Thief With No Shadow (24 page)

And he’d visit Silvia.

He watched the wraith enter the kitchen. The fabric of her skirt moved softly.

Bastian frowned and looked away abruptly. It was thought of Silvia that made him think of warm cotton moving against skin, of womanly curves. He didn’t desire the wraith. The woman he desired was Silvia.

Endal rose and stretched.
We’ll go to Thierry tomorrow
, Bastian told him.
You and me.

The dog froze in mid-stretch.
We will?

“Yes,” Bastian said, aloud, and then laughed as Endal pranced like a pup, shaking himself, bounding up to lick his chin.

The dog followed the wraith into the kitchen, his step jaunty and his tail wagging. Bastian sat on the henhouse step and watched him go. Was he doing this for himself, or for Endal?

Both, he decided, closing his eyes and rubbing his face. He needed this as much as the dog did.

Endal liked the wraith.

Bastian opened his eyes. He stared down at the hard dirt.

The wraith had searched for something and cried when she’d not found it.

Guilt twisted inside him.

Bastian stood and felt in his pocket. The pebble was there, small and round and smooth.

He took it from his pocket and held it in his hand, his fingers clenched, hiding it. Why had he taken it? What had possessed him to steal?

She’d said it had no value. Then why had she cried?

Bastian uncurled his fingers reluctantly, not wanting to see the stone. It was red, flecked with black, small and unremarkable. And because of it he was a thief.

To return it would be a confession.

He swung his arm and cast the stone from him, throwing high and far. It landed amid the stubble of Gaudon’s paddock. Gone.

But the guilt wasn’t gone. He was still a thief.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

M
ELKE TRACED THE
outline of her feet on the back of the map. The innkeeper’s fingerprints were on the paper, smudged. He had thought her request odd, but for a copper coin he’d taken pen and parchment and done as she asked.

She folded the paper so that Liana couldn’t see the map.
Thierry. Vere. Salamanders.
Her guilt, sketched in black ink on parchment. “Here.” She gave the girl two coins, copper, thick and heavy.

Liana took the paper and the coins and placed them beside her on the little table. “I’ll give them to Bastian.”

Melke nodded. She clasped her hands together. “Will Hantje be able to talk tomorrow?”

“Perhaps,” Liana said, looking down at Hantje. He slept quietly. A dozen candles burned in the room and the mutton-scent of tallow was strong. “Or perhaps the day after. For clearness of thought he needs to be stronger. It will take time.”

“I’ll make more broth.”

“Broth, yes. And rest. It can’t be hurried.” The girl reached out to stroke Hantje’s cheek. “He called me Asta. What does that mean?”

“Asta? It means Moon Daughter.”

Liana removed her hand from Hantje’s cheek.

“It’s a compliment.”

“The moon?” The girl’s voice was stiff.

“Where we come from, the moon isn’t feared. To you, she’s evil; to us she’s...she’s gentle and kind and pure.”

“Pure?”

“Yes.” Melke nodded. She could almost smell the cold, wood smoke-scented nightair, almost feel the coarse woollen weave of her cloak, almost hear Mam’s soft voice as she pointed at the moon. “She guides the innocent and protects their souls and she forgives.” Mam’s words, as they’d stood on the hillside above their house.

Liana touched Hantje’s cheek lightly again, with her fingertips. “Really?”

Melke nodded.

“Your view of the moon is very different from ours.”

“Yes.”

“I like yours better.”

“So do I.” Melke followed the girl’s gaze. Hantje slept peacefully. “He called you Asta because your hair is the color of the moon. It’s a mark of beauty among our people.”

“Beauty?” Liana flushed. Her upwards glance was shy.

“Yes.”

“Oh.” The girl’s blush deepened.

Beauty without vanity, kindness and gentleness and silver hair. Hantje was right to name her Asta.

Silence grew in the room. There was nothing more to say. “Good night.”

Melke shielded the flame of her candle as she walked down the dark corridor. Her slippers slapped softly on the flagstones in the empty kitchen. Shadows scurried across the floor and hid in corners, shrinking from the candlelight.

She climbed the stairs slowly to her bedchamber. Endal’s claws clicked behind her. It was wonderful to walk without bandages, to feel no pain from her feet, but she needed to do more than walk. She needed to be able to run.

There were no curtains in the little room, no way of hiding from the sun or the moon. Melke stood at the window and looked out. Blackness. Stars. A waxing crescent.

Five days, not nine.

It was sooner than she’d thought, this thing she had to do.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

T
HIS TIME
S
ILVIA
was in the kitchen. She looked up as he stepped into the doorway, blocking light. “Bastian!”

“Good morning.” He stayed on the doorstep. Silvia had never turned him away, not once in eight years, but he didn’t want to walk into her house without invitation.

Silvia put aside the wooden spoon and wiped her hands on a cloth.

