Dance of Thieves

by Mary E. Pearson

“Save some for me. We’re almost out.”

  Another voice.

  “More comes in the morning.”

  “Morning is not now.”

  And still another voice.

  “It will be a shame when this party is all over.”

  “This party won’t end. Thanks to the Ballengers, our riches will only become greater.”

  Laughter erupted.

  “The Great Battle will look like a spring picnic.”

  “Soon all the kingdoms will be under our thumb. We’ll say jump, and they’ll ask how high.”

  “Especially that bitch in Venda.”

  “She’ll be in for a surprise when she arrives, and it won’t be a royal welcome.”

  “She’ll finally get what’s coming to her.”

  “A noose.”

  There was a murmur of agreement.

  “I still don’t like that he took our only working weapon.”

  “Within a week, we’ll have an arsenal. One small weapon won’t matter. He’s probably already used up all the loads practicing on trees.”

  There was a hearty round of guffaws.

  A noose? An arsenal of weapons?

  “I’m going to need more supplies.”

  “No worries. The Ballengers are generous. They’ll give us more. They’re as eager for this as we are.”

  More laughter.

  Eager for what? What were Jase and his family planning? All the kingdoms under their thumbs? Was inviting the queen here only a trap?

  “To the Ballengers, our generous patrons.”

  I heard the clink of glasses lifted in a toast, a chuckle, and then a long unapologetic belch, followed by a stumble, a curse, and a wail as a shin or knee met an immovable object. I used that moment to peek around the pillar.

  It was the first thing I saw—a clear view of a moon-shaped scar on a wide forehead. My attention jumped to a deep cleft in a stubbled chin, and the man who wore both so infamously had white hair. It wasn’t Erdsaff but Captain Illarion.

  Jase’s manipulations piled on. He had fed me one lie after another.

  Then the captain and two other men I didn’t recognize stepped aside and my throat went dry.

  Sitting on a divan behind them was Governor Sarva of Balwood. He was the one who had led the attack against the clans in Blackstone Square. After the Great Battle, all that was found of him was part of his charred breastplate with the Balwood insignia. He was believed dead. Sitting beside him was Chievdar Kardos, swigging back a mug of ale, another member of the Komizar’s Council who was unaccounted for but believed dead. And seated at a table near them, picking at meat on a trencher and licking his fingers, was Bahr, one of the Sanctum guards in the clan attack—

  I pushed back behind the pillar, pressing against it.

  How would I tell Synové?

  Everything had just gotten more complicated. These men were as vile as the captain, maybe worse, hated criminals of Venda. My mind whirled. Jase was harboring them all. A sour taste swelled on my tongue. This beast will turn and kill you. Now we had many beasts.

  Take them all back? We had to. But was that even possible?

  Maybe, I thought. Maybe there was one way.

  I was going to need a hay wagon.

  * * *

  When we were safely back in the kitchen at Darkcottage, I told them.

  “Yes, the captain’s there. It was him with the white hair just as I thought.”

  Wren blew out a long slow breath. We had done it. We had finally found him.

  “But that’s not all,” I added cautiously. “There are five others.” I looked at Synové and pressed her shoulders against the wall, trying to stave off her reaction. “One of them is Bahr.”

  Synové shook her head. “But he’s dead. In the battle. He—”

  “No,” I said.

  Her mouth opened, and I clapped my hand over it before she could scream. Muffled noises leaked between my fingers. Wren helped me hold her back, both of us using all our weight to keep her pinned in place. Tears streamed down her cheeks.

  “We’ll take him back,” I whispered, “just like the others.”

  She moaned a violent muffled objection.

  “He will pay,” Wren promised. “But he goes back to face justice, like the queen wanted. The long ride will be the best torture we could inflict.” The chievdar who had killed Wren’s parents had died in battle, but her lip trembled and her eyes brimmed with tears too, knowing Synové’s pain as her own.

  We stayed in our tense knot, holding back and holding on, Synové’s heaving breaths the only sounds in the room. Her shoulders finally went limp beneath our hands. Her breathing calmed, and she nodded, resigned to her vows and duty.

