Thieves of Weirdwood

by Christian McKay Heidicker

  “Okay, Harry,” Arthur said, swallowing his guilt as best he could.

  Harry stood and swayed toward the back of the pub. Arthur followed him to a door painted with a giant rook—wings spread, beak shrieking, talons poised for the attack.

  Arthur licked his fingers and smoothed his eyebrows. He’d never met the Rook before, but everything he’d heard about the Black Feathers’ leader was intimidating. The Rook had arrived in Kingsport a mere five years ago as a weapons dealer. He managed to gain the trust of every gang in the city. And then he’d turned the gangs against one another. Through rumor and coercion alone, the Rook was able to spark the Battle of the Barrows, forcing the gangs to face off until their power dwindled to nothing.

  Once the dust was settled, the weapons dealer collected the surviving members beneath his wing and dubbed them the Black Feathers. The Rook had conquered Kingsport without lifting so much as a brickbat. It was said his tongue was made of sharpened steel.

  Harry knocked, and the door opened, revealing a guard who was nearly as big as the frame. Charlie crossed his thick arms over his chest, making the chain mail beneath his shirt clink. “We’re not giving out no more loans, Harry.”

  “Not asking for none.” Harry gave Arthur’s coins a shake. “Got something shiny for the Rook.”

  Charlie’s expression remained stony and his arms remained folded. “Say it.”

  Harry rolled his eyes. “The Rook is my king, his feathers my nest, et cetera, et cetera, blah blah blah.”

  Charlie sneered at this lack of respect. But the sneer quickly faded in the glow of the coin Harry handed him.

  Charlie narrowed his eyes. “Where’d you get something like this?”

  “Nobles—” Arthur began, but Harry shoved him back.

  “Stole it meself off a traveler,” Harry said. “A duke I think he was.”

  Arthur was too shocked to speak.

  Charlie gestured Harry into the back room. “Kid stays here.”

  Harry nodded. “You heard the man, Arthur. Go flirt with Liza.”

  Arthur puffed out his chest. “I belong in there too. I’m the one who—”

  Harry clamped a hand over Arthur’s mouth and chuckled. “Kids and their fancies, eh?” He gave Arthur’s head a shove. “Go on now, Arthur. Git.”

  Harry turned to enter the office, but Arthur wasn’t about to let his dad steal all the credit. He rolled up his sleeves and marched forward, forcing himself between Harry and Charlie.

  Something struck him hard in the face.

  Arthur stumbled back, catching the blood that gushed from his lip. He looked up and realized Harry had backhanded him. His dad looked as surprised as he was.

  Stools scooted as every eye in the Stormcrow fixed on Arthur. Even Liza’s. Heat flooded his cheeks. This wasn’t a fight between Black Feathers, but a father slapping his disobedient son.

  Harry cleared his throat and, avoiding Arthur’s eyes, thrust a coin in the air. “Next round’s on me!”

  The pub erupted in cheers while Arthur licked the blood from his lip.

  Charlie snatched the coin from Harry’s fingers. “Rook counts it first. Probably need it for your interest anyway.”

  The door slammed in Arthur’s face. He considered pounding as hard as he could, demanding to be seen. But things did not end well for those who interrupted the Rook’s business.

  A cloth dabbed at Arthur’s lip. “He got you good,” Liza said.

  Arthur turned away before she could see the tears in his eyes and stormed out of the pub. He sat on the stoop and held his split lip. The sky was the color of dirty water. A light rain hissed on the cobbles.

  Was Harry about to be promoted to Talon—one of the Rook’s four leaders who reigned over the quarters of Kingsport? The position Arthur earned by stealing those coins and leaving Wally behind? He spit blood into the gutter.

  “I’m tellin’ ya!” someone shouted inside the pub. “It happened right outside! The thing had blue eyes that shined like the devil’s teeth! It kissed my grandmother, and now she’s bedridden! Poor old bird can’t even move!”

  Another man laughed. “Hear that? Trevor’s afraid of a harmless witto dolly! Ha ha ha!”

