“You heard those people,” Wally said as Arthur dragged him back to the ribbon door. “They were talking nonsense. This might be some sort of, I dunno, cult. They could sacrifice us to their demon god or something!”
“Let them try!” Arthur said. “After we steal the treasure, we’ll report them to the Oakers, and those robed people will be locked up with the rest of the dirty, raving lunatics in Greyridge. Now are you coming? Or do I have to go back to the Stormcrow and fetch a better lock pick?”
Wally balled his fists. He considered abandoning Arthur right then and there for implying that his brother was dirty and raving. But Arthur didn’t know Graham existed. And Wally needed this money so the doctors would keep his brother safe and clean.
Arthur opened the ribbon-carved door onto a corridor. But this wasn’t just any corridor. It spiraled like a licorice whip. From their shoes, the floor swirled up and around, the walls contorting with it. The corridor completed its spiral at another door, which was upside down on the ceiling.
Wally steadied himself on a nearby lampstand. “Oh no. No no no.”
Arthur only smiled and shook his head. “Rich people.”
He took Wally’s arm and led him down the hallway. Wally shut his eyes so he wouldn’t throw up.
“This, dear Cooper,” Arthur said, “is nothing more than an optical illusion. It’s a trick of perspective, executed with interestingly angled mirrors.”
Wally cracked open an eyelid and then shut it again. He and Arthur were standing on the wall. Somehow, their shoes remained fixed to the rug, while the hallway spiraled around them. Even their hats remained in place.
A few steps later, Arthur patted him on the back. “Safe.”
Wally opened his eyes to find they’d reached the far end of the corridor. The nearest door was now right side up while the one to the forest room was upside down.
They entered the next room, which led to even more doorways. Arthur tested the handles until he found one that was locked—a sure sign something valuable was kept behind it. The door was carved with a fairy.
Wally slipped his picks into the keyhole while Arthur kept a lookout. The lock was stubborn—almost as if something inside was wrestling with his picks. He swore he heard snickering, like a tiny creature was mocking his efforts. Not for the first time that night, Wally pushed away the thought that Graham’s madness was setting in. He tinkered and twisted until he could’ve sworn he heard a tiny voice huff in the keyhole, and the door clicked open.
The room was full of treasure. Rows of casks overflowed with coins of copper and silver, jade and ruby.
“Jackpot!” Arthur said, sweeping into the room.
He plunged both hands into one of the vats while Wally eyed the exits. There was one other door with a carving of a sun. No sound came from behind it.
Wally plucked a green coin from a nearby vat. He’d seen dozens of currencies flow through Kingsport, but nothing like this. The coin had a strange blossom on one side while the other showed a coiled leviathan. This room was like a bank of the world. Or many worlds.
Arthur took off his pants.
“What are you doing?” Wally said, dropping the coin.
Arthur grinned as he tied the ends of his pant legs into knots, making a sort of two-sided sack. “Pockets aren’t deep enough for riches like these!”
He was stuffing coins into his pant bag when the sound of keys jangled behind the sun door.
“Ludwig and Weston will require different funds for the Real and the Mirror,” Sekhmet’s father said, unlocking the door. “I’ll show you how to distinguish between them.”
“Great,” Sekhmet said. “The groundskeepers can hunt the Fae-born, but I can’t?”
Arthur managed to stuff one last handful of coins into his makeshift bag before Wally seized him by the arm and dragged him out the door from which they’d entered.
They’d just made it into the spiral corridor when the man said, “Did you see that?”
Wally slammed the door, grabbed a nearby lampstand, and wedged it under the handle just as it started to jiggle. Arthur had already slung the coins over his shoulder and was running up and around the spiraled rug. Wally tried to follow, but the corridor swirled in his vision, making him collapse to his hands and knees. He squeezed his eyes shut and managed to crawl a couple of inches before a blast struck the door behind him. Sparks spit through the keyhole as bright as fireworks, but the door held strong.
Wally froze. “Arthur, wait!”
Arthur spun around, continuing to run backward along the ceiling. “You’ll be fine! Just run!”
