Thief of Cahraman: A Retelling of Aladdin (Fairytales of Folkshore Book 1)

by Lucy Tempest

  I was bending down to rummage through an overflowing chest when I spotted a lit incense bowl across from me at the feet of the statue I had steadied myself on. I found myself walking back to it, mesmerized by the glow of flickering embers among still-warm ashes. Beneath it, carved on a plaque at the front of the platform she stood on was: JUMANA MORVARID c. 532 - 552.

  This must have been a queen. Or a princess. If the numbers were dates, then Jumana died at the age of twenty. What would have killed someone so young? An accident? Childbirth?

  She looked so sad I half expected her moonstone eyes to start pouring out tears.

  Feeling inexplicably moved, entranced, I reached up to touch her crown.

  “Don’t touch that!”

  Loujaïne. I’d almost forgotten all about her.

  I retracted my hand as if I had been burned. The offended urgency in her voice shook me almost as badly as the red eyes I’d thought I’d seen outside.

  Loujaïne rushed over, slowing down just enough to steal a sad glance at Jumana before rounding on me. “You don’t touch anything in here, do you understand?”

  Too late for that warning. But I still nodded meekly.

  Cherine reached us, holding her jewelry box on her head. “What was that about, Ada? Why did you—ah!” She dropped the box at the sight of the statue with a stunned screech. “What is that doing in here?”

  Loujaïne ignored her question. “Someone left the vault door open. I’ll need to report this to the chief guard and the treasurer to check if anything important was taken out of here.”

  Were the things I’d taken considered important? If they made an inventory would they know they were missing? And come after me?

  Oh, why had I taken them? Maybe I should drop them back somehow?

  “There was something in here,” I said, trying to divert her, pushing aside the rising fear of being patted down later. “It’s what opened the door. Didn’t you see it? It ran right past you when you were on the ground!”

  “I only noticed Lady Cherine squirming over my back,” Loujaïne said flatly.

  “That’s what had you screaming?” Cherine huffed, ignoring or unaware of the princess’s sarcasm, opening her box to inspect her jewelry. The crimson glint of a square-cut ruby caught my attention for a split second. “What do you mean by something?”

  “Something long, pale and scary. It had red eyes. And that other—” I stopped as Loujaïne whirled on me, silvery eyes wide, nostrils flared for a sharp inhale. Either that description had struck her as familiar, or its unnaturalness simply unnerved her. Apart from the pale demon, the other one hadn’t struck me as scary. From what I had barely seen of him, he’d been quite…pretty. Inhumanly so. My impression from that one shadowy glimpse was so vivid I could have an artist recreate his every sculpted feature on paper.

  Was it possible he and his demonic companion were Fair Folk who’d ventured into Folkshore to loot a king’s vault? Or was he a human thief, and had a magical being with him like I had my qarin? Either way, he’d probably opened the vault and was leaving when we crashed his escape. Maybe he’d been down here to get something of value to trade for a leg-up in his life or to finance an escape from it, or even to ransom a loved one. Or all of the above. Like me.

  There was no way I could continue searching for the gold lamp now. I’d wasted precious time snatching up trinkets and gawking at the miserable bronze princess.

  But that thief, whatever he was, clearly had access to the palace. If I could find him again, I’d ask him to show me how to come back down here. I could strike a bargain with him, to our mutual benefit. It sure would be nice to have some backup as I searched for the lamp.

  “The other…?” Loujaïne asked, impatient.

  “Was in the dark. It pulled on my leg,” I lied, adding a scared waver to my voice. “I think it was trying to drag me away, probably to eat me.”

  They both looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. They clearly hadn’t seen or heard a thing and thought I was a hysterical girl with an overactive imagination. That suited me fine.

  I only hoped fate would let me stumble upon the mystery burglar later, because how else was I going to find him? His ghostly companion though, whatever it was, I’d rather not find again.

  For the time being, as Loujaïne directed us to leave our valuables in a safe embedded in a wall before herding us back out, I knew I’d done all I could do. I was so exhausted and distraught that all I could worry about now was reaching my enchanted bed. And that Bonnie and her father had found a safe place to sleep, too.

