Rules for Thieves

by Alexandra Ott

  “Go to Olleen’s and get ready. By then it’ll be time to go.”

  “It won’t take that long,” I protest.

  Beck shakes his head. “It might take a while. And so will getting dressed. And then there’s the flight to Dearborn’s. We’ve only got a few more hours to get ready. So hurry.”

  “Who left you in charge of this trial, anyway?” I stomp over to the door, just to let him know how I feel about his bossing me around. But once the door closes behind me, I hurry down the hallway. We don’t have much time left.

  • • •

  By the time I finally open the door marked ROSALIA PEAKES, she’s waiting for me inside, looking impatient.

  “Lesson one: punctuality,” she snaps as I close the door.

  “Um, I don’t think that’s really an issue,” I say. “No one’s supposed to notice us enter the ball anyway. And I doubt the lady will care if I’m punctual in stealing from her.”

  Rosalia looks me up and down, her eyes stern. “We have a lot of work to do.”

  I think I’m supposed to be insulted.

  Rosalia proceeds to lecture me on everything from manners to posture to grammar to dancing. She hands me papers with long, tongue-twisting sentences on them and makes me read them out loud, starting over every time I stumble on a word, correcting the way I say things and complaining about my Azeland accent. She gives long instructions on how to address nobility and how to say things politely and all this other stuff I’ll never remember. Every time I point out that this information is useless to me, she just makes me do something harder, glaring the whole time. Irritation prickles under my skin, and before long it sharpens into anger.

  Then come the books. Rosalia stacks heavy books on my head and makes me walk across the floor, holding my back perfectly straight and balancing them. I never make it more than a few steps.

  After the hundredth time I’ve dropped the books, Rosalia glares, her eyebrows raised and her gaze cold, and says, “Again.”

  In response, I grab one of the books and hurl it at her head.

  She sees it coming and sidesteps, dodging without breaking a sweat. It barely grazes the sleeve of her dress. I wait for the lecture.

  She lunges, grabbing my right arm. A wave of pain rolls through me. I try to spin out of her grasp, but her grip tightens, squeezing hard, and her other arm comes up around my neck. Cold metal presses my skin. She’s holding a knife to my throat.

  “Don’t be a fool,” she says. Her voice is calm and deadly. I wish she’d scream at me. I wish she’d act human. Then I’d know she’s vulnerable. “If you act too rashly tonight, your recklessness could get someone killed. This isn’t a game.”

  She pauses, her breath slow and steady in my ear. “Beck Reigler has been waiting his entire life for this, and if you don’t pay attention now you might ruin this for him. You cannot mess this up.”

  She pulls away from me, releasing her grip and moving across the room in one quick stride. “You never know what will happen. You need to be prepared for anything. And if you can’t even walk with the correct posture, those nobles will know in a second that you’re not one of them, no matter what you’re wearing. You don’t have much time to get this right. Now try again.”

  I don’t care if she’s right. I hate her. I hate the way she tells me what to do, the way she acts like I can’t do anything, the way she talks about Beck like she knows everything about him. And the way she tries to make me feel afraid. She’s nothing more than a bully.

  But I can’t deal with her the way I would the orphanage bullies. I don’t doubt that she’ll use that knife.

  The books are still strewn across the floor. Rosalia waits, tapping her foot impatiently. She won’t even help me pick them up. She thinks I’m beneath her.

  I can’t do what she says. I won’t.

  “Now, Rosco.”

  I bend down slowly, picking up the nearest book. And as fast as I can, I throw it at Rosalia’s face. But this time I don’t wait to see her dodge it. I know she will. This time I just run.

  As I race down the hallway, I know I have the advantage of surprise. Plus Rosalia will never be able to run as fast as me in her dress and heeled shoes. But as I reach the end of the hall, my footsteps are the only ones beating against the stone floor. She’s not following me.

  From here, the sewing room comes up quick. I slow to a stop outside the door and catch my breath, hands on my knees.

  Now that my heart’s stopped racing, guilt churns in my stomach over what I just did. Beck asked me to learn from her and I failed.