He spun again, and his pant bag struck the curved wall. One of the cuffs came untied, sending dozens of coins rolling up and over the spiraled rug. Some of them hung in the air, spinning and gleaming. The sight flipped Wally’s stomach. He couldn’t move.
The door behind him started to smolder.
“Arthur, please!” he called.
But Arthur was too busy plucking spinning coins out of the air to hear him.
The door burst open just as Wally leapt back against the wall. He caught the handle and held tight, hiding himself behind the door.
“You!” Sekhmet said.
Arthur cleared his throat. “Hello again.”
Wally peeked through the keyhole as Sekhmet’s father bent and picked something up.
“So much for imp locks,” the man said, inspecting Wally’s lock picks.
Wally tensed. They must have fallen out of his pocket when he fell to his knees.
Sekhmet held up a hand to block Arthur’s bare legs. “Why are you in your underwear?”
Arthur blushed. “Funny story. After my bag broke, I was forced to carry my tools with my pants.” He jingled his trousers and then nodded toward the lock picks. “I’m a locksmith’s apprentice.”
Sekhmet smirked. “He’s trying to use Wordcraft on us. Clearly an amateur. Using the first lie that comes to mind.”
Wally stared through the keyhole, nerves buzzing. For the first time since he’d met him, Arthur’s charms had fallen flat. Then again, it would be hard for anyone to be charming without pants.
Sekhmet’s father took a step toward Arthur. “Why don’t you hand over whatever it is you’ve stolen?” he said, his voice as steely as the blade he drew from its scabbard.
“Stolen?” Arthur said. “Why, sir, I resent the implication. This was merely a demonstration. We wanted to prove how easily we could break into this Manor so that you’d hire us to replace your locks.”
“We?” the girl asked.
Wally held his breath. Arthur had just given him away.
“Oh, um, the royal we,” Arthur said, covering his tracks. “You know, me, myself and … I should be going now.”
He grabbed the handle of the door leading to the forest room. But in one swift motion, Sekhmet’s father threw his sword down the spiraled hall. The sword struck the door, pinning it to the frame.
Arthur released the handle and turned, grinning. “Actually, I’m glad I ran into you.” He nodded to Sekhmet. “You dropped something in the street. Your, um, key ring. I wanted to return it. And replace your locks, of course. None of those keys actually work, you know.”
Sekhmet patted the pockets of her cloak while her father gave her a look.
“Don’t look at me!” She pointed at Arthur. “He stole it!”
Sekhmet’s father walked slowly down the corridor. “Drop the bag, son.”
Arthur pressed his back against the door. Then he pointed directly at Wally. “Now, Wilberforce, now!”
Sekhmet and her father whirled, expecting someone to grab them from behind. Wally’s heart leapt into his throat. What was he supposed to do? They had swords, and he was unarmed.
Just then, Arthur crouched and seized the edge of the spiraled rug, whipping it upward. Because of the hallway’s tipsy gravity, the rug fell to the ceiling, blocking Arthur from view.
“The pants-less one is trying to get away!” Sekhmet shouted.
“Well?” her father said. “Isn’t this the fight you’ve been waiting for?”
Sekhmet leapt down and around the hallway, drawing her swords and slicing through the dangling rug. Wally heard Arthur grunt as he tugged the man’s sword free from the door. The sword clattered to the floor, the door flew open, and then it slammed shut.
It was only then that Wally realized that Arthur hadn’t expected him to act—only distract the robed people so Arthur could escape with the loot.
The door Wally was hiding behind creaked open. The man arched a white eyebrow.
“It seems your partner has abandoned you, Wilberforce.”
3
ARTHUR
Arthur hauled his pant bag through the crowded streets, heading toward the Wretched Quarter. He tried to stifle the telltale clink of coins as newsboys, street sweepers, and cinder collectors turned to stare at his underwear.
He needed to get back to the Stormcrow and mount a rescue for Wally. Arthur’s eyes stung when he thought of his friend, upside down and helpless, in the spiral hallway. In the moment, Arthur had done what was necessary to get the coins and himself out of there. But Garnett Lacroix would never leave a fellow thief behind. Even in the face of swords and fireworks.
