The Rose Thief

by Claire Buss

  'Excellent. In that case, I think we should just go to the Palace.' Ned looked round at everyone. 'If she refuses to see him then we've lost nothing, she already knows he's here.'

  The others nodded doubtfully at Ned.

  'Who we going to see?' Brogan asked as he tried to decide between a custard cream and a garibaldi.

  Ned ignored him.

  'Jenni, can you pop all three of us back to the Palace?'

  The sprite cocked her head to one side and pursed her lips. 'Mebbe, but e's got wards. Can't do nuffink with wards.'

  Brogan had decided on the custard cream and was actually paying attention this time.

  'I've got the finest wards around. Protect me from one in five warlock attacks.'

  'One in five? That doesn't sound like good odds.' Neeps was making notes, she couldn't help it. Anything could make a good story in the right nest of truth bending and the paper hadn't done anything on barbarians for at least a week. This could be an opportunity to show their biscuit loving side.

  'It might not be but it's better than no odds at all.' Brogan shrugged. 'Besides most warlocks are pansies so just knowing I've got 'em stops attacks. Most wards bounce back you see.'

  'Bounce back?' Neeps was intrigued.

  'Oh yeah. Act like a shield. Funny to watch – there was this one time, over in Vorland - or was it Worland. Anyway, it was North. And me and Slippery Eel were doing this job right, some treasure or something. Or was it a virgin rescue? Anyway – point is, one in five, every time.'

  Everyone nodded politely as Brogan decided to eat the garibaldi as well. Barbarians.

  'Right, c'mon. Let's go. We might as well get it over with.' Ned stood up.

  'Get what over with?' Joe looked confused.

  'Storming the castle,' replied Ned. 'Brogan, you can bring the rest of the biscuits with you, I'm sure Neeps won't mind.'

  She shook her head as the barbarian tipped the rest of the plate into a side pocket of his leather jerkin. 'Are you going Joe? She is your sister.' Neeps asked.

  'I... I... that is, she's not very... um.'

  Everyone was looking at him and Joe gave a nervous giggle, wondering whether he could get away with not going. No-one spoke. The silence stretched on, awkwardly. Brogan began work on a couple of chocolate hobnobs that had been hiding at the back of the biscuits but were now at the top of the pile. His jaws munched loudly. Joe shifted foot to foot, all this pressure was making him need a wee. He could feel Neeps' eyes burning into him.

  'Alright, alright. I'll come with you. But I'm about as much good as a chocolate teapot.'

  'Chocolate?' Brogan licked his lips in anticipation.

  'Why?' Ned felt suspicious. This boy had the potential to be one of the strongest spell-catchers, sorry warlocks, he'd come across for a good long while. And yes he was a bit dense when magic was right under his nose. And alright, he hadn't seen Jenni's glamour but he did escape interrogation in The Noose. Ned had measured his power when he joined the thief-catchers, he had been impressed at the time but truth be told, he had yet to see anything significant. It would be useful to have more reliable power on their side.

  'It's Mia. She nulls my magic. It's a twin thing.'

  'That's alright, if she nulls you then you null her.' Ned felt relieved.

  'Erm... not quite. I amplify her. Again, a twin thing.'

  'Amplify? Are you kidding me?' Ned had had enough. 'Fine. Stay here. Hide the rose from the Palace Guards, they might come sniffing round again. Jenni? Let's go.' And without waiting to see whether Brogan was following Ned stormed out of the house. Twins! And warlocks! And bloody magic roses full of love! He stomped down the street, Jenni capering beside him.

  'Cheer up, Boss. Could be worse.'

  Brogan lumbered up to join them. 'Where are we going?'

  Ned hunched his shoulders into his cloak and strode onwards. He was finishing this lovers' quarrel tonight once and for all. Then he was going to go sleep for a week and get back to his normal thief-catcher life.

  Chapter 17

  When they reached the Palace, lights blazed from every window. There was a sea of plumed helmets guarding the front.

  'This way,' muttered Ned as he took them round the back to what he hoped was the relative safety of Ma Bowl's kitchen. It was dark and cold as he pushed the door open. Ma Bowl was nowhere to be seen. All the ovens were still dead, there was still no food prep on the tables, still no delicious smells wafting and as Ned checked the shelf, even Ma Bowl's bowl was missing. This was not good.