  Chapter Nine

  I didn’t remember what happened after my head hit the pillow.

  All I knew was that I was rejoining the world, heart thundering, a blood-curdling scream ringing in my ears.

  I leaped out of bed, snatching up my gas lamp, ready to strike as Cora burst through her canopy, fists up. It was the crack of dawn, just as the first bothersome light peeked through the slits in the curtains.

  “What is it?” I yelled, squinting around, disoriented.

  Cherine was pressed against the corner by one of the windows, holding her pale pink blanket up to her mouth and pointing a shaking finger to her messy bed.

  Cora patted around Cherine’s covers then checked under the bed, before turning her hand up. “There’s nothing here.”

  Cherine shook her head, narrow shoulders quaking with fear, tears welling up in her eyes.

  I approached, lamp still raised, asked again, “What is it?”

  Her response was drowned out by a ragged exhale.

  “What?”

  “Ghoul,” she whimpered.

  “What?”

  “A GHOUL!” Cherine shouted suddenly. “There was a ghoul by my bed! I saw it staring down at me in the dark!”

  “Aww, did the baby have a nightmare?” Fairuza drawled, poking her head out from between the folds of her canopy, her handmaidens who slept in the sitting area already up and by her bed. “Don’t tell me you wet the bed too?”

  Cherine’s expression hardened despite the tears flowing down her cheeks.

  Smirking, Fairuza climbed out of her bed, her hair in a net and soaked in a pungent oil that reeked of sour gooseberry. “It wouldn’t be the first time. At my coming-of-age party, my mother arranged a three-day sleepover with all the noble girls we knew and she wet her cot.”

  “Shut up! I did not!” Cherine hissed.

  Fairuza chuckled. “She did. Twice.”

  “Well, I didn’t this time!” Cherine defended with a stomp, flapping her blanket. “You would have wet yourself, too, if you found a ghoul standing over you, about to eat your face.”

  Fairuza’s handmaidens picked up brown wicker baskets with dried sea sponges, glass bottles of soap and lavender-scented oil as she slipped on her white silk robe with peacocks printed around its bottom. She glided over to us after stepping into the white slippers set out for her, idly tying her belt. “Ghouls don’t exist, Baby Cherie.”

  “Who’s to say?” I asked her. “I didn’t think witches existed until I saw one, and saw all the magic that runs through this city and this mountain.”

  Fairuza scowled at me. “We know witches exist because they’ve always lived among us, the vile, evil creatures. And magic is a part of our lives. But ghouls and ghosts? They don’t exist outside your grandmother’s feverish bedtime stories.”

  “I just saw one!” Cherine shrieked.

  Fairuza, grimacing at her shrillness, snapped, “You had a nightmare, which is typical of children whenever they’re suddenly far away from their mommies.”

  “I saw it too,” I said, standing in Fairuza’s way, locking eyes with her. “Actually, I saw it before she did. Yesterday. I scared it off with a torch.”

  Fairuza’s eyes narrowed, searching my face for a tell, a hint that I was exaggerating or lying. I knew she’d find none. I was very, very good at lying, but I was also telling the truth this time. Whatever that thing I’d seen had been, it was terrifying and possibly the
same thing that had scared Cherine. And then, bed-wetting nightmare or not, I would have lied on her behalf anyway, like Cora had on mine yesterday, to defend her against Fairuza.

  Pursing her lips, seemingly satisfied that I at least believed what I said, Fairuza huffed. “According to the myths, ghouls would be in the nearest cemetery, eating the rotting flesh of the dead, not here, scaring gullible, live idiots like the both of you.”

  She slammed her shoulder against mine as she left the room heading for the bathroom, handmaidens hot on her heels.

  “Bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

  The fifth girl in our quarters, that so-far-silent redhead who had paid Cherine’s earlier interrogation no mind, picked up her things and left as well, not looking at any of us.

  Cora shut the door and pressed her back against it. “What was that about you seeing it?”