Arthur made it to Paradise Lane and through the swinging doors of the Stormcrow without incident. The air of the pub swam with smoke and the rank breath of its patrons. The walls echoed with garbled voices and the occasional shattered glass.
“Hey! Gimme back my leg!”
“Come on, ya lazy biter! Git ’im! I’ve got rent money on your sorry hide!”
“Oy! Liza! Carve another notch above the bar! Andrew’s dead!”
Someone coughed awake.
“Never mind! Little more life in him yet!”
While most guests were welcomed to the Stormcrow with a warning knife to the throat, Arthur was greeted with smiles and claps on the shoulder.
“Oy! It’s Arthur!”
“Hic! Lend us some timber for this cigar, eh, Arthur?”
“Why aren’t your pants on your legs, boy?”
Clinging tight to the treasure, Arthur wove around the swaying customers to a table by the dead fireplace. He sat next to a man who was upright but fast asleep.
Arthur lightly slapped the man’s cheek. “Oy! Harry! Wake up! It’s an emergency!”
Harry snorted but did not wake. A line of drool trickled down his unshaven chin and onto his sweat-stained shirt. His belly rose and fell, tilting the table up, then down, then up again, sliding three empty steins back and forth with every breath.
Now that Arthur was safe from danger, he needed a moment to collect his thoughts while the color came back to his cheeks. The last hour felt like a fever dream. The strange Manor, the forest room, the spiral hallway. A part of him wondered if it had happened at all. He peeked inside his pant bag at the faint gleam of coins. The treasure was real enough.
“Getcha a sparkling cider, Arthur?”
Arthur quickly shut his pants. “Oh,” he said, blushing and hiding his bare legs under the table. “Hullo, Liza.”
Even though she was only a few years older than Arthur, Liza managed the chaotic Stormcrow Pub, handling the dastardly patrons with her biting wit and the looming fear of her father, the Rook. Like Arthur, Liza had lost her mother at a young age. But neither Arthur nor Liza ever talked about their moms. In this city, it was better to forget about the past and focus on surviving.
Arthur smiled. There was no use causing a stir until he’d formed a rescue plan for Wally. “Tell me, Liza, how do you remain so radiant in such a miserable place?”
Liza smirked and collected Harry’s empty steins. “I wonder if you’d say such flattering things if I weren’t my father’s daughter.”
Arthur winked. “The moon may shine because of the sun’s light, but its beauty is all its own.”
Liza mopped off the table. “And is that cloying quote your own?”
Arthur’s ears grew hot. He’d stolen the line from Garnett Lacroix, and Liza knew it. She was the only person Arthur knew who read more than he did.
“One cider, please,” Arthur said, “spilling over the brim.”
“You know the price,” Liza said.
Arthur’s throat was parched from running halfway across the city and the fear of nearly being impaled by a sword. He considered using a few of the Manor’s strange coins to pay, but if any of the Stormcrow’s customers discovered the treasure he held, it could spell trouble.
Arthur nodded to Harry, who was still asleep. “Put it on the old man’s slate?”
Liza quirked an eyebrow. “Think he’ll actually pay for it?”
Arthur sighed. “Give me five minutes. Then you can bring me a dozen ciders, and a round for everyone in the pub.”
Liza snorted. “That’ll be the day.”
Today was that day, Arthur realized, and a warmth washed over him. He glanced around the Stormcrow at the Black Feathers, who spent their measly earnings to drink and forget their horrible deeds. Arthur would be different. Now that he was rich, he would act the perfect gentleman. He’d show the rest of these lowlifes how it was done.
“Just know I don’t serve anyone in their underwear,” Liza said, peeking under the table at Arthur’s bare legs. She wiggled his ear. “Not even the handsome ones.”
Arthur tried to keep his face from catching fire with embarrassment while Liza stepped behind the bar and picked up her book.
Arthur’s smile deflated. Here he was, living it up while Wally was probably being sacrificed to a demon god. Why was it that whenever Arthur tried to act like the Gentleman Thief, something always got in the way? The Rook. Harry. A kidnapped friend. Life never seemed to work the way it did in Alfred Moore’s books.