  Evening was quickly falling, and we returned to the main house with our plan still forming, my hands still salty with Synové’s tears. We were just inside the door when I heard the dogs loosed.

  My legs ached as I walked the final steps back to my room, as if every bit of strength had finally been wrung from them. I was already raw with pain of my own, and Synové’s agony had only deepened it.

  I dreaded dinner tonight. I dreaded seeing Jase. How could I pretend I didn’t know?

  How could he have hidden all this from me? Doors guarded by poisonous dogs that he claimed led nowhere? An invitation to the queen that was really a trap? A groundsman who was really a murderous fugitive? Weapons to dominate all the kingdoms?

  His little enclave was a dragon’s dark den.

  Fool me once, Jase.

  My thoughts jumped, my own words taunting me. The thing about a mark is they’ve created lies in their head, a story they’ve invented that they desperately want to believe, a fantasy that merely needs to be fed.

  But this time it was I who had been that round-mouthed fish breaking the surface of the water, following crumb after crumb, swallowing each one whole.

  I was the mark, the witless dupe of my own game.

  And Jase had played me expertly.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  KAZI

  “Where have you been, Kazi?”

  I gasped, whirling toward the voice.

  Jase sat in the chair in the corner of my room. In the dark.

  “Here, let me.” He reached out and turned the wheel on the bedside lantern just until I could see him, the rest of the room still cast in shadows.

  His face and voice were frighteningly void of any expression. “You didn’t answer me,” he said. “I’ve been waiting quite a while. Where have you been?”

  You’ll have to smooth it over with him.

  Apologize.

  Juggle, Kazi. Juggle as you always do.

  “None of your business,” I answered. “Get out.”

  I had no juggling left in me. Not in this moment. Not for him.

  His expression barely flinched. Just the slightest lift of his chin. Cold. Detached.

  He stood.

  “I think I see the problem here. I didn’t address you properly. I apologize. I should have called you Ten.”

  He took a step closer, his shoulders pulled back. He knew. My stomach squeezed. “I—”

  “Don’t,” he warned, his gaze as sharp as a razor, his cool veneer vanished. “Don’t even try to deny it. It’s all obvious now, palming the keys, my ring, disappearing right beneath our noses, the girl at the settlement calling you Ten and you shutting her up.” His nostrils flared. “It’s ironic, don’t you think, all that self-righteous indignation you flung at me when we were in the wilderness because I was a thieving Ballenger. I should be laughing, shouldn’t I?”

  He strained to keep his fury in check, but even in the dim light I saw his temples burning with fire. “And then today?” He stroked the bruise on his jaw where I had struck him. “In front of everyone at the arena, you screamed and lectured me on the Previzi, when you were nothing but a common thief yourself! Is that why you hate them so much, because they remind you of you?”

  My hands trembled. I swallowed, trying to maintain control
. “Get out of my room, Jase, before I hurt you.”

  He stepped toward me. “I expect an answer, dammit!”

  “You mean you demand it, Patrei, don’t you?” I spit back at him. “Because you get whatever you want! You take whatever you want! You do whatever you want!”

  His eyes sparked, dissecting me, judging, blazing. The bruise on the side of his face was an angry purple. “I’m not leaving,” he growled. “Not until I get an answer.”

  My nails dug into my palms.

  He didn’t blink. He would wait here until morning if he had to, fueling his own self-righteousness. My own rage suddenly tipped beyond a point I recognized, seams coming loose, ripping, popping, everything tearing free. “All right, Jase,” I yelled, “here’s your answer! Yes, I was a thief! But don’t you dare call me a common one!”

  I flung my hands up in front of me. “Look at my fingers, Jase! Take a good long look at every single one, because I’m not missing any. That’s how I got my name! And I’m proud of it! In Venda, before the queen came, the Komizar’s punishment for stealing was cutting off a fingertip—even if you were a child! Even if you only stole a handful of bread!