  I shrugged. “Yesterday, down by the vaults, I saw something. Don’t know if it was the same thing, though.”

  “It had white hair,” Cherine said, falling back on her bed. “It was terrifying.”

  So, it was the same thing. I hadn’t imagined it then. But what had it been doing here? Stalking me now I’d seen it? But if so, why had it appeared to Cherine and not me?

  If it had followed me, maybe it would come back, and I could follow it in turn to its master or owner or whoever that handsome thief was. That might be the one way I could find him. And I needed to find him, as soon as possible.

  “Tell us exactly what happened,” Cora said.

  Cherine sniffled. “I don’t know. I was asleep when a noise disturbed me. I thought I heard a door opening. It creaked, slightly. I had just opened my eyes when I found it pulling up my covers.” A sob caught in her throat as she rubbed her eyes dry with her forearm. “Probably sizing me up to see if I’d do for a quick bite.”

  I put the lamp at her bedside table, sat down beside her and patted her on the back. “Didn’t Fairuza say that ghouls eat dead bodies?”

  Cherine shook her head. “That’s because they’re scavenger beasts. They usually can’t risk coming near live people to eat them, so they scour our cemeteries for flesh that isn’t too rotten. It doesn’t mean they wouldn’t eat you if they got you alone.”

  Alright then. Scratch finding the thief from the vault through the ghoul.

  I was ready to risk a lot of things to find him, but being eaten alive was not one of them.

  After our rude awakening, our first day in Sunstone Palace officially started with our handlers hustling us out of our quarters and forming us into a line that went down the connecting hall and around the corner. They inspected us one by one, scrutinizing our clothes, cleanliness and postures in nerve-wracking silence.

  As Loujaïne came closer, I smacked Cora on the back so she’d straighten up. I’d been a waitress in eight different establishments over the past two years, and each place had trained me to serve, smile and stand for hours on end with a good posture. Slouching, shuffling and swaying from fatigue or a sleepless night had not been allowed. Once you were on the clock you were on.

  I held my head up and gave my best ‘Can I take your order?’ smile to the princess as she passed, my hands for once free of a pen and notepad and folded one over the other like Fairuza’s.

  She paid me no mind, ignored Cora, then stopped before Cherine.

  After the ghoul incident, Cherine had been having trouble getting a grip, becoming progressively more twitchy and panicky. She stood there fidgeting, on the verge of a meltdown.

  “What’s the matter?” Loujaïne asked her.

  Cherine’s lower lip wobbled and she blinked back tears in a flutter of her lashes.

  “I said what’s the matter?” Loujaïne repeated, harsher this time.

  “She has the sniffles, Your Highness,” I whispered. “Think she’s holding back a sneeze.”

  On cue, Cherine clapped her hands over her nose and mouth and sneezed.

  Stepping back, disgusted, Loujaïne said, “I’ll make sure you are visited by a nurse.”

  Inspection ended and we were hustled once again on a tour of another part of the palace. I couldn’t put words to just how magnificent this place was with its high, domed ceilings, endless columns, mosaics and murals. Everywhere I looked there were detailed, vivid carpeting, marble flooring and priceless decorations, furniture and ornaments. Every inch of the architecture and interior design screamed, “I cost a fortune!”

  Cherine, considering me her savior now, had glued herself to my side the entire time. At one point, while we passed through a dark, windowless section full of portraits and paintings, her tremors intensified so much they shook my whole arm.

  Fairuza, flanked by her handmaidens, chattered the entire time in slow, hushed tones. They kept glancing back at us, the glee in their eyes only made worse by the smug giggles they pretended to hide behind their hands.

  It seemed that mean girls were the same in every land. Pampered, pretty, and experts in the fine art of making you feel like trash.

  Days two and three, we were quarantined.

  My excuse for Cherine’s behavior got us segregated in our rooms with open windows and a visit from the nurse.

  The nurse, a matronly woman with a lined face and sharp eyes, came with a trolley packed with corked bottles, jars and metal instruments that I found questionable. She set up a small cauldron in our fireplace and poured different oils and powders that turned into a thick, green, bubbling liquid. She scooped it into seven potbellied glasses and passed it around.

