Thief With No Shadow (12 page)

She clutched at the back of her chair and sat. The sharpness of pain faded. Breathing became easier. There was light, and another person. Her heart began to beat more slowly.

Endal lay down on the floor. His flank touched her ankle, warm and strangely comforting.

Liana still watched her.

Perspiration slicked Melke’s skin. She felt it beneath her eyes, under her lower lip. She wiped it with a hand that trembled.

“What is it?” Liana asked quietly.

“My feet.” She tried to smile. “It’s nothing.”

“No. That’s not what I meant.”

“Oh.” Shamed heat rose in her cheeks. “I don’t like the dark, is all.”

Liana looked at her for a long moment, then glanced at Hantje. “You said he doesn’t either.”

“Yes. It’s nothing.” She pushed the memories back: the terror, the panic, the aloneness. “I’m sorry. You were telling me about—”

“My parents.” Liana’s scrutiny was an adult’s assessment, not a child’s. “It upset you.”

“How could it not?”

Liana sighed, a soft sound. “I’m glad it upsets you.” There was no malice in her voice, no malice in her face. All Melke saw was sadness. “You’ll get the necklace back, won’t you?”

Melke nodded.

The girl reached out and touched Hantje’s cheek lightly.

“How long until it comes?”

Liana glanced up. “The psaaron?”

Melke nodded.

“Spring equinox.” The girl’s lips twisted into something that couldn’t be called a smile. “We’ve been waiting for twelve years. Bastian says it’ll be this year. The well is almost dry. The farm can’t last much longer.”

“Spring equinox?” Melke’s heart was thudding again. “Are you certain?”

“It’s always spring equinox.”

“But that’s...”

“Next full moon.” The girl’s gaze was clear and steady.

Next full moon. So soon. Too soon. Hantje would be unable to help her. How could she hope to succeed alone?

Liana watched her.

She had to succeed, because if she didn’t, then either Liana or Bastian must—

Horror shuddered inside her. It roughened her voice and made her hoarse: “I’ll need to talk to my brother. I don’t know how they caught him.”

“He was stealing?” Liana’s face creased, at brow and eyes and mouth. “Bastian said he was, but he doesn’t feel as if—”

“I can only guess. He was gone in the morning when I woke.” Melke’s throat tightened in memory. The disbelief, the sick realisation. “Why else would he be in the salamanders’ den?”

Liana shook her head. “He doesn’tfeel...”

I thought I could never steal, either. And look what I have done
. “He did,” Melke said flatly. “He did.”

For a long time there was silence. Endal was a warm weight against her ankle. How strange that she wasn’t afraid. The ferocious wolf-beast lay touching her, and she was unafraid.

In the silence she was aware of Hantje’s breathing, shallow and rapid, and the hectic flush of his cheeks. His pulse beat erratically in the hollow of his throat. “He grows worse.”

Liana met her eyes. “Yes.”

“I know you heal him, but while you sleep, when it’s just me...” Melke tried to articulate the helplessness, the uselessness, she felt. “Please, there must be something I can do.”

“I’m sorry,” the girl said.

“Are there no salves I can put on the burns, no powders to reduce the fever?”

Liana looked down to where her fingers clasped Hantje’s hand. “No.”

There was a brief silence, then the girl stirred slightly and glanced up. “Tomorrow. I’d forgotten. Bastian’s going to Thierry to return the horse and cart. I don’t know how much money we have left, but perhaps—”

“I have some coins.”

“You do?” Liana’s face lit with eagerness. “Then there are powders for the fever and—”

“I’ll fetch the money.” Melke stood. Here at last was something she could do, a way of helping.

The hound opened his eyes and yawned and sat up.

“May I take one of the candles?”

“Of course.”

There was no contempt in the girl’s voice or face, nothing that hinted at scorn, but blood flushed warmly beneath Melke’s skin. She prised one of the candles from the holder, spilling wax on the little table, and made her slow way from the sickroom. She shielded the flame carefully. To have it blow out in the darkness of the corridor, the kitchen, would be—

“Stupid,” she whispered under her breath. It was foolish to be so weak, so hindered by fear of the dark. She knew it was ridiculous—
knew it
—and yet her heart beat fast and she was tense with terror that the candle might blow out.

She climbed the stairs, slowly, wincingly, with Endal at her heels, and stepped into the darkness of her bedroom. It was so like a cell that something clenched in her chest.
Stupid.
She lit the candles in the candlestick on the shelf beside the bed. Light swelled in the bedchamber. Tension and fear dissolved. It was no cell, merely a maid’s room that had seen better days.

Endal lay down stiffly on the wooden floor. Melke looked at him. His irises were icy pale. Wolf eyes. But he didn’t snarl at her, didn’t show her his fearsome teeth.

“You need a rug to lie on.”

The hound laid his head on his paws and closed his eyes.

Melke lifted her knapsack from the hook on the wall and tipped the contents out on the bed. Underclothes. One of her stones, the black one with the white veins of marble running through it. Spices in their twists of paper. Her purse...

The coins were tied together, threaded on a loop of string. Mostly copper, but silver too. Melke held them in her hand and felt the meager weight. Their savings, hers and Hantje’s. Six years of hard work, of long hours and sweat, and she held the results in the palm of her hand.

