The Shadow Thieves

by Alexandra Ott

  “I’m going to remember you said that.”

  We’ve reached the apartment building. Ronan leads the way up the stairs and unlocks the door.

  We rush into the warm apartment and are instantly assailed with scents of cooking—meat and broccoli, probably a stew. Mari stands in the kitchen. She promised to cook today; I almost forgot. “How’s it going?” she calls.

  Ronan sets the grocery sack on the kitchen table and strips off his gloves. “Alli was just trying to distract me from talking about where she might like to apprentice.”

  “Oh? Did you have any ideas yet?” she asks.

  I slowly unwind my scarf, which has been attempting to strangle me for the last five minutes. “Nothing in particular,” I say. I glance around for a distraction. “So what’s for dinner?”

  “Beef stew,” Mari says. “Hope you like it.”

  “I’m sure I will,” I say.

  Mari raises her eyebrows. “Did you murder someone today?”

  “Whatever gave you that idea?”

  “The flattery,” she says dryly.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  “Did you two discuss tutoring?” she asks, glancing at Ronan.

  I freeze. “What tutoring?”

  Ronan and Mari are looking at each other in that annoying way adults do, where they’re clearly communicating something about me. And that something is never good.

  Ronan hangs his coat up on the peg in front of the fireplace. He runs a hand through his hair, ruffling it even more. “Let’s sit down,” he says to me.

  “Probably a good idea,” I mutter. I have a feeling this conversation isn’t going to go well.

  I sit on the sofa and start unlacing my boots, casting glances at him out of the corner of my eye. He moves a stack of papers from his armchair and sinks onto the cushion.

  “I was thinking,” he says slowly, “that to prepare you for an apprenticeship, you should start being tutored.”

  He must be joking. Only rich kids can afford tutoring, and Ronan clearly isn’t rich. Besides, while the Sisters tried to teach us some basic subjects at the orphanage, I wasn’t exactly the best student. Or the best behaved. A tutor wouldn’t know what to do with me.

  “Master Avinoch, the lawyer I’m apprenticed to, generously provides a tutor for the children of all his employees. When he heard that you were coming to stay with me, he offered to let you join the class. It’s not exactly nobility-level tutoring, but it will help prepare you for an apprenticeship.”

  “Um,” I say. “I don’t think that’s a great idea.”

  “Why not?”

  “I—I tend to get in trouble a lot when it comes to tutoring.”

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “All of the kinds.”

  Ronan clearly doesn’t get it. “I’m sure you’ll do fine. It’s nothing to be nervous about.”

  “That’s not the problem.” I carefully slide my right boot off, not daring to look at him.

  Ronan rubs his eyes. I look back at my remaining boot. “I don’t get it, Alli,” he says as I give my laces a sharp tug. “What’s wrong?”

  “No, you don’t get it,” I say. It comes out harsher than I meant, and Ronan’s head jerks back in surprise.

  Still, he keeps his tone even. “Why don’t you want to talk about this?” His calm is kind of infuriating.

  My voice rises. “Because I don’t.”

  “Alli. I know you can handle tutoring. You’re such a smart kid. There’s so much you could do, if you’d take an interest in your future.”

  Right. The future I’d better prepare for, because I’ll be on my own. I spin around to face him. “How do you know?” My voice rises again, louder and higher. “How do you know what I’m like?”

  A thud sounds in the kitchen. Mari, listening in, has dropped something.

  Ronan is taken aback, his eyes widening. “I know you’re not a bad kid, Alli. I just want to know why—”

  The alarm bells ring in my brain, but they’re too late. The anger is already here. “How do you know that? You think you know me just because you’ve read my stupid file?”

  “Alli—”

  “I know what you think. You think I’m just some pitiful little orphan girl who never had a chance, and if you’re just nice enough, maybe I’ll magically become a good person. You want to know the truth? I am a bad kid. I’m so bad that I was adopted twice before, and both times they hated me so much, they let me run away and never took me back. Did they tell you that in your precious file?”