  Fairuza’s handmaidens, Meira and Agnë—whose names I’d learned from her demanding shouts—sniffed their glasses and gagged.

  Fairuza covered her mouth with a delicate, manicured hand as she made a few unladylike noises of disgust. “What is this?”

  “A prophylactic,” the old nurse answered her, hunched with age, sun-beaten skin full of wrinkles sagging around her eyes, hair tinted dark red with greying roots. “If you have something, it should help kill it. If you don’t, it should help ward it off.”

  Fairuza held her glass at arm’s length, rim pinched between fingertips as if she was holding a dirty, smelly sock. “I’m not drinking this.”

  The nurse glared at her. “You don’t drink, you stay in quarantine.”

  They all continued bellyaching. I was tempted to chip in on the excuses, as it looked and smelled so gross. I’d also never fallen sick while living on the streets and squatting in unheated houses for months on end, even when colds and fevers ran rampant in the town I was passing through. I’d never known if that had been some compensatory mercy from the fates, mere luck, or something else. But I believed nothing short of a plague was going to knock me off my feet.

  That inexplicable immunity suddenly made me wonder. More importantly, it made me remember the thought that had formed in the back of my dazed mind during my encounter with Nariman. That she and my mother could be from the same place, that there was a closer resemblance between them than with anyone on Ericura. Which was the dumbest idea, since my mother had certainly not been a witch, and I wasn’t in some form magically impervious to disease.

  Before I could chime in on the complaints, Cora picked up the kettle on the breakfast table, poured warm water into her glass, thinning the murky concoction, then chugged it down like it was beer. She dropped her glass back onto the trolley, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and looked at each of us expectantly.

  Cherine and Fairuza gawked at her, trading expressions of amazement and disgust.

  Now that she’d succeeded in making me feel like a wimp, I watered down my drink like hers, pinched my nose and finished it in three big gulps. It was a nauseating sensation, like I was drinking slimy tealeaves. The overpowering scents of grated lime rinds and star anise oil on my breath filled my sinuses—and those were the things added to make all the other unidentifiable ingredients palatable.

  Then it was the others’ turn. The nurse stood over each girl until she was forced to down it. They whined and
gagged before, during and after. Then after the nurse conducted a general checkup of each of us, she left.

  Stuck with nothing to do with the rest of the day, they all decided to nap. I took the chance to search our quarters again, tapping around the walls for hollow middles or camouflaged vents. A more thorough search revealed nothing. The only windows that opened were ten feet up and had no handles, needing a hooked pole to pull them apart, something servants brought with them, and took away afterward.

  The windows within reach were wide and set into the wall, with glass set in place by cement, ending in a marble ledges to be used as seats, which Fairuza had used as shelves for all her perfumes, lotions and oils. The combined aroma wafting from them reminded me of the few times I cooked food in taverns and restaurants rather than served it. Alone, the scents were mouthwatering, but nauseating once combined.

  Anyway, the only way out of a window was up to another part of the palace, not down, for the same reason the balcony wasn’t an option either. I might have been able to navigate the fifty-foot drop to the palace gardens, but not the forest of sentries posted below day and night.

  There truly was no way out but through the front door.

  But if that was the case, how did the ghoul get in?

  Days three through seven blurred together in my increasingly feverish efforts to find a way back to the vault.

  The constant scrutiny we were subjected to—the so-called initial evaluation—made it impossible to do anything and not be caught. In the times we were allowed out, it was to yet another part of the palace, one that was always so frustratingly far away I couldn’t even try breaking from the group and sneaking back down to the vault. Not just because of the guards stacked everywhere, but because Cherine had a tight hold on my arm the entire time, keeping me right by her, and dragging attention to us by her hyper behavior.

  Today’s new section of the palace was a series of rooms on the extensive second floor, filled with every article and instrument needed for every hobby, skill and talent. Those who survived to the first elimination were meant to use this space to practice for the next stage.