  The thing I hate most about Rosalia is that she was right.

  I ignore that thought. I can do this. This is nothing. This trial is nothing. I don’t need Rosalia. And I’ll make it in the Guild just to spite her.

  • • •

  While Olleen and her seamstresses work feverishly to put the finishing touches on my dress, another girl does my hair, brushing out the snarls. It’s all wet and limp because Olleen insisted I take a bath before the beautification process could begin. Not that it helped much. Beck’s tub was tiny, and the water was cold, and my hair was so tangled I could barely get the soap through it. The girl with the brush has been working mercilessly for what feels like hours. She twists my hair up and pins it on top of my head somehow, but I can’t really tell how it looks in the mirror. Then she dabs some kind of thick cream on my face and adds a smelly powder on top. I probably look like a performer in the Fool’s Parade on Saint Samyra’s Day, with a painted-on face that makes me look stupid and ghoulish, so everyone will cheer when Samyra shows up and banishes me. That’s how it always goes in those parades.

  Before I see if my face looks as bad as it feels, though, I’m whisked off to the fitting area, where we have to do the whole pricking-and-jabbing process over again as I’m stuffed into a thousand billowing skirts. Someone has finally found a pair of heeled shoes in my size, and I thank Ailara that Mrs. Pucey made me wear heels to church, so I know how to walk in them. Olleen also provides a pair of elegant white gloves, but I don’t put them on yet—I’ll have to strip off the bandages to do so, and I don’t want anyone to see that my hand and arm are turning black.

  After what must be hours of Olleen making little adjustments to my dress, I’m finally allowed to step out of the sewing room. Despite my hatred of how Rosalia treated me, I do walk a bit straighter as I make my way across the room and out the door.

  Beck’s waiting for me in the hallway, wearing a fancy black suit. The formality of it makes him look much older and much younger all at once. And for the first time since I’ve met him, his hair actually looks like it knows what a comb is. It’s shorter, too.

  He’s staring at me. At the dress, at my face, at my hair. For what may possibly be the first time in my life, I blush. He probably thinks I look like a fool too.

  But his mouth quirks up at the corners like it always does when he’s smiling and trying to hide it. He looks like he’s about to say something, but before he gets it out, Olleen rushes over to him and wraps him in a hug. This time it’s Beck’s turn to look embarrassed.

  “You’re so grown-up,” she gushes. She steps back and takes in the two of us, side-by-side in our newly fitted clothes. “That’s it. Go.”

  Beck swallows hard. “Ready, Allicat?”

  “Ready.”

  He takes my hand, and we go.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Ruhia in the late spring looks a little like Azeland does. I’ve always pictured cozy snow-covered cottages and quaint streets, but the city is sprawling, with big brick buildings. At this time of year there’s not even much snow on the ground. The streets are cleaner than Azeland’s, though, all of them paved, and less crowded. Where Azeland’s size feels chaotic, Ruhia’s buildings are laid out in neat, orderly rows, square boxes of brick all standing in a line, their slate roofs dusted with snow.

  Our current thilastri, whose name is Jiavar, doesn’t speak much as she flies, so we’re left mostly in silence. Beck d
oesn’t look out the carriage window. He stares straight ahead, fiddling with his jacket, bouncing his leg nervously against the seat. I pretend not to notice and try to be calm enough for the both of us. This is no big deal. Just go in, take the necklace, go out. Easy.

  I occupy myself by stripping off the bandages covering my right arm so I can put on the white gloves. I haven’t looked at it since the last time I changed bandages, after I took a bath. It’s so much worse than I thought. From fingertip to elbow, deep black lines streak across my arm, crisscrossing and running together so much they almost entirely obscure the skin, as if I’d plunged half my arm into a massive inkwell. Even my nails are darkening.

  It looks like death.

  I grab one of the gloves and shove it on as quickly as I can, but it’s too late. Beck is staring at me, and the horror that’s curling in my gut is reflected on his face. I tug the sleeve of my dress back into place and try to pretend I haven’t seen what I’ve seen.

