Skate the Thief

by Jeff Ayers

  She was standing still. She had begun to actually be calm as he talked, though she was not fully relaxed. Belamy’s confession did not seem to be a prelude to an attack, but now that she knew for a fact he was not a living thing, she did not know if she could ever be relaxed around the man again. “So you’re not a vampire.”

  Belamy laughed once, throwing his head back with the effort. “No, of course not. What do you know about vampires?”

  “Only what my friends have told me in stories. They drink blood, they’re really strong, and they don’t like garlic.”

  “Wait, is that—?” He laughed again. “Is that why you brought me garlic?” He laughed again, a full-throated sound this time. “You’ve had suspicions for quite a while, haven’t you?” He laughed a bit more, then settled down again. “They also can’t go into sunlight, cross running water outside of their coffins, or be close to silver for extended periods. So, no, I promise you I am not a vampire. However, that raises a question: you brought me that garlic almost a week ago. If you’ve been worried that I was some sort of monster waiting to kill you, why have you been staying here the whole time?”

  Skate considered a moment before giving her answer. She needed to disguise at least part of the truth—I’m trying to find something really good to steal—so she decided to cover up that deception with a truth. “I really want to learn to read. And also not be out on the streets in the cold.” These things were true, though they would not, by themselves, have been enough to convince her to stay with a monster. “That, and the fact that you’ve had plenty of chances to harm me if you wanted to.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I don’t think you do. You don’t act like a monster to me, despite whatever you are.” It was a bizarre thing to say to someone who’d just confessed to be a thing that was not alive but pretending to be, but she did mean it: Barrison Belamy had shown no interest in hurting others. Whatever else he was, he did not seem to be sadistic. “Why would you tell me any of this?” she asked. “Why not tell me to mind my own business, or just lie?”

  He shrugged. “It’s bad form for a teacher to lie to his student, or to discourage curiosity for selfish reasons. The most dishonest I’ve been with you is in how I look.” He waved his hands at his body, indicating nothing in particular. “Despite my best efforts to preserve my body, I still find that people immediately recognize something off about me that deeply unsettles them. I’ve learned to take certain precautions about my appearance, a simple trick of magic to smooth over the parts of me that would keep me entirely incapable of going out in public.”

  “What do you mean, ‘a trick’? What, you can change the way you look?”

  “Yes, exactly. Here, I’ll show you.” He snapped his fingers, and she was no longer looking at an old man. Instead, he appeared to be a young soldier, wearing dark metal armor wrapped at points in leather and no more than seventeen or eighteen years of age. He looked nothing like the man she knew—this image was much rounder and softer than Belamy. He also looked a little taller. “See?”

  “Something’s weird about you.”

  “Well, yes, I did just transform right in front of your eyes. I imagine that must seem passing strange.”

  “No, I mean, I think there’s something wrong with your trick.” She blinked hard and rubbed her eyes. It was difficult for her to explain. “You look…blurry.” That wasn’t exactly the issue. In fact, every facet of his new appearance was crystal clear when she looked at him. If she had time enough, she could probably count the hairs on his newly full head. It was only when she wasn’t looking at a part of him that she noticed the blurring, or the shaking. When she looked at his face, his arms below the shoulder started to blur at the edge of her vision. The effect was hurting her eyes and giving her a headache.

  “Ah, right,” he said, snapping again and resuming his more familiar appearance. “Your eyes are detecting the trick because they saw it happen. Your mind knows to look for the difference, to look for what’s beneath, despite what your eyes are telling you when you focus with them. The young man disguise doesn’t work as well because it’s a drastic departure from my true appearance. This one’s almost identical to my actual appearance. I’ve simply modified the small details that, when added together, unnerve anyone looking at me undisguised. Because it’s closer to what’s real, even though I’ve told you it’s not real, it shouldn’t give you any problems.”

  Skate did not notice the effect anymore after his reversion to normal. “How long did it take you to figure out how to do that?”

