Thief With No Shadow (5 page)

“I will try,” she said again. Better to die than to live without Hantje, to live with someone else’s blood on her hands. “Take us to the healer. I will do my best to recover the necklace.”

“Your best.” His mouth twisted into a sneer. “And what is
that
worth, wraith?”

The man’s contempt was as sharp and stinging as a slap. Melke lifted her chin. She met his eyes. “If it is possible to recover the necklace, I will do so. You have my word of honor.”

“You!” His laugh was harsh. “Filthy vermin. You have no honor.”

He was correct. She had no honor. She was a thieving wraith. Worthless. Melke raised her chin higher. “You have my word. Give me yours.”

He didn’t trust her. She saw it in his eyes. They were the color of the ocean, green and cold. His mouth tightened. There was silence, in which birdsong and the hum of insects were loud. He clenched his hands so that the knuckles whitened, then unclenched them. “You have my word of honor. Wraith.”

CHAPTER SIX

B
ASTIAN SHOVED THE
inn door, pushing with his shoulder when it didn’t swing open quickly enough. He paused inside, breathing heavily. This early in the morning, the large room was empty except for a barmaid mopping the flagstones. The stale smell of spilled ale was welcome and human after the hot, peppery scent of the salamanders.

The girl stopped mopping. She shook back sandy hair and smiled at him. “Good morning.”

“Where’s Ronsard?”

“In the stable yard. Would you like an ale? I can—”

Bastian pushed back outside. The battened oak door smacked against the wall and quivered on its hinges. He strode around the corner of the building, his boots sliding on the cobblestones. The smell of freshly-baked bread mingled with the familiar town scent of drains. Hunger cramped in his belly. “Ronsard!” he called as he entered the inn stable yard.

Sparrows pecking for grain took flight at his voice. The stableman sweeping straw lifted his head.

Ronsard emerged from an open stable. The innkeeper was a large man, heavy with food and wealth. Joviality creased his face, but the smile rarely reached his eyes. “Bastian. Good morning.”

“I need to hire a horse and cart,” Bastian said, brushing civilities aside. His muscles trembled with tension, with exhaustion.

“Of course, of course.” Ronsard smiled and nodded and clasped his hands together. He made no move to fetch either horse or cart.

Bastian fought the urge to shout at the man, to shake him as he’d shaken the wraith. “I’m in a hurry.”

“Of course.” Ronsard’s smile didn’t falter. He turned and called to the stableman. “A horse and cart for Bastian sal Vere.”

Was it his imagination, or was there a faint sneer in Ronsard’s voice as he uttered the words
sal Vere?
Bastian shook his head, too tired to think.

“Quickly!” Ronsard clapped his hands.

Bastian’s stomach tightened again in a painful knot of hunger. “Some loaves of bread too, if you have them. And water.”

“Of course.” Ronsard nodded. “Excuse me.” His voice was polite, smooth.

Bastian watched as the innkeeper crossed the stable yard to the kitchen entrance. He clenched his teeth together and looked away. The man’s deliberate unhurriedness grated.

He leaned against the wall with his arms folded across his chest, rigid, while the stableman led a roan mare from a stable and harnessed her to a cart. The rough blocks of stone were hard against his shoulders. Ronsard’s voice came faintly through the open kitchen window, ordering someone to tip two loaves of bread from their tins and fill waterskins quickly.

“Where’s that big black dog of yours?”

Bastian swung his head around.

The youth strolling in from the street had his father’s insincere smile. “We don’t often see you without him.”

“He’s busy,” Bastian said, shortly.
Guarding wraiths.
He turned his attention back to the stableman.
Hurry up, curse you.

The innkeeper’s son leaned against the wall alongside Bastian. “Women,” he said. “More trouble than they’re worth, don’t you think?”

Bastian grunted and pushed away from the wall. “Ready?” he asked the stableman, and received a nod in reply.

A maid bustled out from the kitchen, plump-cheeked and breathless, clutching two loaves of bread and several bulging waterskins. Ronsard followed at a leisurely pace.

Bastian swallowed his pride. “I have no money with me,” he said, pulling the signet ring from his finger. “I’ll pay when I return. Take this.”

“It’s not necessary,” Ronsard said smoothly, smiling. “I would never doubt the word of a sal Vere.”

“Take it,” Bastian said, his voice hard.
I am not a beggar and I do not need your charity.

Ronsard’s smile didn’t change. “If you insist,” he said, and allowed the ring to be pressed into his soft palm.

Bastian swung himself up into the cart. “Good day.” He nodded curtly to Ronsard, to the man’s son.

“Good day,” came the polite reply, followed by an undertone barely heard as the horse and cart clattered into the street: “High and mighty sal Vere.”

Bastian ignored the words. He wasn’t sure who’d uttered them, and he didn’t care.

H
IS HAND FELT
light and naked without the ring. The skin was pale where the thick band had circled his finger. It had been his father’s signet ring and his father’s father’s before that. The last item of value that he owned, precious because of those who’d worn it before him rather than the silver from which it was wrought. It was another wrong to be chalked on the slate against the wraith.

Bastian glanced behind him. The wraith sat cross-legged on the hard, bare boards of the cart, holding the man’s hand. Her brother, she’d said. Another wraith like herself. A thief. She didn’t look at the road, didn’t close her eyes and sleep, although she had to be as exhausted as he was. She did nothing but watch her brother’s face, hold his hand, and occasionally trickle water between his torn lips.

