the sheep bunched, then scattered like minnows into the
trees.

“Sugar?”

“No.”

“Acquire
anything of interest lately?”

He
smiled to the glass. “Nothing to interest you, my lady. A few baubles here and
there.”

“From
anyone I might know?”

“You might,” he said, and left it
at that.

“I heard a rumor the other day,”
the marchioness continued, serene. “It seems the Earl of Bannon is preparing to
sell his collection of Trojan gold. Do you know the one I mean? Coins, diadems,
I believe even a sword said to belong to Hector, as it were. The entire set
should fetch a tidy sum.”

“Have you an interest in Trojan
coins, my lady?”

“I have no interest in anything
beyond my family and my simple, humble life here, as you know,” she answered
smoothly. “I understand that the earl, however, plans to use the monies to
purchase a mare. A very fine one. I believe he intends to breed her.”

Zane cocked his head.

“He beats his horses,” she said,
casual. “I’ve seen it. Beats them raw. His maidservants too,” she added as an
afterthought.

He turned. “Is that why you
summoned me here?”

“No. It’s merely a bit of
information I thought you might wish to have.” She took a sip of tea. “I would
certainly never mean to imply that someone should go and relieve the son of a
bitch of his gold before he has the chance to profit from it.”

She
smiled at him over the rim of her cup.

“Ah,
Lady Langford. Sometimes I do miss your wisdom.”

“I am
gratified to hear it.” He accepted the drink she offered, taking his seat in a
chair. Rue Langford leaned back against her silk-striped cushions, both old and
young, ever lovely in her dark and glittering way.

“And
how
is
the family?” Zane asked.

“Excellent. Rhys and Kim are off
examining wheat fields and rye. Audrey’s with her sister—you missed the
wedding, that was very bad of you. Joan was looking forward to having you
there.”

“Was
she?”

“I
believe she rather hoped you’d ride up on your stallion and sweep her from the
altar.”

“I
haven’t got a stallion,” he pointed out.

“More’s the pity,” Rue sighed.
“It definitely would have livened up the affair.”

They shared another smile, this
one far more wry. Even if he had been so inclined—which he definitely was
not—the mere thought of a romantic entanglement between a daughter of the leader
of the
drákon
and a human male would send these animal-edged creatures
into a frenzy. Zane knew their boundaries and respected them, if for no other
reason than he preferred his hide intact.

The tea in his hand was hot,
aromatic. He gazed down into the steam. “And Amalia?”

“Amalia,” echoed Rue, in a
slightly less easy voice. “Yes. She’s in Scotland.”

He
raised his eyes, astonished.

“I know,” said the marchioness.
“It took a great deal of effort to convince the council to allow her to go. But
she wanted it very badly. She’s at the Wallence School for Young Ladies, in
Edinburgh. It’s most respectable. We go up and visit thrice a season.”

He set the tea aside. “After what
the council did to
you
for leaving—”

“Yes,” she interrupted, hard.
“After that, you may be certain I took good care that my daughter would be well
protected from them.” Her nails clicked against the china cup, restless. “But
she is Giftless, so she matters to them less. I suppose the odds were at least
one of my children would be. My own Gifts came late, but Lia hasn’t displayed
even the most rudimentary signs of the
drákon,
not strength, not
heightened senses or stealth or any hint of the Turn—” She broke off, drawing a
slower breath. “It’s not so unusual for a female of the tribe to be born
without Gifts. These days, it’s rather more normal than not.”

Her skirts rustled. She shifted
on the settee, and he realized she was not quite so comfortable as she first
appeared.

“We thought it best if she got to
have a taste of the world before being fixed in her place back here. This is
her final quarter, in any case.”

“I’m sure it pleases her very
well,” he said, after a moment.

“Yes,” agreed Rue, composed
again. “French and Latin and court manners. I’m sure it does.”

He did
not hear the double doors behind him open—the footmen here were as silent as
the rest of them—but the air grew cooler, and the chandelier sent out a fresh
rainbow of sparks. The marquess entered, golden-haired, unsmiling, walking to
his wife and bowing over her hand; he slanted Zane a shorter look.

“Langford,”
Zane greeted him, without bothering to rise.

Christoff Langford inclined his
head. If Zane had a surname, no doubt the other man would be pleased to snarl
it, but as it was, they only ever exchanged nods.

“Have
you told him?” he asked his wife.

“Not
yet. I was waiting for you.”

The marquess dropped down beside
Rue, draping an arm around her shoulders, examining Zane with a banked,
green-eyed hostility.

“Pilfered
anything recently?” his lordship inquired, freezingly polite.

“Yes.
Abducted anyone?”

“We’d
like you to take a journey,” said Rue, as if neither of them had spoken. “A
rather long one.”

“To
where?”

“To the
east.”

“East of what?” he asked.

Rue rose from the settee,
crossing behind it to the expanse of windows. She wore a gown of blossom pink
seeded with pearls, a French train that hissed, very faintly, against the maple
floor. With the bright, wide panes of glass stretched beyond her, she seemed
very small and slight.

“Somewhere out there,” she said,
lifting a hand to the glass, “east of England, east of France. Somewhere as far
east as you can imagine is a stone. A diamond, we think. A very powerful one.”
Rue turned her face to his; the backlight devoured her expression. “We need you
to go and get it.”

“One diamond,” Zane clarified.

“Yes.”

“How big is it?”

“We don’t know.”

“Where is it?”

“We don’t know.”

“To whom does it belong?”

Rue smiled, apologetic. “We don’t
know.”

“Well,”
said Zane, “won’t this be jolly fun.”

She stepped forward from the
shadows, pink and white again. “About two years ago the first of us began to
hear it. Just a few of us. It sounded like something from a daydream back then,
soft and lovely. Nearly not there. When you tried to listen too closely, it
would vanish entirely.”

“Back then?” He lifted a brow.

“Yes. It has…changed. Grown
stronger. More compelling. More of us hear it now too, nearly every member of
the tribe.” She lifted her hand once more, made a small, almost helpless
gesture. “It’s difficult to explain. You know we connect to stones. You know
how we are. This one—calls to us. It’s insistent and very clear. We need it.”

“Why not go fetch it yourself?
Send one of your vaunted hunters out to the wilds? Surely it would be quicker.”

The marquess and marchioness
exchanged a fleet, laden glance.

“It is impossible,” said Rue
finally. “The council will not permit it.”

She was lying. She did it well,
unflinching and cool and without the barest hint of regret, but he knew her
well enough to register the tiny, tiny rise in her voice. And at the same time:
the subtle shift in Langford’s bearing; even seated, he became more taut, more
hostile, if that was possible.

Interesting.

Zane fully believed that the
council of old men that helped govern their so-called tribe would forbid a
journey beyond the Channel; the deep distrust the
drákon
held of anyone
beyond themselves wrapped tight as python coils around this place. What he did
not believe was that Rue Langford—or her grim-jawed husband—would let that stop
them if the matter was vital enough. She’d broken all their rules, all of them,
for years, just because she could.

But she wasn’t going. And she
wanted to. It was clear as daylight across her face.

Zane looked past her, out the
windows again, blue sky, bright clouds, the woods dying off in a glory of
crimson and pumpkin and gold.

“You want me to travel to a place
unknown, to find a diamond unknown, and secure it from a person, or persons,
unknown, all at the edge of winter.” His gaze drifted back to Rue. “And if this
person does not wish to sell me his unquiet stone?”

She regarded him in silence, her
lips gently curved.