Thief With No Shadow (44 page)

He found that he didn’t care. Leaks could be fixed. There was enough money for whatever needed doing.

Endal heard Hantje before he did. He lifted his chin from Bastian’s feet and wagged his tail.

Bastian stopped reading. He turned his head.

The young man stood in the shadows of the doorway. His face was starkly white. There was anguish in his eyes. “Melke?’’

Bastian closed the book. “She’s fine.”

Hantje gripped the doorframe. “You mean...?”

Bastian stood. “I mean that the fever is broken. She will live.”

Joy shone as bright as tears in Hantje’s eyes. He crossed the room, walking as if he was blind.

Bastian didn’t watch as the young man bent over his sister. He opened the curtains and stared out at the damp landscape. Hantje was speaking to Melke, unheard words, too fast and low for Bastian’s ear to catch, but the joy in his voice... Bastian closed his eyes. He swallowed to clear his throat.

“I’ll make us some breakfast,” he said, turning away from the window.

Hantje straightened from the bed. Bastian scarcely recognized him. His face was no longer pale and drawn, but vivid, flushed with happiness. His smile shone as brightly as his eyes.

“Thank you,” the young man said, and Bastian heard that the words came from his heart.

Bastian walked the few paces to the bed and stood looking down at Melke, asleep, alive. “Don’t thank me. Thank Liana.”

“I will,” said Hantje. “I will. But thank you, too. For everything.”

Bastian met the young man’s eyes, gray, so like Melke’s. He nodded, then turned and walked from the room. Endal came too, pushing ahead of him and charging down the stairs happily.

Everything was all right.

B
ASTIAN READ TO
Melke often over the next two days, while Liana slept. Melke never quite woke, but the sound of a voice seemed to ease her dreams. When he wasn’t reading to her, he went to the seashore and gathered more of the coins. They soon piled high on the floor of the maid’s bedchamber. He didn’t know what to do with so much wealth. There was more than enough for the bridge and the house, the bathhouse, livestock, for everything. And that was just the silver.

He sat on the narrow bed and turned a gold coin over in his fingers, while Endal dozed at his feet. It was an absurd amount of wealth. More than he needed or wanted.

The square of sunlight on the floor lengthened and became a rectangle. Afternoon. Dusk. Finally he knelt and divided the coins into four gleaming piles on the floor. When it was done, he felt better.

Come, Endal.
Bastian went downstairs to make dinner, knowing that he’d made the right decision. Melke and Hantje had risked their lives to save them, to save Vere.

But when he heard Melke’s voice that evening, weak and halting, he couldn’t bring himself to step into the sickroom. The last time they’d spoken, he had shouted at her. She’d listened while he yelled, while he jabbed his finger at her in fury, while he stomped and snarled and tried to intimidate her.

He didn’t think she would welcome him in the sickroom.

Endal had no such qualms. He bounded into the room and put his front paws up on the bed, his body wriggling with joy.

Bastian backed away from the door. He walked slowly along the hall and down the staircase. Tomorrow he’d go to Thierry. He would return the hired horse that Arnaul had been stabling for him and make arrangements for the bridge to be rebuilt and the house repaired. At dawn. He’d leave at dawn.

He needed to thank Melke. But not tonight, not tomorrow. He wasn’t avoiding her. It was just that he had things that needed to be done.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

M
ELKE UNDERSTOOD
H
ANTJE,
sitting beside the bed, and she understood Endal licking her hand, but she didn’t understand where she was. The room was strangely familiar, a remembered fragment from a dream, large and high-ceilinged, with faded green curtains.

“Where?” she asked, but Hantje’s answer confused her. This wasn’t Vere. She closed her eyes while Hantje continued to speak, but again his words made no sense. “No.” Bastian wouldn’t have saved her.

“Yes. He brought you back.”

She opened her eyes. Such weary eyelids, so heavy. “The necklace?”

“The psaaron has it now.” Hantje’s fingers tightened around her hand. “The curse is broken.”

Relief washed through her, as warm as sunlight and as sweet as honey. There was a smile inside her, but her mouth was too tired to move. Hantje’s face blurred. Where had that scar come from, under his lower lip?

And she still didn’t understand. Hantje must have misunderstood. She tried again. “How did I get here?”

“Bastian. He brought you back.”

It was too much effort to shake her head. She closed her eyes instead. “No.”

“He did. I tell you, Melke, he
did.”

“What payment?”

There was a moment of silence and then, quietly: “Himself.”

Her eyelids jerked open. “No.”

Hantje nodded.

It was utterly impossible. Hantje was talking about broken bridges and rain falling on Vere, but she didn’t hear his words. Impossible.

She was a wraith, a thief, and Bastian would
never—

Melke closed her eyes to think about it. She opened them again to find Hantje gone and Liana sitting beside the bed. The curtains were open and daylight streamed in. Hadn’t they been shut before? Hadn’t candles burned to keep the darkness back?

Liana smiled. Her blouse was plain and her hair unadorned, but she was so graceful and pretty that reality blurred with dream. For a moment Melke thought that Asta herself sat by the bed.

Moon daughter.

“Don’t try to talk,” Liana said.