They had the same black hair and pale skin, the same thieving hearts. Vermin.

Bastian clenched his jaw and looked ahead again. He knew the wraith was using him. She had no intention of braving the salamanders’ den. She would see her brother healed, and then vanish into the night.

She reckoned without Endal.

Bastian bared his teeth in a grim smile. He’d see her dead before he allowed her to renege on their bargain.

A bargain with a wraith. Was he mad?

The road was as endless as it had been in the dark. Daylight made it no shorter. He wanted to be home almost as urgently as he’d wanted to catch the wraith. Liana had spent the night alone, without any protection. It was no use telling himself that the farm had nothing to tempt either wolf or bandit. No use telling himself that Liana was sensible, that she’d have bolted the door. No use to lean forward on the seat as if his silent tension could make the horse move faster.

The air was warm and heavy with moisture. Clouds gathered in the distance, thunderheads piling slowly higher and higher. The cart lurched roughly over the ruts. Bastian felt each jolt in his bones. Old men must ache like this. He rubbed his face. Tiredness was gritty in his eyes, stubble was gritty on his cheeks and chin.

Bread sat in his belly. He’d fed Endal, and the wraith too.
Yet another thing you owe me, wraith.
Two waterskins lay flaccid and empty in the cart, two more sloshed with each jolt of the wheels. He had taken care not to touch the skins the wraith used. He’d surely vomit if he put his mouth to the same spout as her.

Afternoon was lengthening towards evening when at last they reached the river. Bastian urged the horse forward. It flicked its ears and stepped reluctantly onto the narrow bridge. The warped timbers creaked as the cart rumbled slowly across.

The river was high and brown and running swiftly, swollen with rain. Bastian twisted his mouth. Did the wraith notice the difference between the spring growth they’d come through and the parched dryness of the farm? There had been no rain on Vere. Not this year, nor the last. The ground was hard and cracked, the grass colorless.

He wanted to stop the cart and jerk the wraith from it, to push her to her knees and grind her face into the dirt.
This is what you’ve done to us
, he wanted to shout.
We’ll never get the rain back now.

He let the horse walk on. Heat beat up from the hard ground. Brittle stems of grass snapped beneath the cart wheels. Dust rose behind them. The air was no longer humid, but dry. Desert-dry, furnace-dry, so dry it stung in his nose and throat. No clouds gathered in the sky here.

With each step the horse took and each turn of the wheels, weight settled on him. The dying trees, the dead grass, the few starving animals...they pressed down on him until he thought the cart seat would buckle beneath the weight of his responsibility, his failure.
And when the psaaron comes and I admit defeat, how heavy will I be then? Will I sink into the earth? Will it close over me? Will I lie in my grave without it having to be dug?

“Endal.” He looked back over his shoulder to where the dog lay asleep. Stretched out, he was almost as long as the male wraith.
Endal, wake up.

Endal slitted his eyes open.

We’re home.

The dog yawned hugely, showing teeth that were every bit as sharp as a salamander’s. His tail thumped once on the timber.

Will you let Liana know we’re back?
Unspoken were the words:
And see that she is well.

Endal rose to his feet and shook himself, shedding black hairs. The wraith watched warily, her hand spread to shield her brother’s face.
Be afraid
,Bastian wanted to tell her.
He has less restraint than I do.

The dog stretched and shook himself again. His movements were stiff as he leapt from the cart. He looked very black against the sun-bleached grass.

Bastian watched him run and felt tired. He wanted to peel off his clothes and fall exhausted onto his mattress, to sleep for long hours and then wake and find the necklace where it should be, in the chest under his bed.

The wraith had been in his bedchamber. She’d walked through his home. She had trespassed and stolen and
ruined.
Bastian couldn’t look at her. Loathing filled him, as blood and breath filled him. It was in every pore of his skin, every fiber of his body. He wanted her on her knees. He wanted tears in her eyes. He wanted her to beg, to plead for his forgiveness, to abase herself before him. He wanted her to have conscience and soul and heart.

I may as well want to fly.
She was a wraith. She had no conscience, no heart or soul, no honor. There was nothing but darkness inside her.

The farmhouse came into sight, sparse meadows before it, rising ground behind. Dead trees.
Home.
He saw it through a stranger’s eyes for a moment, as the wraith must see it, and his mouth tightened.

The farm had once been prosperous, that much was obvious. The size of the house, the gables and ornate stonework, the many windows, spoke of wealth. But most of the high-ceilinged rooms were disused now. There were no curtains at the windows; the panes of glass were cracked. Paint flaked from the woodwork, leaving it bare. The great house was crumbling.

What words would the wraith use to describe his home? Shabby? Pitiful? Something knotted in Bastian’s chest, as if a fist was clenched there. He glanced behind him. The wraith no longer watched her brother’s face. Her gaze was on the farmhouse. Her face was utterly expressionless.

He jerked his head around as Endal barked. Liana stood in the kitchen doorway. Her hair shone white-gold in the sunlight.

The hatred in Bastian’s chest dissolved. Moisture pricked in his eyes and he blinked. Tiredness, he told himself.

Endal barked again, wagging his tail in great sweeps. Liana ran across the dusty yard, holding up her skirt.

“Whoa,” said Bastian, thrusting the reins aside as the horse obediently halted. He jumped down from the cart.