  “Not long. It’s a fairly simple spell. It’s also one of the most useful of a wizard’s talents, to be able to disguise himself and slip into the crowd when he needs to.” Belamy chuckled, clasping his hands behind his back and staring wistfully at nothing in particular. “I remember a wizard I once knew who took to street performances to earn extra money for experimentation, eating, savings, and whatever other odds and ends he might need to spend some coin on. If one of his shows started to go poorly, he’d just bolt into his crowd, change his looks when he was two or three people deep, and blend in with his audience until the crowd began to disperse. He’d leave town shortly thereafter. He told me he sometimes had to heckle himself in order to speed the process along, when a poor crowd would mill around for an hour with no coin forthcoming.”

  Skate laughed. “I didn’t know there were any busking wizards.”

  “There aren’t many. It’s considered by most who study the discipline to be a waste of the power and scholarship of magic, to turn what should be esteemed and high-minded pursuits into a crass entertainment stream. It doesn’t bother me; after all, a person’s got to eat, and it can be hard to get food in your belly with nothing but the knowledge, however vast and impressive, in your head about history, art, literature, religious doctrine, or the like.”

  It had never occurred to Skate that there could be hungry wizards. People with such skill always found work for those who appreciated their abilities, or so the thinking went. “I don’t blame them either.”

  Belamy nodded. “That’s because you’ve lived it. You’ve been hungry. Most who study magic never have been. It’s not an area that’s easy for the unfed to get into. A man like Gherun has never had to deal with want, and his opinions on such matters are far less charitable than yours. He’s not a cruel man, but his mercies are limited by his experiences.”

  Skate thought about that for a few moments. “You told me he inherited most of his money.” Belamy nodded. “He’s never been hungry.” More silence, and a confirming shake. “I don’t like him.”

  “I didn’t think you would. But he is a friend, Skate. When you decide to take from him, I expect you to honor your promise not to hurt anyone you borrow from on my account.”

  Skate rolled her eyes and nodded. “I don’t just go off and hurt people I don’t like.”

  Belamy raised an eyebrow. “You stabbed an old man once, as I recall.”

  “An old man who couldn’t even feel what I’d done.”

  “You didn’t know that at the time.”

  “I didn’t do it because I didn’t like you! I didn’t even know you. I only did that—on accident, mind you—because I was afraid.”

  “I know.” His tone was gentle, but his eyes were iron. “What I’m telling you is, if for any reason you fear similarly around Gherun, I need you to remember that you made a promise.”

  Skate rolled her eyes again. “Fine, I promise to remember my promise.”

  Belamy smiled. “That’s all I ask. Shall we begin your lesson for the evening?”

  “Yeah.” She continued up to her room, where Rattle was already floating with a piece of chalk in its claws.

  The next half hour passed quickly, with the first part of the time spent on recognition of letters, and the next part spent on practicing writing them. Belamy did little, only occasionally offering bits of advice like “Your first line of that should be longer,” or “That takes two strokes, not three.” For most
of the lesson, he simply listened and read. It was not until Skate’s eyes had begun to droop with exhaustion that he closed his book and joined Rattle and Skate at the desk.

  “You’ve done very well, to have learned so much in just a week. It’s not often I’ve had a student with such a willingness to work and ability to learn so quickly.”

  “How many students have you had?”

  “Never mind that,” he said as he smiled and tapped her chalkboard. “I had an interesting conversation while you were gone this evening.”

  “Oh yeah? What about?”

  “You.”

  Sweat immediately broke out along the palms of her hands, which she nervously wiped on the nice new coat she’d taken off and set across her legs. “Yeah? Who you talking to that knows me?”

  “I think you only met him once, don’t worry. He lives in my library.”

  “Oh. Yeah.” She assumed the man in the ball had taken the opportunity to talk to Belamy; he had seemed very concerned that Belamy should know about the discussion from him. “What’d he say?”