  'C'mon. We need to find the Emperor.' He gestured for the others to follow.

  'Which one, Boss?' asked Jenni.

  'At this point I don't care.'

  Brogan ambled along behind them, oblivious to the dark mood Ned had sunk into and blithely ignoring the looks Jenni was shooting at him. All in all being a typical Barbarian, large, hulking, stupid. The Palace felt wrong. Even when John the Boring had been Emperor there had been more life in the corridors than this. They reached the left wing on the fourth floor without incident and as before, there were no staff around. The Stay-Away wards on the doors of Left Wing were still strong, resonating decay and danger ahead, invoking a massive desire to turn around and walk away fast but Ned was past caring. He pushed open the doors and a warm light spilled out over them.

  'Wow.' Brogan blinked in surprise at the brightness, a huge grin sweeping over his face as he took in the chambermaids, the scullery maids, the junior cooks, the maids in waiting and best of all the thousand and one nubile young wives of the Emperor. 'This is my kinda place.'

  'Focus! We are here to patch things up with your girlfriend, remember? Not get you, and us, into more trouble.' Ned gave Brogan a little push to get him walking again. It was like trying to move a building. Brogan looked down at Ned in amusement before striding off in front of him.

  'Jenni, go with him please. Keep him out of trouble, if you can. I'm going to find the Upper Circle. Hopefully she's finished being drunk.'

  Ned was in luck. She had finished being drunk. Now she was being hungover. Which was a lot worse. The High Left and Right were cowering behind an overturned chaise-lounge which looked like it had seen better days. It was smoking in several places and one of the legs had been blasted clean off. There was the sound of painful retching from the corner of the room as a heap of stained satin revealed itself to be the Upper Circle. The retching made her head clench which then pounded even more painfully than before, making her feel even more annoyed with having been drunk in the first place. She swore loudly and threw another fireball at the unsuspecting furniture. It sizzled as it hit its mark and died out. Ned noticed the two Highs had several buckets of water nearby and had clearly been dousing furniture to prevent further damage and any danger to the rest of the court.

  'Your Worshipfulness?' Ned approached cautiously.

  'Shhhhhhh. Whisper, Spinks, whisper. The devil is inside my head and he is dancing.'

  Ned whispered. 'I've found the pretender's boyfriend and brought him to the Palace. Hopefully he can patch things up and the two of them will be on their way.'

  'You did? You really did that? For me?' There was some dry heaving and groaning. 'Show me, show me.'

  Ned helped the Upper Circle to the doorway, resting her against the frame. He scanned the crowd and closed his eyes in disbelief for a moment when he found Brogan. 'He's there, over there.' And he pointed to the Barbarian who had three different wives sitting on his lap, another feeding him grapes, another massaging his neck and several more flocking round him with wine and various tasty morsels.

  'That? That...barbarian is her love? No wonder she's angry – I don't blame her. Owww my head.' The Upper Circle staggered away from the doorway and sank to the floor. She closed her eyes and adopted a fetal position on a pile of nearby cushions. Ned waited a good five minutes before attempting to interrupt her. The smell emanating from her was rather pungent and he was fighting his own urge to hurl. He coughed.

  'Er... do you know where
she is?'

  The Upper Circle groaned before sitting herself up slightly and looking blearily at him. 'Who?'

  'The Emperor.' Ned corrected himself hurriedly. 'I mean, the false usurper.'

  'She's in the throne room torturing Ma Bowl.'

  'Torturing Ma Bowl? Why?'

  'Because,' the Upper Circle took a deep breath. 'She refused to make a quinoa salad with pomegranate jus and chai seeds to go with a kale, spinach and alfalfa sprout smoothie.'

  'I'm sorry – what?'

  'Exactly. I don't even know what half of those things are. She asked for miso soup last night. Who wants to eat misery soup?'

  Ned wanted to joke that the Upper Circle looked like she had, but thought better of it. It would be a lot easier to close this case with his head still attached to his shoulders. Ghosts did not make it far in public law and order enforcement. Something about the inability to handle iron chains.