  “I was alone on the streets from the time I was six. Completely on my own. No one cared if I lived or died. Can you imagine that, Jase? I didn’t grow up like you.” I heard my voice getting louder, more heated, more poisonous, more out of control. I didn’t pace, didn’t move. I was a stone rooted to the floor. “I stole to survive! I had no family. No dining room table to sit at and pass pretty dishes. No carpets under my feet or chandeliers over my head. No servant to bring me food. No parties in the garden. I had to scavenge for every rotten mouthful I ever ate. I had no coats made by tailors. I wore rags upon rags to stay warm in winter. I lived in a hovel carved out of fallen ruins. No heat! No hot baths! No soap! If I did bathe at all, it was in icy water in the public washbasins. Sometimes I cut my hair off with a knife, because it was so infested with vermin I couldn’t feel my own scalp!”

  I stepped over to his bookshelf and swiped an armful of books to the floor. “And I had no tutors, no books, no pens or paper! If it couldn’t be eaten, it had no use for me. My whole life revolved around my next meal and how to get it. I lived on the edge of death every day of my life until I became good at thieving, and I won’t apologize for it!”

  His face had changed, the hardness gone, probably trying to imagine the filthy urchin I had once been. “What about your parents?” he asked.

  The poison racing through me pooled to ice in my veins. I shook my head. “I never knew my father. I don’t know if he’s alive, dead, or the emperor of the moon! I don’t care!”

  I looked down. I knew what was coming next. The thing that always hung between us. Every other question was hinged to this one, a thousand doors opening a single doorway.

  “And your mother? What happened to her?”

  I had never told anyone. Shame and fear perched in my gut, ready to spring. My jaws ached, the words wedged behind them. I turned away and walked toward the door.

  “Fine!” he yelled. “Run away! Shut yourself off like you always do! Go live in whatever prison you’ve created for yourself!”

  I stopped at the door, shaking with rage. The prison that I created? A furious cloud swirled in my vision. I whipped back to face him, and his eyes latched onto mine.

  “Tell me, Kazi.”

  Clamminess crept over my skin, and I leaned against the door to steady myself. I felt some part of me splitting in two, one part still cowering, the other watching from a thousand miles away like an uncertain observer. “I was six when my mother was taken,” I said. “It was the middle of the night, and we were lying together on a raised pallet in our hovel. I was asleep when I felt her finger on my lips and heard her whisper. Shhh, Kazi, don’t say a word. Those were the last words she ever said to me. She shoved me to the floor to hide me beneath the bed. And then—”

  I looked up at the ceiling, my eyes stinging.

  “And then what, Kazi?”

  My shoulders twitched, everything inside me shrinking, resisting. “I watched. From beneath the bed, I watched a man come into our home. We had no weapons, only a stick propped in the corner. My mother tried to get to it. She didn’t make it in time. I wanted to run to her, but we had signals, and she signaled me to be quiet and not move. So I didn’t. I just lay there cowering beneath the bed while the man drugged my mother and carried her away. He said he’d get a good price for her. She was merchandise. He wanted me too, but couldn’t find me. Come out, girl, he yelled, but I didn’t move. My mother lied and told him I wasn’t there.”

  My vision blurred and Jase grew fuzzy. “I lay in my own waste for two days under that bed, shaking, crying, too afraid to move. I was terrified he’d come back. He didn’t. Neither did she. It took me years to learn how to sleep on top of a bed again. You asked me why an open world frightens me, Jase? Because it gives me nowhere to hide. That’s been my prison for eleven years, but trust me, I didn’t create it.”

  I blinked, clearing my eyes, and I saw the dawning in his face. “Eleven years. That’s why you wanted to know how long—”

  “That’s right, Jase. He was a Previzi driver. While I was starving and freezing and thieving on the streets of Venda, and my mother ended up the gods know where, you were providing him with a warm, safe home. How wonderful for him.”