“If you’re busy—”

“No.” She put up a hand to stop his words. “Now is fine. Very fine.”

The smile on her mouth and in her eyes, the tone of her voice, brought heat to his skin. “If it pleases you.”

Silvia laughed. “Always, Bastian. Always.” She undid her apron.

Stay here, Endal
, he said, aware of the dog stretching out in the sunlight behind him. He stepped into the kitchen, inhaling the scents of baking bread and cinnamon and sugar, almost closing his eyes in pleasure.

Silvia’s fingers slid around his wrist. “Come,” she said, smiling. In the corridor she called, “Elsa, you’re in charge,” and he caught sight of the counter and the freckled face of the shop girl as she glanced back.

The fury and frustration were gone today. Bastian undressed Silvia leisurely, the headscarf first so that her hair fell over her shoulders and down her back. He ran his fingers through it. Soft and curling, blonde.

Silvia’s hands were at his throat. She pushed aside the collar of his shirt. Smoky heat rose inside him as he felt her tongue on his skin.

He moved slightly faster, undoing the hooks on her gown. She tugged the shirt free of his trousers and he shrugged it off. He released her breasts from their binding. So ripe, so generous. He made a sound in his throat as he reached for them, a low animal noise, and Silvia laughed.

He bit lightly, teased, and then pushed her back on the bed and stripped the gown from her hips, baring her. Such lush, delicious curves.

Bastian touched her slowly and leisurely, without hurry. He knew her thoroughly, knew the texture and taste and scent of her, knew how to make her laugh and how to make her gasp, how to bring her to release, shuddering, with her fingers clenched in the sheets.

A tiny guttural sound slipped from her mouth when the pleasure peaked in her.

Bastian lay back on the bed. There was heat in every part of him. And there was smugness.

Silvia lay panting and flushed, her eyes tightly closed. “Get your trousers off.
Now
.” Her voice was hoarse.

Bastian laughed and did as she demanded, and it was his turn while sunlight warmed the sheets. His awareness of the world narrowed to the light touch of fingertips and the nip of teeth. The softness of lips. The tickle of long hair on his skin. Heat grew inside him until he almost burst with it. And then came the clenching, the swift, soaring ecstasy, the long, slow float back down.

It was always twice. Eight years of always twice. And the second time he was inside her and it was even better. They lay together afterwards, skin to skin. Bastian closed his eyes. He heard her light breathing and smelled the scent of their sweat, their pleasure. Her heart beat slowly beneath his fingertips.

He wanted this more than a few times a month. Not just the physical pleasure, but the togetherness, the being with someone. When the curse was lifted and rain fell again on Vere, when there was green grass and birdsong and water flowing in the dry riverbed, he’d find himself a bride and bring her home.

“Did you hear?” Silvia asked drowsily. “A girl was killed down by the docks.”

Bastian opened his eyes. He saw sunlight and rumpled sheets and blonde hair. “Killed?”

“Strangled,” Silvia said, turning her head to look at him.

Drunken brawls were common by the docks, where the poorer folk lived and the whores plied their trade, but deliberate murder was a rare occurrence. “When?”

“The night before last.”

Bastian rubbed his face. It would be easy to close his eyes again and fall asleep. “One of the whores?”

Silvia shook her head. “No. A respectable girl. Although they say she was pregnant.” Her mouth twisted, a tiny movement of regret, gone almost before he’d seen it.
I’m barren
, Silvia had told him the first time they’d lain together.
You needn’t worry.
And he’d been relieved, hadn’t heard bitterness or sorrow in her voice. Now he wondered if he’d been mistaken. Did she grieve that she’d never have a child?

Bastian lowered his hand. His sleepiness was gone. “Do they know who?”

“The killer?” Silvia asked. “Or the father of her child?”

“Either. Both.”

“No.” She shook her head. “Although Ronsard’s son was questioned.”

“Ronsard’s son?” Bastian propped himself up on an elbow. “Julien?”

“It wasn’t him.” Silvia yawned, and stretched on the warm, cotton sheets. “He was working with his father that night.”

Bastian grunted and lost interest. He reached out and smoothed his palm lightly over the curve of her hip. Silvia was a beautiful woman. The only woman he’d ever lain with. What would it be like to have someone else in his bed?

A fleeting dream-image came—pale skin and a slim body, breasts much smaller in his hands, black hair wrapping around him.

Bastian lifted his palm from Silvia’s hip as if he’d been stung. The wraith had no place in his head. Especially not here, in this room, with this woman.

Silvia reached out to touch his cheek. Her smile was slow and contented. He managed to smile back at her.

“The pastries won’t make themselves.” She yawned again and sat up, pushing the hair back from her face.

Bastian sat up too. Thought of the wraith had extinguished his sense of well-being, like a candle being snuffed.

Silvia stretched, a movement that ordinarily would have drawn his attention. Bastian looked away. He stood and reached for his underbreeches.