  'Right, well. I'll take the boyfriend to her and see if we can't solve this little mess, eh? You just... er... stay there and feel better, okay?' He winced at the patronising tone his voice had taken on but it was too late, the words were out of his mouth. He waited for the explosion.

  'K,' she snivelled. Who would have thought the Upper Circle, let alone the Emperor would ever snivel?

  Ned eased away from her, it looked like she was falling into an exhausted coma. Hopefully she would sleep through the sour belly and continual pounding headache and awaken to the charms of cotton wool mouth and slightly quieter jackhammers in her skull.

  'See that she gets plenty of fluids – non alcoholic this time.' Ned spoke to the Highs on his way out.

  They nodded miserably. This was not how they had been expecting to spend their officeship. One of them, Ned couldn't tell the difference between the two bony men without their accoutrements, signalled for a handmaiden who scampered away to get jugs of water. Ned marched over to the Barbarian.

  'Brogan. Hey Brogan.' Ned was being ignored. 'Oi, Barbarian!'

  Brogan turned his head lazily in Ned's direction and waved a languid hand. Jenni stood in his line of sight and cracked her knuckles loudly. She said something, Ned didn't catch it but somehow Brogan was standing ramrod straight, radiating compliance and looking half surprised at the smart salute he whipped across his forehead. A lesser man would have suffered concussion.

  Satisfied, Ned nodded. 'Let's go,' he said.

  'Where to, Boss?' asked Jenni.

  'The Throne Room.' Ned looked down at Jenni. 'She's got Ma Bowl. She's torturing her. I want you to get her out of there, bring her here or somewhere safe. Wherever she wants to go.'

  Jenni looked up at Ned in amazement.

  'She's doing wot?'

  'I know Jenni, it's not right.'

  'I'll bloody have her. Sod the flippin' rose of whatever. S'not right to 'urt the 'elp.'

  'I'll deal with Mia.' Ned glanced at Brogan who was marching perfectly alongside them. 'Well, we will. If whatever you did to him wears off in time.'

  'I didn't do nuffink.' Jenni wiggled two fingers in her ear vigorously while muttering under her breath. Brogan sagged from alert recruit to barbarian hulk. But he made no comment and avoided any kind of eye contact with Jenni, whatsoever.

  They walked the rest of the way in silence, seeing the occasional blast hole and singe mark signalling that Mia had been expressing her opinion about something or other. The two Emperors were really very similar when things weren't going their way. When they reached the Throne Room the door was ajar. Ned motioned for the other two to stay back while he peered round the door to see what was going on. He nearly fell over as Jenni pushed between his legs to take a look and was then unable to straighten as Brogan leant his bulk on him as he too had a good look. So much for being sneaky. They needn't have worried. Mia was far too busy showing Ma Bowl a large chest, the contents of which were not visible from the doorway.

  'So you just soak 'em and they grow?' Ma Bowl sounded highly suspicious.

  'I'm telling you Ma, dried porcini mushrooms are the way forward. They'll add another level to your risotto – no question.'

  'That's the rice thing, right?'

  'Yes that's it. You will try it, won't you?' Mia hopped from foot to foot. 'Ooh you are going to have a taste explosion. There is so much I have to show you. I mean, you know about cashew nut butter, right? It's out of this world and as for smoked tofu, I mean – if you can't get it then the other stuff will do but it's worth going the extra mile for.' Her head whipped round as the door finally creaked and moved, Ned staggered, but thankfully, the others withdrew meaning he didn't fall into the room entirely.

  'Thief-Catcher.'

  'Imposter.'

  'Really? Are we going there? Why don't you bring out the rest of your little crowd? I see you have your filthy imp behind you.'

  'Sprite.'

  'What?'

  'She's a sprite and she doesn't take lightly to being called names.'

  Mia coloured slightly. Even she knew that it probably wasn't a good idea to pick a fight with Jenni. Not in such a confined space. You would need a couple of oceans between you to really be able to flex your fighting muscles and stand a chance of coming out the other side alive.

  Brogan finally entered the room looking like a fine hulk of a man. Somehow in the last ten seconds he had managed to oil his muscles. He was grinning as he strode straight into a magical forcefield. It was so strong he actually bounced off, with only his cat-like reflexes stopping him from falling on his butt.