  Beck stands and picks up my other glove, which has fallen to the floor. Swiftly he sits beside me and passes me the glove. He helps hold my left sleeve up as I slide it on, then pulls the sleeve back into place.

  It’s his turn to be calm. “It’s okay,” he says. “We can do this.”

  I can’t look at him. I can’t breathe. “I don’t want to die.”

  “You won’t.”

  “I already am.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever prayed to Saint Xeroth, the patron of death. I guess now would be a good time to start. But I don’t even know what I want to say.

  Please. Not yet.

  “It’ll be fine,” Beck says. “I know we can do this, Allicat.”

  I gulp for air, and eventually my breathing steadies. I look at him. “Why are you always so nice to me?”

  He frowns. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

  I barely restrain myself from rolling my eyes at him. “Do you really think anyone else in the Guild would’ve helped me like you did? You think someone like Mead or Rosalia would’ve cared?”

  He doesn’t answer for a minute. “I don’t know. I guess I’m not always a good thief.”

  He’s wrong. I’ve seen the Guild in him, like when he threatened that shopkeeper when we first met. He knows all the rules, and he always tries to follow them.

  But there’s something else, too. Some deeper instinct, the one that drew him to help me, a total stranger, in the first place. Because he didn’t see a total stranger; he saw a homeless orphaned girl who needed help. He cares about people, in a way that the Guild teaches you not to. He hasn’t figured out how to stop.

  He stands again, picks up the bandages I dropped on the floor, and stuffs them under his seat. He goes back to fiddling nervously with his jacket, and I go back to staring out the window. We don’t speak.

  Too soon, the carriage is dropping, and I close my eyes as the ground swoops up to meet us. A massive jolt throws me against the seat, then the carriage wheels scrape stone. I open my eyes.

  We wind down a long road, which ends in massive iron gates that have been flung wide. A long parade of carriages, pulled by thilastri, are lined up, making their way through the gates.

  All around, the grass is lush and neatly trimmed; flowers and trees and other ornate-looking plants fill well-manicured gardens. The closer we get to wherever we’re going, the gardens get bigger, and the flowers get more elaborate, until I’m certain that Saint Ilaina herself must have grown them. No gardener could grow these fancy plants without help from the patron of nature.

  The road widens, and the house rises into view. It’s exactly what I expected: big and fancy. With massive windows and sweeping turrets and curved balconies, it towers over the surrounding landscape. The carriages curve around a circular drive, then stop one by one and drop off their occupants.

  After an agonizingly long wait, it’s our turn. Jiavar slows the carriage to a halt. A footman dressed in a sharp blue uniform opens the door and sweeps into a low bow.

  “The most esteemed Baron Dearborn extends his deepest welcome. Your invitations, sir?” he says, his voice crisp. He doesn’t sound suspicious, just overly polite.

  Beck reaches into an inner jacket pocket and withdraws two pieces of paper, which he hands to the footman. The invitations are fresh from the forger and barely arrived in time. They’re supposed to be exact replicas of the invitations to this ball, but they claim we are Allianna and Berkeley Martell, heirs to some estate or other. We don’t really look like brother and sister, but we figure we can pass as cousins.

  The footman barely looks at the invitations before handing them back to Beck, and I sigh in relief. The footman holds out his hand and helps each of us out of the carriage. I try not to trip over my skirts as I step down. Beck tosses a single jamar to the footman before taking my arm and leading me up the path, following the nobles inside. I’m so glad I’m not doing this by myself. I never would’ve known I was supposed to tip the footman. Unless that was something Rosalia was going to mention?

  In my heels and huge skirts, every step is agonizing. I keep hoping the path will end before I trip, but it winds through one of the large gardens, which is illuminated by flickering lanterns and contains a massive gurgling fountain, before narrowing into a set of wide glass doors.

  Beck’s breath catches in his throat, whether from nerves or awe I can’t tell. I want to squeeze his hand in reassurance, but the way we’re walking arm-in-arm like the nobles makes it impossible. “Okay?” I whisper under my breath.

  “Okay,” he whispers back.