  I don’t wait to hear what he says. I push away from the sofa and stomp out of the room.

  Except I’m still wearing only one boot, so it’s a bit undignified.

  Oh well. I slam the bedroom door harder to make up for it.

  In the safety of my bedroom—no, Ronan’s second bedroom, which I am borrowing—I fling off the offending boot and sink to the floor, my back pressed against the door.

  The hum of voices starts almost immediately. Low at first, then louder, and louder still. They’re arguing.

  Great. Now I’ve ruined his relationship, as well as everything else. I’m completely destroying his life.

  I look around the room, which is now filled with all the things Mari and I bought. God, why did I ever think it was a good idea to buy all this stuff? All the clothes and the shoes and the stupid coats? He’s only an apprentice, one who might be about to lose his job. And now I’ve given him an even bigger financial burden. No wonder he wants to get rid of me as soon as possible.

  Somehow I ruined this before it ever even began.

  I turn onto my side, pressing my ear against the crack in the door, but I can’t make out what they’re saying. Probably debating how to get rid of me.

  I stand and walk over to the wardrobe, its expensive oak doors taunting, and start pulling clothes out. Most of this stuff hasn’t been worn yet. I can sell it and get some of the money back. Pay him most of what I owe. Then at least I won’t be leaving him in debt when he sends me away.

  Somewhere a door slams. Mari leaving, probably. After a minute, footsteps thud in the hall. I hold my breath, willing him not to open the door. Not to tell me what I already know. Not yet.

  The footsteps move on, past my room and into his. The door clicks shut.

  I spend about an hour folding the clothing back into the shopping bags they came in, making it look like they never even came out. Then I line the bags up neatly in the bottom of the wardrobe, so they’ll stay folded and won’t get wrinkly.

  By the end of this process, my stomach is rumbling. The smell of the stew we never ate drifts down the hall and into my room, beckoning me.

  Well, if no one else is going to eat it . . .

  I crack my door open and peek down the hall. Ronan’s door is still closed. The apartment is silent.

  I tiptoe into the kitchen, where the table is still set for three. The empty dishes glare accusingly at me. Another perfect little family dinner, ruined.

  I snatch up my bowl, glaring right back at it, and spoon in a healthy serving of stew from the pot on the stove. I have no idea whether Mari was finished with her recipe or not, but it tastes just fine to me. More broccoli than I’d like, but I can’t complain. I’ve had way, way worse. Especially in that place I don’t think about, with the boy I definitely don’t think about.

  Not wanting to linger in here, I eat the stew so fast that it scalds my tongue. Ronan might have the same idea I did and emerge any minute. And what would I say to him then? Sorry I’m a terrible person, but please don’t send me away?

  I scrape the bowl clean and set it in the sink. I’d wash it, but Ronan would hear the water. Better just to get out of the kitchen quick—

  Something bangs on the front door, and I jump. Probably Mari. I should run back to my room—

  But Mari has a key. She wouldn’t—

  Knock. Quieter this time. Hesitant.

  I tiptoe across the living room, holding my breath as
if whoever’s out there could hear me. Should I open it? Maybe it’s a thief or something. . . . The thought almost makes me laugh. I’ve had more than enough experience dealing with thieves.

  It’s probably just a friend of Ronan’s, or someone from his office. Or maybe Mari forgot her key and came back to apologize about the fight. Either way, I don’t really want to open the door. I don’t want to talk to anyone.

  But my curiosity has gotten the better of me. I could crack it open, just for a second, find out who it is, tell them Ronan’s not here . . .

  I lift the latch. Take a deep breath. Pull the door open.

  And gasp.

  It is a thief.

  Beck Reigler is standing on my brother’s doorstep.

  Chapter Four

  Oh my God,” I say.

  Beck stares at me, his eyes wide, as if he’s seeing a ghost. In fairness, I was dying the last time he saw me. But he should know that I didn’t die, because he’s the one who saved my life.