  “That was eleven years ago. How can you be sure he was even Previzi? Your memory—”

  “Don’t! Don’t you dare question my memory!” I growled. “I’m good at details, and I’ve had to live with those every day since I was six! Some days, I’ve prayed to the gods that I could forget! He drove in on a wagon that morning—four black stripes on his tarp!”

  Jase was well aware that was a distinguishing mark of the Previzi.

  “You were six years old! It was the middle of the night! It might not have even been the same man! He might—”

  “He was tall, Jase—like you! But thin, bony. He had dead white skin and long strands of greasy black hair. His eyes were shiny beads of onyx. You know the new cook’s husband? Except for the eyes, he looked remarkably like him. I’m guessing he’s about thirty-five by now. And his hands—as he forced drugs down my mother’s throat, I saw the dark hair on his knuckles and a large mole on his right wrist! How’s that for details?”

  He didn’t answer, as if he was already digging through eleven years of memories.

  “You may have been a child eleven years ago too, but you know them all by now,” I said. “Is there a driver who fits that description?”

  “No!” he shouted, throwing his hands in the air. He turned away and paced the room. “There are no drivers like that!”

  “How can—”

  There was a tap at the door.

  I turned, swallowing my next words. We both stared at the door. Another light tap. I crossed the room and opened it.

  Lydia and Nash stood side-by-side, their eyes wide and worried.

  “Nash. Lydia.” I didn’t know what else to say.

  “Were you two fighting?” Nash asked. His voice was small, delicate, and it stabbed me with its innocence. I stared into his frightened eyes. He looked like he had been punched in the stomach. I hated how easily innocence could be robbed—how quickly a child could go from plucking wish stalks at a pond’s edge to clutching stolen bread beneath a coat.

  I knelt so we were eye to eye. “No, of course not.” I forced a smile. “Just a loud discussion.”

  “But … you were crying.” Lydia reached out and wiped under my eye.

  “Oh, that.” I quickly swiped my hands over my cheeks. “Only dust in my eyes from a long, galloping ride,” I said. “But what’s this?” I reached behind both of their ears and frowned. “Did you two forget to wash today?”

  They grinned with wonder as I pulled a coin from behind each of their ears and clucked with feigned dismay. I tucked the coins into their palms.

  “What did you two want?” Jase asked.

&
nbsp; “Mama wants Kazi to come down for supper early so she can talk about food.”

  “The kind the queen likes!” Lydia added.

  Jase told them we’d be down shortly. I watched them race along the hallway, laughing, forgetting about the shouting they’d heard, the tears they saw, and I wished all memories could be erased so easily.

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  JASE

  Nash swirled his creamed squash into three green circles. I looked at his small fingers gripping his spoon, playing with his food the same way I had when I was six. Lydia arranged the pieces of meat that Mother had cut for her into a sunburst around her plate.

  I was on the streets from the time I was six.

  I couldn’t imagine either Nash or Lydia fending for themselves. I couldn’t imagine them being all alone and the terror they would feel. I couldn’t imagine that they would survive at all.

  Look at my fingers, Jase! Take a good long look.

  An image of Kazi’s long beautiful fingers with missing tips kept seeping through my mind. Why didn’t she tell me before? All the times in the wilderness when I had asked—

  I didn’t grow up like you.

  I had never seen a single tear in Kazi’s eye. Not when she ran across burning sands that blistered her feet. Not when a labor hunter hit her across her face. Not when a raider nearly choked the life from her. But this, a memory eleven years old, made her unravel. I watched her struggle to hold it back, like she was trying to dissect her feelings from the facts.

  But when Lydia and Nash came to the door, she steeled herself and became someone else. How do you do that? I had asked as we walked to dinner, How do you go from anguish to pulling coins out from behind ears?

  It’s an acquired skill, Jase. Something all thieves learn.

  I heard the sarcasm in her reply. I knew what she thought I had meant, that even her tears had been a shallow act. It was just the opposite. I watched her sacrifice part of herself for their sakes, like hiding a bleeding limb behind her back and pretending she wasn’t in pain.

  “Jase, you’re picking at your food,” Priya said, waving her fork at me. “You’re not hungry?”