  We follow the crowd through the double doors and into the ballroom, and this time it’s my turn to choke back a gasp. The room is so much more elaborate than anything I could’ve imagined. The walls are golden and luminous. Chandeliers drip glass crystals that catch the light and make the whole room sparkle like we’re inside a diamond. The walls are striped with windows overlooking the twinkling candlelight of the gardens. In a far corner, musicians sit on a raised platform, playing slow, elegant music. All across the dance floor, the bright flashes of the women’s spinning skirts blur as couples glide through the steps.

  I should’ve listened to Rosalia. She could’ve told me how to deal with this. I have no idea how to deal with this. Oh God, will I have to dance? Saints help me, why didn’t I learn this?

  Beck looks a little awed, too, but he hides it better than I do. He tugs me down the side of the dance floor before we’re noticed by anyone standing near the entrance. He scans the room, looking for Lady Atherton.

  We stop in the corner opposite the musicians, where butlers in neatly pressed uniforms are serving refreshments. We turn our backs to the wall. From here we can see the whole room.

  I only have a dim idea of what Lady Atherton looks like from the description Beck got from Rosalia, so I look for the necklace instead. A rock that big will be hard to miss, after all. The problem is, most of the ladies here are wearing large necklaces. The one we’re after is distinctive, but it’s hard to tell right away from a distance—

  There. A heavy silver chain, glittering in the light, with a rounded deep blue stone easily as big as my fist. The woman wearing it is the right age. I nudge Beck. “Ten o’clock. Puffy blue dress.”

  “I see her,” Beck says, excitement tingeing his voice. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

  “You tell me. How do I get to talk to her?”

  “Someone has to introduce you,” he reminds me. “You can’t just walk up and start talking—”

  “But no one here knows me!”

  “We’ll have to fix that.” He scans the crowd again, but I have no idea what he’s looking for this time. “There!”

  “What?”

  “That man standing alone, at twelve o’clock. We’ll need to get near to him, close enough so he can overhear, and start talking about something. If we can get him to jump into the conversation, we’ll introduce ourselves. Once someone knows us, we can start making the rounds until we get to Atherton.”

  That involves ta
lking to people. A lot of people. Someone’s sure to notice that we don’t act or speak the way we should, or doubt our identity, or . . . “You didn’t mention this part of the plan!”

  “Let’s go.” Beck ignores my protests as he strides away, around the dance floor and toward the only man in the room who’s by himself. Maybe the man doesn’t even know anyone. Maybe he’s actually a serial killer and that’s why everyone’s avoiding him. Maybe he’s going to notice something’s wrong with us. Maybe . . .

  We’re closing in. Beck steps beside me, matching his stride to mine. “Pretend we’re deep in conversation,” he says. “Laugh like I’ve said something funny.”

  I try, but the laugh gets stuck in my throat on the way up, and comes out more like a choked snort.

  Beck smiles tightly. “Really? Was that supposed to be a giggle?”

  “I didn’t do it on purpose,” I say through clenched teeth, forcing a smile. “I don’t know how to giggle.”

  “Just smile then. And try not to look so murderous.” Beck grins more naturally.

  We’re only a few feet away now, so close the man can hear us if we raise our voices. Beck looks at me and, like we’ve been deep in conversation this whole time, says, “I’ve been telling you, this ball far outpaces the one at the Sheffield barony.” His voice is perfect, sounding clipped, brisk, and arrogant.

  I try to match his tone and figure out what he wants me to say. “I disagree,” I say stiffly, trying to arch my eyebrows haughtily the way Rosalia does. “The Sheffield ball was far more . . . sophisticated.” The word pops into my head on its own, and for the first time in my life I’m grateful to Sister Romisha for sharing her big vocabulary.

  By now we’ve clearly caught the man’s attention. “Yes, but it seemed to lack something that the Dearborns always provide,” Beck says, arguing in that eerily calm and elevated tone that only the rich nobility use, the one that’s polite and arrogant all at the same time. “It’s a certain . . . a certain . . .” He flounders at the last second, unable to come up with a word.

  “The Sheffield ball was so much more refined,” I say, trying to smooth over Beck’s flustering while sounding as pretentious as possible.