  “He mentioned your interest in the books in the room, and the fact that he’s the one who instigated the conversation, as well as the effort to withhold information about it from me—”

  “Now hold on.” Her sweaty palms were now clenched into fists. She wondered why she was so nervous about this, when she knew she had not done anything wrong in the first place by talking to the strange man. “I wasn’t withholding anything—”

  Belamy patted the air to reassure her. “I know, that’s not what I meant. I mean that he asked you not to tell me about it, and you politely obliged.”

  “Because he was going to do it himself.”

  “Yes.”

  “And he did.”

  “Yes.”

  Silence stretched out, broken only by Rattle taking the board from Skate and tossing it into the interior of the desk. Its task complete, it left the room with the gentle thud of the shutting door.

  “Who is he?”

  “A guest.”

  “In a ball?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  “Because he can’t get out. So I give him a place with a view, and Rattle lets him read when he can.”

  “Does he have a name?”

  Belamy nodded. “Petre. Petre Hangman.”

  “He’s a hangman?”

  “His father was, and his father before him. He’s not sure how far back the family business goes. He never took up the trade.”

  “How did he end up in the ball?”

  “He was imprisoned there by magic.” Belamy shook his head. “It is dangerous to cross wizards, Skate, and our friend Petre did so. The ball was the wizard’s punishment for his crimes.”

  Skate was a little taken aback but not too concerned. How many thieves did she know who got caught on the job and done in for their trouble, after all? “I guess he’s lucky the wizard didn’t kill him.”

  “I don’t think Petre would share your assessment,” he said with a half-smile. “Anyway, I brought all of this up to let you know you’re free to talk with him whenever you want. Just be careful not to drop him; if his ball breaks, it will be the death of him.”

  Skate nodded and stood, draping her coat across the back of her chair. Belamy took his book with him out the door.

  “Hey!”

  The old man stopped and turned to face her.

  “What did he steal, anyway? From the wizard.”

  “Oh, he didn’t steal anything. He was put in there for murder.” Belamy left then, leaving Skate alone with the information.

  More snow was falling outside the window. It would be a foot thick by morning.

  Chapter 11

  In which a disguise is employed, a plan is altered, and something explodes.

  “You’ll need to stay here,” Skate explained to Rattle, “and wait for me to open up the window. It’ll be that middle one on the very top.” It was still snowing, and snow was piled thick all along the road, save for a narrow strip that had been carved out diligently by the servants of the wealthy residents of the neighborhood to allow the passage of small wagons and carriages. In the small alley that the two crouched in across from Gherun’s home, it was not so bad; the buildings’ overhanging roofs had kept most of the snow out.

  Rattle looked in the direction of her pointing finger and clicked once, which Skate took as confirmation of understanding.

  “It will take a while; I’ve gotta double back, then get changed, then get into the room. Will you be okay in the cold?”

  Rattle clicked once again. “Okay, then. Find somewhere to hide until you see that window open.” With a third click, Rattle fluttered closer to the street and let itself fall heavily into the nearest pile of snow. It burrowed its way deeper into the pile until Skate saw some skittish movement on the other side. A thin leg poked through, pushing some snow out. Rattle had successfully made itself a peephole to wait and watch.

  As it put the finishing touches on its snow hole, Skate saw Gherun’s light go out in the window above. She knelt down to where Rattle waited. “Remember, come as soon as the window’s open.” A muffled click let her know that Rattle was as ready as it could ever be. She left it there, hoping to be in position to let it in soon.

  Skate went back the way she and the flying eyeball had come, turning down this alley, then the next, throwing any would-be witnesses off of what she was doing skulking through this part of town at this time of night. The Guards were out, though they tended to stay huddled together in their thick cloaks, trying to finish their rounds and get out of the storm. The snow had come down unabated since the previous night and showed no signs of slowing. The Guards probably assumed that any criminals out and about would freeze to death before they had a real chance at hurting anybody or stealing anything.