“HCK! KOFF! KOFF! KOFF!”
Harry choked on a bit of phlegm and coughed himself awake. He blinked at Arthur and then frowned at the stein-less table before him.
“Harry,” Arthur said, scooting his chair close. “We need to mount a rescue.”
Harry massaged his forehead and squinted at the window. “What time is it?”
“I dunno,” Arthur said. “Eleven bells maybe. Listen—”
“Morning or night?”
Arthur blinked at the dark windows. “Night, of course.”
Harry kicked Arthur’s chair away. “Leave me be.” His eyes drifted shut again as he tilted back in his chair. “Wake me when Liza starts cooking eggs.”
Arthur smirked. “It may be night, but there’s still a golden sunrise.”
He reached into his pants and took out a coin. Harry’s eyes slit open then went wide. He snatched the coin and turned it over, making it flicker in the pub’s sickly light. Arthur had been so busy escaping, he hadn’t had time to get a good look at the coins. One side showed a leafless tree that grew into the heavens. The other side showed the same tree, upside down, growing underground.
Harry hid the coin under the table. “Where’d ya get this?”
“Stole it,” Arthur said.
“I didn’t think ya earned it, son. Where?”
“Nobles,” Arthur said. “On Mulberry Street. But listen, we’ve got bigger problems.”
Arthur told Harry the story of the Manor while Harry stared at the coin, eyes swimming in their sockets.
“So,” Arthur said, “how do we get Wally back?”
Harry shook his head and grumbled. “Shoulda never read you those cursed Garnett Lacrotch books when you was little. Packed your head with nothing but nonsense.”
“It’s Lacroix,” Arthur corrected.
Harry peeked under the table. “You got more?”
“Well, yeah, but—”
Harry pulled the pant bag into his lap, and his face lit up. “Used your pants to carry the lot, did ya?”
“Yes, but—”
“Attaboy!” Harry said, ruffling Arthur’s hair.
Arthur swiped his hand away. “What do we do about Wally?”
Harry sniffed, counting coins.
“If he was thief enough to escape, you’d both be safe in the pub now. You were forced to do the only thing that would get the cash out of that place. No, Arthur, you done right by the Black Feathers.” He gave the coins a jingle and chuckled. “This’ll pay our debts, it will.”
“You mean your debts.”
Harry banged his fist down on the table, his face suddenly red with fury. “Who fed you when you were just a whelp, boy?”
“Dad…” Arthur said.
“Oh, so it’s Dad now, is it?”
Arthur’s mom had died of the Pox when he was eight. His dad’s job at the factory couldn’t feed them both, so Harry had set out to find better work. Once money started rolling in again, Arthur followed his dad to the Stormcrow and discovered that he’d joined a gang. After that, Arthur had done everything in his power to be enlisted into the Black Feathers. He hoped to become just like the Gentleman Thief in the book his mom had given to him from her hospital bed on their last Christmas.
But the Black Feathers didn’t see fathers and sons. They only saw thieves of different rank. So when Arthur showed up at the Stormcrow, he started referring to his dad as Harry. And that had been their relationship ever since.
“Who will join our rescue mission?” Arthur asked. “Murderous Maggie? Dishonest Desmond? Pancake Jack would have to put his leg on … Whoever it is, we’ll knock down the door, nab Cooper, and—”
“That ain’t how the world works, Arthur,” Harry interrupted. “There’s not a soul in this pub what would stick his neck out for some kid who got himself caught. Black Feathers look out for themselves.”
Arthur wanted to argue. Garnett Lacroix always protected his Merry Rogues and split the earnings even. But then again, the Gentleman Thief never had to put up with insubordinates. The Rogues always followed orders with smiles and swagger and a song on their lips.
Wally, on the other hand, had argued with Arthur every step of the heist. Sure, the kid picked a couple of locks and figured out the secret about the door knocker moments before Arthur probably would have. But he’d made everything else more difficult. If Wally hadn’t frozen at the first sight of the spiral hallway, they never would have been caught.
Thieves of Weirdwood Page 3