She undid the string clumsily. The thin scabs on her palms threatened to split open with each movement of her fingers. A silver coin for Hantje’s medicine: salves and powders she could give him while Liana slept. For the food, another silver coin. Extravagant perhaps, but the debt she owed couldn’t be repaid, not with mere coins.

The disks were small and thin, stamped with Bresse’s crown. She laid them on the tiny shelf and retied the string awkwardly. The remaining coins clinked dully as she tightened the knot.

The underclothes and spices and purse went back into the knapsack. She held the black stone for a moment, smoothing it between thumb and finger, feeling a sense of home before placing it alongside the others on the shelf.

One. Two. Three. Only three. Where was the red stone?

Anxiety tightened her chest. She couldn’t have lost it. Not that one. Not any of them.

Where is it?

Endal raised his head. His pale eyes steadied her. She hadn’t lost the stone, couldn’t have. It was in the knapsack or on the floor. She’d find it tomorrow.

Melke exhaled a slow breath. She picked up the coins and the candleholder. “Come, Endal.”

He padded silently behind her, down the stairs, across the kitchen, along the corridor. In the sickroom, Melke held the two coins out to Liana. “Here.”

The silver glinted in the candlelight. Liana’s eyes widened.

“For the salves and the powders. And for food. Maybe a round of cheese, or some ham. And vegetables. And some more candles. And...whatever you think.”

“Silver?”

“Yes.”

Liana made no move to take the money. “Thank you, but—”

“It’s not stolen, if that’s what you think.” Melke said the words stiffly. “I’ve never stolen anything.” Sudden heat scorched her face. “I mean...other than the necklace.”

I’m a thief. That’s what I am now. A thief.

Liana met her eyes. “I don’t think you stole it,” she said. “But...silver. It’s too much money.”

“Please.”

Liana held her gaze for a long second. Then she nodded. “Very well. I’ll give it to Bastian.”

“Thank you.” The coins clinked thinly as she passed them to the girl.

An awkward silence grew in the room. The curtains stirred. Melke had been awake less than half a day, but already her body was heavy with tiredness. Muscle and bone ached. Her feet burned. Her eyes... She closed them briefly.

“There’s no need for you to stay,” Liana said. “I’ll wake you when I need to sleep.”

Melke opened her eyes. She couldn’t blame the girl for wanting to be rid of her. Bastian would have been less tactful. At least Liana didn’t say the words
filthy wraith
out loud.

She got to her feet and managed not to wince.

Endal raised his head. She thought he sighed as he slowly stood.

“Good night.”

“Good night.” The girl didn’t look up. Her attention was on Hantje. His torn lips were parted. Each breath he took was shallow and ragged. The skin stretched tightly over his bones, flushed and beaded with perspiration.

Melke hesitated. Hantje struggled to live. She saw it quite clearly. He fought for each beat of his heart, each breath.

“Liana.”

The girl glanced up.

“Will he...?” Melke couldn’t speak the words, couldn’t say out loud what she feared.

Liana’s grip tightened on his hand. “He will live the night. I promise.” Something in her voice, quiet and strong, made Melke believe her.

“Very well.” It came out as a whisper. She reached out and touched her brother’s face lightly, feeling heat and dampness. “Good night.”

Grief ached behind her eyes and in her throat.
Live, Hantje. You are all and everything. Without you, I die.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

B
ASTIAN ROSE BEFORE
dawn. He went downstairs quietly.

Liana sat with the male wraith, leaning forward, her head bent so that her hair fell almost to touch him. She held one of his hands in both of hers.

He spared the wraith a quick glance. The bruises were fading, the burns less vivid. The scum would live.

“Liana.”

She looked up. For a moment it was as if her eyes looked through him. Then she blinked. “Bastian.” Her smile was weary.

He frowned. The dark shadows beneath her eyes had nothing to do with the candlelight. Her skin was almost as pale as parchment. “Go to bed,” he said. “You need to sleep.”

“Hantje needs me.”

“Nonsense. That cursed creature will be fine.”

Liana shook her head. “He almost died in the night.”

“What?” Bastian looked at the figure in the bed again and felt a flicker of alarm. The wraith’s breathing was weak, his face flushed. Sweat glistened on his skin. “Fever?”

“Yes.”

“But he’ll live.” It was a statement, not a question. The wraith
had
to live.

“The infection grows worse.” Liana reached for a piece of paper on the bedside table. “Can you buy some things for me? I’ve made a list.”

“Of course.” He took the list, frowning to read it in the dim candlelight. “Willowbark tea?”

“To reduce the fever.”

There had been no healers in the sal Vere line for more than a century. Liana’s gift was precious, a gift to be treasured and used sparingly, one they were both still learning to understand, but... “Do you need this? I thought—”

“I can’t be with Hantje always.” Her fingers tightened their clasp on the wraith’s hand. “These will help. Melke can use them while I sleep.”

Bastian read further. There were a lot of items on Liana’s list. Not merely medicines, but food and candles and other supplies. He shook his head. “Liana, we can’t afford—”

“Here.” Liana picked something up from the table and held it out to him.

He opened his hand automatically. Metal clinked and he felt the coldness of coins in his palm. “What? Silver?” His eyes narrowed. “She gave them to you, didn’t she?”

Liana nodded.

Anger flared in his chest. “We don’t need her filthy money!”