  Gherun’s home stood like a monolith four stories high in front of her. He did not own the whole building but owned space within it permanently, according to Belamy. The bottom floor only had a few smaller rooms for residents; most of the ground floor was occupied by a lavishly decorated common room where the Master of the House organized the affairs of the whole building: managing staff, issuing orders for meals, paying and receiving payments. This would be Skate’s entrance point. At night, the Master’s post was occupied by a stand-in, who was less skilled at the job and seen as mostly ineffectual by the other workers. Eavesdropping through briefly opened windows as workers went about their business throughout the day had told her as much. The scullery maids had very colorful terms to describe the night manager, which was what had planted Skate’s current plan into her head.

  The snow crunched softly under Skate’s week-old boots. The ornate wooden doors stood as silent guards at her approach, carrying the universal message of all such doors: “You are not good enough to enter here; be glad that you have the pleasure of even looking at the exterior to such a place.”

  Steeling herself with a deep breath, Skate pulled outward on the handles, opening both as wide as she could to make her grand entrance.

  The room was empty, save the oft-maligned night manager. This was not unexpected. There were only a few servants active at this time of night to attend to the two dozen or so permanent residents’ sporadic needs. Skate had been counting on the manager’s solitude to better sell her lie.

  He looked up from a stack of papers on the expansive serving counter that doubled as his workspace. A confused expression flashed over his face before he consciously replaced it with dignified attention to the unfamiliar girl now in his foyer. The cause of this transformation seemed to be her clothing; his needling eyes scanned her quickly as she stomped his way.

  “Good evening, young miss,” he said. His whining voice set Skate’s teeth on edge. No wonder no one likes this guy. “What can I do for you?”

  “You can get me into my room, immediately.” She affected the imperious, high-sounding voice she had heard people in the neighborhood use when talking to servants. “My
journey has taken hours longer than planned, and I’m very, very tired.” She had concocted her story over the past few days; its success depended entirely on the competence—or rather, the lack thereof—of this second-rate manager.

  “I’m sorry, your room?”

  “Yes, yes, hurry up! Why are we still talking about this?”

  “I—I don’t—who are you, miss?” He added the last word as an afterthought. He was obviously confused and irritated, which was exactly what Skate needed him to be.

  With much rolling of the eyes and scoffing, she said, “My word. Are you the owner of this place?”

  “No, miss, but I will be glad to help in any way I can. May I have your name, please?” He was being cordial and calm now, though there was still confusion in his eyes.

  “Dodonna Malthessier.” The surname was that of one of the more prominent merchant families in the city, one of the cadre of families that acted as bankers and lenders for the elite and powerful. That position gave the family influence and control over most of those who controlled the city; even the Baron himself was rumored to be enmeshed in dealings with the Malthessiers. “My father secured me a room at this location months ago. Are you telling me you have lost my reservation?”

  “I—”

  “Unbelievable! This is your job, isn’t it? If you’ve given away my room to someone else, Father will hear of it, you mark my words. Do you keep no records?”

  “Of course, Miss Malthessier, but—”

  “What, you keep them in your head? You have it all memorized?”

  “Not at all, but—”

  “Then check!” She waved her hand vaguely behind the man, where she assumed the older records were kept separate from the stacks of day-to-day paperwork in front of the manager. “And hurry! As I said, I’m quite tired from my journey, and I need a bath and a bed, and it’s late!”

  The flustered man sputtered a bit more before bowing awkwardly and backing into the back room.

  As soon as he was out of sight, Skate bolted to the right, where the servants’ staircase was; her spying had paid off. She snuck down the steps. The servants’ door may have been guarded day and night, but the hallway she found herself in was unlit. When she tried the first door, she found what she was looking for. Inside was the servants’ changing room. She left the door open to allow whatever feeble light she could to come in, but she was still essentially groping in the dark until she found her prize.