  He’s taller than before, I think. His hair has grown out again, curling down around the top of his neck. But his eyes are just as warm as they’ve ever been.

  It’s really him.

  “Hey,” he says quietly.

  I try to collect my scrambling thoughts. “What are you doing here?”

  “I—” He pauses. “I need to talk to you.”

  “You need. To talk. To me,” I repeat slowly, as if the words will make more sense. “All this time, all these months, I don’t hear a single thing from you, but now all of a sudden you come all this way and show up on my doorstep because you need to talk to me?”

  “Well, I couldn’t exactly contact you before, or the protectors would’ve caught me. Besides, this is . . . this is important.”

  I glance behind me, making sure Ronan hasn’t heard anything. Lucky his room is in the back— Oh God. Mari. She’s next door.

  I turn back to Beck. “You can’t be here!”

  His eyes fall to the floor. “I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bother you. I know you’re with your brother and everything now. But I need your help, and I didn’t know where else to go—”

  “Shh,” I say. “It’s not safe to talk out here.” I point in the direction of Mari’s door and mouth the word “protector.”

  Beck curses and glances around the hall. “Come with me. I have a place we can talk.”

  I hesitate. I don’t know how to feel about him being here. I don’t know what to think.

  “Alli,” he whispers. “I think your brother is in danger.”

  The wild swirl of thoughts in my head slams to a stop. “What?”

  He glances at Mari’s door again. “Come with me and I can explain.”

  I look back at the dark apartment, where Ronan still hasn’t emerged from his room. What if he comes out and notices I’m gone?

  “Please,” Beck whispers. “I have to warn you.”

  I might not know how to feel about Beck right now, but I do know that he wouldn’t lie about danger if there wasn’t any. “All right,” I say finally. “Just give me one second.”

  I dash back into the living room and run toward the fireplace. Ronan’s coat is still hanging there, and I dig around in his pockets until I find his keys. Wouldn’t want to get locked out. Then I throw the coat over my shoulders, since my own is still in my room and I don’t want to take the time to grab it. My spare boots are by the fire, so I throw those on too.

  A creak echoes down the hallway, and I freeze. If Ronan walks in right now, he’ll see me holding his keys, the front door standing open, with a thief on the doorstep. But it isn’t Ronan. There’s nothing but silence. I tiptoe back across the room as fast as I dare, step outside, and lock the door behind me.

  Silently we sneak past Mari’s apartment, then dash down the stairs and out of the building. Beck leads the way across the street. “Where are we going?” I whisper.

  “You’ll see,” Beck says, which isn’t an answer at all.

  It’s a cloudless night, the moon and stars providing a little illumination in addition to the streetlamps on the corners, but long stretches of the road are still shadowed. I stumble through the dark, rushing to keep up with Beck, who’s running like we have a dozen protectors chasing us. “What’s the rush?” I say as he rounds the corner and speeds up again.

  “We need to get out of the open,” he says, glancing over his shoulder at the darkened street behind us. “They could be watching.”

  “Um, okay, that doesn’t sound ominous at all.” But Beck doesn’t elaborate, just keeps running up the street.

  We pass the park on the corner and head a block north, where Beck stops in front of a long row of identical brick houses. I don’t exactly see a decent thief hideout anywhere, but Beck is scanning the tops of the trees behind the houses like he’s trying to find something.

  “What are we looking for?” I whisper.

  Beck points. “That.”

  I follow his gaze and spot it: a long pale object that rises out of the woods on a distant hill, so tiny that I never noticed it before. It’s thin and white, almost like . . . “Is that a steeple?”

  “Yep.”

  “What’s a church doing in the middle of the woods?”

  “You’ll see.”

  “Stop saying that.”

  Beck slips quietly between two houses, heading for the hill.

  “There’s no path to get up there,” I protest.

  Beck fakes a gasp. “Oh, the horror.”

  “Shut up.” As we trudge up the hill, I add, “You know, that’s a weird thing about Ruhia. You have all these little sidewalks everywhere. Azeland mostly doesn’t bother with them.”