  Unaffected by the forcefield, Jenni popped over to where Ma Bowl was standing, trying not to be too obvious as she poked through Mia's chest and put a couple of items in her voluminous apron pockets.

  'C'mon, Ma – I got someone who needs one of your pies.' And before Ma could protest Jenni had popped her away.

  'Damn fae magic,' muttered Mia, fussing with her hair and smoothing her stolen Emperor robes over her hips. 'What do you want Brogan? Last time I saw you, you seemed busy and extremely preoccupied. I'm fairly certain I told you I never wanted to see you again.'

  'Honey, it was all a misunderstanding. It wasn't my fault. I woke up and they were already there. I didn't do anything to encourage them.'

  'Them?'

  The atmosphere in the room dropped by several degrees and Ned could see his breath huffing into the room. It had also become darker as if the candles were too depressed to burn brightly anymore. In fact, Ned felt that the best thing for him to do was to go and find a knife and cut his wrists. Preferably in a warm bath a long way away from here where no-one was likely to interrupt. As he turned to leave, his attention was drawn by the collection of rose plants in the corner. He continued to swivel back the way he had been facing and drew some power from his wells. Just a glamour. A bloody strong one.

  'Mia, darling. You're the only one for me.' Somehow Brogan had a red rose in his hands and was holding it out to her.

  Ned frowned, was that THE red rose? How did it get here? More to the point, how did the bloody barbarian get hold of it?

  'Well you're not the one for me.' Before Ned had chance to react Mia waved her hands in a complicated pattern opening a vortex in the middle of the room. The magical ward fell away and Brogan and the rose were pulled through the swirling portal to another dimension before Ned even had chance to shout stop. As soon as the Barbarian had passed through, the portal closed and the light and warmth returned to the Throne Room.

  'Did you have anything to add?' Mia looked coldly down at Ned who felt that at that precise moment there definitely wasn't enough room between him and her.

  'Where did you send him?' He inwardly cursed his own curiosity.

  'Nowhere nice.' A faint smile played around Mia's lips. 'Do you want to join him?'

  Ned was edging backwards, he stammered a negative and then thought bugger it. He turned and legged it down the corridor. He kept expecting lighting bolts or fireballs to follow him but there was nothing. He made it back to the fourth floor in record time and leant pa
nting on the doorway, ignoring the keep away wards. After having witnessed Mia open up a portal to another dimension, he did not think keep away wards would do much good if she decided to come a-knocking.

  As he entered the large hall, a thousand and twenty-one sets of eyes stared at him accusingly.

  'What? What happened?'

  Joe came forward, his face a picture of misery. 'It's gone. The rose is gone.' He wiped his snotty nose on his sleeve which had clearly been used many, many times before. 'And the Palace Guards came back to take Neeps. I think she might be hurt, I couldn't stop them. We have to do something Ned.'

  'Brogan took the bloody rose and your beloved sister just sent her ex-boyfriend and it to an alternative dimension so right now, I'm all out of somethings.'

  Chapter 18

  Ned felt like all the life had been punched out of him, his energy levels sagged and so did his legs. The floor seemed much closer than before and extremely comfortable. As he folded downwards Joe also dropped to his knees, his face wet with tears.

  'What a jessie,' thought Ned. 'Crying over a girl.' And then everything went black.

  He was brought round by several aromas. One was Jenni – you don't forget sprite. The others were a sour tang and meat pie – not together precisely but mingling. Ned's stomach couldn't decide whether it was a good or a bad thing.

  'What happened?' he asked.

  'You passed out, Boss. How'd you feel?' Jenni leant over him in concern.

  'Fine, let me up.' Ned staggered to standing and his stomach rumbled. 'Is that meat pie still around?'

  'Yes Boss, 'ere.' Jennie shoved a plate into Ned's hands. It was filled with pie, a Ma Bowl special. It lasted about five seconds and Ned's belch reverberated through the wing. There were a couple of claps from the far end.

  'Right Jenni, let's get out of here. Back to HQ.'

  'What about Neeps?' Joe hovered at Ned's elbow.

  'We'll think of something, lad.'

  'And what about my Emperorship?' demanded the Upper Circle, who was also nearby.