  A thought tickled the back of Arthur’s mind. Strange. This conversation reminded him of the story where the Gentleman Thief stole a priceless doll with sapphires for eyes …

  The door to the Stormcrow smacked open, giving Arthur a start. He expected to see the man who was afraid of little dollies calling out his accuser to fight him. But instead he found the Rook’s guards dragging Harry into the street.

  “Get yer filthy hands offa me!” Harry screamed.

  Arthur leapt to his feet as one of the guards wrenched Harry’s arm behind his back while the other gagged him with a rope. They marched him toward a horse and cart.

  “Where are you taking him?” Arthur demanded.

  The guards ignored him.

  Desperate, Arthur stepped in front of their horses, heart thudding. “Where are you taking my dad?”

  One of the guards laughed. “Kid’s gonna get himself trampled.”

  “We’re hauling him to our friends up at Greyridge,” the other said. “You’re lucky the boss didn’t choose the cellar.”

  Arthur winced. The Stormcrow’s cellar was where the Rook tortured information out of his gang members. It was said to be full of fingers and skeletons.

  “You can’t take him to Greyridge!” Arthur said. “My dad’s not insane!”

  The other guard chuckled. “Wait till he spends a coupla nights in a cell. Or gets one of them experimental treatments.”

  An icy feeling rushed through Arthur’s chest. He’d heard that the Rook disposed of useless gang members by committing them to Greyridge—volunteering them for experimental treatments and being paid handsomely for it. Arthur had hoped it was just a rumor.

  The guards loaded Harry onto the cart and then climbed atop the driver’s bench.

  “Move, kid,” one of the guards said to Arthur. “I don’t want to have to spray your remains off the cobbles when I get back.”

  He whipped the reins, and Arthur had no choice but to step aside as the horses clopped past. He stood in the hissing rain and watched the cart carry his dad up Paradise Lane.

  Behind him, the Stormcrow door creaked open. Arthur turned. His heart skipped a beat.

  A man stood hunched under the pub’s awning. He wore a feather-lined cloak and scorpion rings on his fingers. His head was entirely hairless. The moment Arthur realized who this man was, he quickly wiped the tears from his cheeks and the blood from his lip.

  The Rook held out Arthur’s pants. “I believe these belong to you?”

  Arthur jerked forward, took his pants, and slipped them on. “Thank you … um, sir.” He tried not to stare, but he couldn’t help but glance at the Rook’s lips, hoping to catch a glimpse of his steel tongue.

  The Rook folded his tattooed hands into his sleeves and considered the falling rain. “It must be odd, having your own father take credit for your efforts.”

  “H-how did you know?” Arthur said.

  The Rook arched an eyebrow.

  “Sorry,” Arthur said. He wasn’t used to his voice shaking.

  From his sleeve, the Rook took out one of the Manor’s coins and turned it over, showing tree, upside-down tree, tree. “It is a strange sight, isn’t it? Tell me where you found it.”

  Arthur searched for the right words. He barely believed the story himself.

  When he didn’t answer, the Rook grinned. “Fair enough. I didn’t get to my position by spilling information about every little pocket of treasure I knew.”

  Arthur stayed quiet, pretending like that’s what he’d intended. The Rook had such a smooth way of speaking it left him almost speechless. Almost.

  “Why did you have Harry committed?” Arthur asked.

  The Rook sighed and slipped the coin back in his feathered sleeve. “I do have sympathy for your father, you know. I’m a single father m
yself.”

  Arthur glanced through the pub’s window at Liza, still reading behind the bar. It was strange to think that the man who ruthlessly conquered every gang in Kingsport had someone he cared about.

  The Rook gestured to the street. “I run the entirety of Kingsport, from the casinos in the Gilded Quarter to the sewers of the Wretch. Do you know how many would like to see me dead? If I show so much as an ounce of weakness, I put both myself and my daughter in danger.”

  Arthur nodded. That made sense.

  “It’s difficult being honorable in this world,” the Rook continued. He stared at Arthur with his yellow eyes. “Perhaps, unlike your father, you can prove that it’s possible to be both a gentleman and a thief.”

  Arthur tried not to let his surprise show. It was like the Rook was reading his mind.