Melke had done this for her brother while he lay ill. Now she was the one in bed, weak, unable to drink unaided, unable to wash her own face, too tired to speak. She was grateful for Liana’s kindness, for her quiet gentleness, but when the girl traced a slow line across her cheek with a fingertip, Melke moved her head away on the pillow. Her skin itched where Liana’s finger had touched. “What are you doing?”

“The salamanders hurt your face,” Liana said.

“You’re healing?”

“No.” The girl smiled. “The injuries are healed. I’m taking away the scars.”

“You can do that?” The words slurred on her tongue.

Liana nodded. Her fingertip traced the same line on Melke’s cheek. Blood had gushed there, spilling down her face and throat. She remembered—

Melke blinked back the memory. “Hantje. His mouth.”

“I’ll do that too.”

“But we’re wraiths.”

“I don’t care about that.”

“But it’s not necess—”

“No. It’s not necessary. But I’m going to do it.” The girl’s chin jutted stubbornly.

“Why?”

“Because I like you.”

Melke didn’t know what to say. No reply was adequate. Finally she settled on, “Thank you.”

She closed her eyes while Liana’s finger traced tight, itching lines on her skin. There was memory of pain, of blood. “How did Hantje get that scar?”

“It’s a long story. I’ll tell you tomorrow. Just rest now.”

It was easy to obey that command. Her body was heavy and warm, the bed deliciously soft. “This room?”

“It’s Bastian’s.”

The answer surprised Melke into opening her eyes. Yes, the curtains were familiar, the high ceiling and the oak-paneled walls. She’d tiptoed into this room, had knelt and groped beneath the wide bed, had stolen.

It was no remembered dream, but reality. Bastian’s bedchamber.

“Sleep,” Liana said firmly.

But there were other questions, questions too important not to be asked. “How did I get here?”

“Bastian brought you back.”

The same answer as Hantje’s. It still made no sense. “But—”

“Sleep.” It was an order. Liana’s hand cupped her cheek. Lassitude spread from that point of contact and it was impossible not to close her eyes, impossible not to sleep.

B
ASTIAN FOUND HIMSELF
standing outside the door to Silvia’s kitchen. He watched as she kneaded dough on the scrubbed wooden table, an apron around her waist and the sleeves of her blouse rolled up to the elbow. Wisps of blonde hair escaped from her scarf and curled against her cheek.

For the first time in eight years there was no heat inside him at the thought of bedding her. Instead, there was uneasiness. He smelled the salamander’s musk, not the scents of yeast and sugar and baking bread. Panic whispered in his chest.
I don’t think I can—

Silvia looked up. Pleasure lit her face. “Bastian!”

His smile was stiff. He stayed on the doorstep, unable to move, his throat too dry for speech.

Silvia wiped her hands on a cloth. She walked towards him, smiling. “Come in,” she said, standing on tiptoe and brushing a light kiss over his lips. Her hand slid down his arm, her fingers curled around his.

Heat, yes, a faint stirring, and also dread. But reluctance was overcome by the knowledge that he needed to do this. He
had
to. It was the only way to wipe the salamander from his mind, to erase the scent, to conquer his fear.

“Thank you,” Silvia said.

“For what?” he asked, yielding to the pull of her hand and stepping into the kitchen.

“For what you did. You and Endal.”

“What?” Bastian asked, baffled.

“Helene.”

He shook his head, not understanding.

“The watch captain arrested Julien.”

It took him a moment to understand. The dead girl, the conversation with Michaud. Events from a lifetime ago. “Julien confessed?”

Silvia nodded and tugged him further into the kitchen.

“Why are you thanking me? Why Endal?”

“Because you spoke to the watch captain. He questioned Ronsard and Julien again because of you.”

Bastian halted. “He did?”

“Endal knew they were lying. You told him.” Silvia’s brow wrinkled. “Didn’t you?”

“Who said that?” Bastian asked slowly.

“The watch captain.” Confusion creased her face. “Didn’t you? Everyone thinks you did.”

“Yes, I did.” He pulled his hand from her grasp.

“What’s wrong?”

It was impossible to explain. He didn’t understand it himself. Dismay, embarrassment. “I didn’t think he’d tell anyone.”

“Well, he did.” She pulled his head down and kissed him. “What you did was good, Bastian. Thank you.”

He let her take his hand again and lead him across the kitchen. “I’ll give Endal a meat pie as a reward,” she said. “Later. Afterwards.” She smiled at him, and he saw in the darkness of her eyes and flush of her cheeks how much she wanted him. “They’re still too hot.”

Stay, Endal
, he said, but the dog already lay on the sun-warmed doorstep with his eyes closed.

Memory of the salamander crowded into his head. It felt wrong as he walked up the stairs, wrong as he closed the bedroom door behind them. Panic prickled over his skin as he shed his clothes.
I can’t.

But he had to. He needed this. A healing of sorts.

Silvia kissed him. His response was automatic, almost clumsy, but it appeared to please her. Her fingers stroked over his chest, his abdomen, lower.

Heat began to rise in Bastian’s blood. Yes, he could do this.

His panic faded at the edges. The scent that he smelled was Silvia, the softness and smoothness of skin, Silvia.

It was going to be all right.

Time slowed into a leisurely blur of kisses and caresses and soft murmurs. The mattress dipped as they sank onto the bed. Sunlight was warm on the sheets. This was nothing like it had been with the salamander. Silvia’s taste, the texture of her skin, the soft warmth of her body... This was pleasure, not nightmare.