  “It’s not weird. It’s called organization.”

  I roll my eyes, even though he can’t see me in the dark. “Being that organized is weird.”

  “Spoken like a true Azelander.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Have you seen your city? I mean, given the way your streets twist around all the time, I’d think no one in the whole town knows what a straight line is. And none of your buildings match.”

  We’ve reached the denser swath of the woods, and I have to shove aside a tree limb before I can answer. “Buildings aren’t supposed to match. Different buildings are for different purposes, so why would they all look the same?”

  Beck just shakes his head hopelessly at me. “And here I was hoping you’d have turned into a true Ruhian by now.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I mean, haven’t you noticed how cold it gets here? It’s not even midwinter yet and I have to wear all these stupid scarves and things. How do Ruhians stand this every year?”

  Beck’s not even wearing a coat. And he’s been outside for who knows how long. I open my mouth to tease him about his ridiculous Ruhian tolerance for cold, but I stop. I don’t actually know what’s going on or if Beck had to flee the Guild in a hurry. Maybe his lack of a coat isn’t by choice. And here I am complaining about wearing warm clothes.

  Brown leaves and twigs crunch under our feet as we hike deeper into the woods. The trees look a little lonely, all bare and wispy. The farther uphill we go, the denser the trees and underbrush get, until we have to start pushing branches out of the way and avoiding the thickest bushes.

  A bird flies overhead, rustling the branches. It’s eerily quiet in here, like the entire city surrounding us has disappeared. There’s nothing but dead leaves and bare trees and prickly brush, all of it casting strange shadows in the near-dark.

  Now that we’re almost to the top of the slope, the steeple isn’t visible anymore, what with the darkness and all the trees blocking the view. But as long as we keep moving in the same direction, we should be walking right to it. It seems like there should be a path or something, if there really is a church up here. Maybe a path used to exist, but if so, it’s been completely overgrown, like the forest just swallowed it up. The thought makes me shiver.

  “It’s kind of creepy up here,” Beck says, ec
hoing my thoughts.

  Finally, after we’ve been scratched and tripped by a million branches, the trees start to thin again, and we stumble into a clearing. There, a few feet away, is the church.

  It’s smaller than I expected. More of a chapel, really, with a tiny arched doorway in the front and the single steeple in the back. Unlike most of the buildings in Ruhia, it seems to be made of some kind of white stone instead of brick, but the color is fading and patchy, much of the stone chipped away in places. The dead winter grass grows up high around it, the woods reclaiming the chapel for its own.

  “Is it totally abandoned?” I whisper.

  “Seems to be.” Beck leads the way across the clearing. “I checked it out earlier today, and it doesn’t look like anyone’s been here in ages.”

  He seems to be right about that. But I approach tentatively, not sure what we’re going to find inside. We might not be the only ones who know about this chapel’s existence. It’s these kinds of places—the ones that the rest of the world forgot about—that make the perfect hideouts. Beck taught me that.

  And anyone who might need this kind of hideout is definitely up to no good. Like us, for instance.

  The ground is littered with leaves, and we crunch loudly through them as we make our way closer to the chapel. Announcing our arrival to anyone lurking inside, no doubt. I wait to see if anyone or anything will react to the sound, but nothing happens. We shuffle closer.

  Passing under the arch, we walk up the three stone steps and reach the door. It’s been intricately carved with some kind of pattern, but it’s so weathered and dirty that I can’t really make out the design. Small stained-glass windows frame either side, but I can’t see through them, and there’s no other way to look in.

  Beck pushes on the door, which creaks in protest, but after a few good shoves, it gives. Inside, the chapel is pitch-black.

  “Hang on,” Beck whispers. “I left a lantern by the door.” He steps across the threshold and fumbles with something in the dark.

  “How’d you even find this place?” I say. “Is it a Guild hideout?” Guild members have hideouts scattered all over, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they had one mere minutes from Ronan’s apartment. Even if the thought does creep me out.