  Arthur looked toward the Gilded Quarter, grayed out by rain. What would the Gentleman Thief do if his father were locked away in a fortress—even if his father was a good-for-nothing lout?

  “I can get more coins,” Arthur said.

  “That will do for your father’s debt,” the Rook said. “But for his freedom, I want information. I’m familiar with every type of currency that flows through Kingsport. But this coin you stole is foreign to me. What did these people wear? What is their business in my city? I want to know everything you can tell me about these … nobles.”

  “I can do that.”

  The Rook flashed his teeth, and Arthur finally saw his tongue. It wasn’t made of steel but tattooed with swirling black shapes. Like spiderwebs. Arthur looked away and gazed up Paradise Lane. The wagon carrying Harry had shrunk to a speck in the night.

  “Don’t worry, Arthur,” the Rook said. “I’ll make sure Harry is comfortable in Greyridge. Though I would hurry if I were you. The doctors are always eager for more subjects for their experiments.”

  Arthur’s stomach dropped into his shoes.

  The Rook held out his ringed hand. “Say it.”

  Arthur swallowed and knelt. “The Rook is my king, his feathers my nest. I am encompassed in the black of his eye and protected in the claws of his talons. I will serve him as the earth serves the sun, as the worm serves the rook.”

  4

  THE GIRL WITHOUT SHAPE

  Wally lay in a tower room, wrists bound to his ankles, cursing himself for trusting Arthur Benton. Arthur may have thought of himself as a Gentleman Thief, but Wally had never met anyone less gentlemanly. And Arthur wasn’t even a good thief, always relying on others to help him get to the treasure. Wally was determined to tell him so when he managed to escape this creepy old Manor.

  But first, Wally had to find a way to escape his own rope belt.

  The wind blew and the tower swayed, masking Wally’s grunts as he loosened the rope. When he was younger, Graham had made a habit of tying him up whenever their parents were at work, promising Wally that he’d be grateful someday. Wally had spent hours escaping all kinds of binds—rope, fishing line, potato sacks—learning to flex his muscles when his brother tied the knot so that the binds fell slack when he relaxed. After that, it was just a matter of removing his shoes and wriggling free.

  Wally had despised his brother for every excruciating second. But now …

  “Thank you, Graham,” he said to himself as his hands slid out of the rope.

  He studied the room while untying his ankles. Curtains of moss swayed over two windows that each looked out over a different moon.

  Wally’s heart skipped a beat.

  No. Not two moons. Across from the window was a self-standing mirror reflecting the moon.

  The high tower room was dark so Wally grabbed hold of the mirror and tilted it, beaming moonlight onto the walls. There was no door.

  “What the—?”

  The door had been there when the robed man had dumped him inside. But it seemed to have vanished the moment it slammed shut.

  “That’s impossible.”

  Wally abandoned the mirror and peered out the window. The night was bright and misty. From this high vantage point, he could see the entire layout of the Manor. Its four wings made an X shape, a bulbous roof crowning the center. How all of this could possibly fit inside Hazelrigg was something he could think about after he’d escaped.

  He scanned the Manor’s layout, just as he’d done whenever robbing the homes in the Gilded Quarter. It wouldn’t be too difficult to find the exit—so long as he could escape this tower first.

  Wally turned away from the window and froze when he saw the door.

  He rubbed his eyes, wondering how he hadn’t seen it before. Then he realized he was looking at the mirror, this time from a different angle. It reflected a door that didn’t appear on the wall. By shifting his position, Wally had discovered a hidden exit.

  “Just an optical illusion,” Wally muttered, trying to comfort himself with Arthur’s words.

  Keeping an eye on the reflection, he felt along the wall until he clasped the handle of the invisible door. It was locked, and the robed man had taken his pick set. But in the reflection, Wally noticed the door’s hinges were located on the inside. He removed his shoe and, watching the mirror, carefully knocked out the pins holding the hinges together.

  The door fell inward, and Wally set it aside.

  “Amateurs,” he said.

  Even though he was free, he didn’t feel much safer. He had told Arthur he hadn’t wanted to travel deeper into the creepy Manor, but that was exactly where the robed man had brought him: through a room wallpapered with leaves, down a hallway made of bark, up the twisted staircase of a hollow tree, and finally here, to this tower room.

  Now Wally just had to retrace the man’s steps without getting caught. He quietly worked his way down the staircase. At the bottom, he opened a door onto a hallway flickering with candlelight. The walls were made of green sandalwood and smelled of rose oil. The floor was a bed of roots. Several more hallways opened on either side, and Wally was uncertain which way led back to the spiral passage.

  A creak made Wally spin around. There was no one there. He had the eerie sensation that the walls were watching him. But walls couldn’t watch. He’d just spent too much time around Arthur, who talked about thinking houses and envious dresses.

  Halfway down the hall, Wally found a passage that looked different from the others. Its walls were a verdant green and curved sharply to the right. Hugging one side, he walked around it … and ended up right back where he’d begun.

  “Why would they build a hall that doesn’t go anywhere?”

  Unless, he thought, they’re hiding treasure.

  If Wally made it out of this place alive, he’d want this disastrous heist to have been worth something. He didn’t trust Arthur to divvy up the coins they’d stolen together.

  Again, Wally ventured down the coiled hallway, feeling along the wall for hidden compartments that might hold treasure or a secret doorway. Halfway around, he tripped on a root and stepped out into the middle of the rug. The walls made a stretching sound as the floor seemed to shift beneath his feet, sliding toward the spot where he’d stepped.

  Instead of leaping back to the wall, Wally decided to try something.

  He tried the hall again, this time crossing to the other side. The moment he did, the floor began to straighten. Once it curled to the right, he strayed left to bend it back the other way. On his first two trips around, he’d kept to one side, so the hallway had remained coiled in that direction. But by wobbling back and forth, he was able to make it unfurl into a straight line. Like a sprout in spring.

  “Ha!” Wally opened the door at the end in triumph. “Whoa.”

  He was in a small garden. Only instead of green leaves and colorful flowers, the plants sparkled silver. Wally plucked the largest rose he could find and twirled it. It was more awkward than carrying coins, but if the silver was real, it could pay off part of the hospital bill and Wally’s Black Feathers tribute. Wally could keep his fingers, and Graham could keep his head.

  Wally
would celebrate once he found his way out of this place.

  He returned to the sandalwood hallway and found another passage. This one had walls of scarlet and was hung with hundreds of portraits: an aristocratic goblin, an owl with glasses reading an upside-down book, a slug wearing a suit of armor. Wally might have laughed if it wasn’t all so strange.

  This hallway was as crooked as a winter branch and stretched on and on, ending at a door in the distance. He walked down it quickly, stealing glances over his shoulder. He couldn’t shake the sense that he was being followed. Maybe it was the creaky wooden floors. Maybe it was the eyes of the paintings. Or maybe …

  “Just break the news to mother.

  She knows how dear I love her.

  And tell her not to wait for me

  for I’m not coming home.”

  Wally’s breath stopped short. He slowly turned around. The hall was empty. He wiggled a finger in his ear, certain he’d heard singing. He took careful backward steps as the singing continued.

  “Just say there is no other

  can take the place of mother.

  Then kiss her dear, sweet lips for me,

  and break the news to her.”

  Wally stopped. The voice sounded like a young girl. Only … shinier.

  “Hello?” he whispered.

  The singing stopped. The hall stretched, silent and scarlet. The portraits stared.

  “Who’s there?” he whispered. “Who’s singing?”

  The voice gasped as bright as a coin striking concrete. “Can you … hear me?”

  Wally frantically searched the hallway.

  “Well?” the girl asked with building excitement. “Can you?”

  He was having difficulty catching his breath. “Of course I can hear you.”

  “That’s amazing!” The girl’s voice shined so brightly, Wally had to plug his ears. “No one’s been able to hear me in—months? Years? Augh!” She screamed and it turned into a giggle. “Time gets kinda slippery when you have no one to talk to.”

  Wally searched the hallway, eyes wide. “Where are you?”

  “In your pocket!”