Thieves

by Lyn South

  “If you’re done playing footsie with the king,” Trevor says in a brittle tone, sounding galled that I wasn’t tossed into the Tower with the sleeping guards. “Are you going to do something about the limning the king has in his pocket?”

  Leisurely strolling into the great hall, right behind King Henry, I cast a discreet glance downward. The LensCam rest on the portrait miniature tucked securely in my palm before stowing it in the pocket sown into the side-seam of my kirtle.

  Nico sighs. “Damn, you’re good.”

  Trever offers a disgruntled snort in response.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me,” I say, “the king has commanded me to dance.”

  Sometime after midnight, I stroll back to the ship. Everyone has waited up for me. Nico, his athletic frame more relaxed than I’ve seen him in days—no doubt the result of smashing Trevor’s deadline and releasing the tension of the last few hours—sits in the crew lounge with Fagin and Trevor. All have abandoned their Tudor clothing for more comfortable, utilitarian apparel.

  Nico wears jeans and a black QUEEN t-shirt—the night we spent together after that concert in Budapest still makes my heart skip a beat. “We Will Rock You” indeed. Both Fagin and Trevor wear loose black athletic pants and long-sleeved hoodies.

  Nico pulls me into a tight embrace, kisses my check, and whispers against my ear, “You’re gonna give me a fucking heart attack one of these days. You know that, right?”

  Nico doesn’t immediately release me, so Fagin leans over and squeezes my shoulder, then sweeps a finger across my brow, like she did when I was little. “Good job, kiddo.”

  Only Trevor is caustic in the face of my triumph; she looks like she just swallowed battery acid. She leans a hip against an adjacent club chair and glares at me.

  Nico, one arm still around my shoulder, points an accusatory finger at Trevor and, if his expression is any indication of his intent, looks ready to tear into her. I give him a quick squeeze and shake my head. Nico backs off, giving me room to run.

  There’s nothing sweeter than proving a douchebag wrong. I keep my eyes on the lieutenant as I pull the first item slowly out of my pocket, bead by fucking bead.

  Henry’s rosary.

  I lower it slowly, letting it coil in a spiral on the melamine surface of the dining booth table. It is an ancient spiritual relic, after all. Or will be in a few hundred years. It deserves to be treated with care.

  Trevor’s eyelids flutter, perhaps in exhaustion—or irritation— and she tilts her head to one side. Her eyes narrow as her gaze flits down toward my pocket then back up to my eyes.

  She doesn’t wait well.

  Pulling Lady Anne’s limning from my pocket, I let the gleaming silver locket—adorned with the raised initials “AB”—dangle at the end of the black cord. Trevor reaches out for it, and I pull it back just out of her grasp.

  “Let me make something clear: If you continue threatening Nico and Fagin, or ever talk about my family, again, I will kick your ass so hard they’ll feel it back home. Then, I’ll strand you here. I’ll shove you so deep undercover that an Observer team could search for centuries and still not find you.”

  “Big words from a—”

  “Look in my eyes and tell me if you think I’m bluffing.”

  She stares at me, wide-eyed, and finally blinks.

  “Say it: I believe you’ll kick my ass and strand me here.”

  She laughs, and I shove her into the wall so hard that her head hits the paneling with a solid thunk. For good measure, I put my knee into her groin and press my forearm into her windpipe just enough to get her attention. “You want war? Get ready because it’ll be ugly and bloody, and you’ll wish you’d never even heard my name. Keep threatening people I love, and I’ll start fucking with people closest to you.”

  “Dodger,” Fagin says. “Enough.”

  We stand toe-to-toe for a few moments longer before I step back. Trevor extends her arm, palm up—there’s a slight tremor in her pinky finger.

  “Not until you say it,” I say, still dangling the necklace just out of reach. “Say: I believe you’ll kick my ass and strand me here.”

  No answer.

  I begin to count. “One.”

  She swallows and says in a low growl. “I believe you’ll kick my ass and strand me here.”

  “Good,” I say, in as patronizing a tone as I can manage. I drop the portrait miniature into her outstretched hand. “We understand each other. If you’re smart, you’ll agree there can only be mutually assured destruction in a private war between us. Detente is the best we can hope for, I guess.”

  “Next time—” Trevor begins, her voice thick with what sounds like either anger or humiliation. Probably both.

  “If you’re smart, there won’t be a ‘next time,’” I reply.

  She snatches the rosary from the table and deposits both it and the limning into a velvet pouch. She turns on her heel and strides off in the direction of her quarters.

  The tension rooted in my neck and shoulders feels excruciating. I roll my head from side to side, trying to release it. Fagin comes up behind me kisses me on the cheek.

  “Crisis averted, this time. That was a helluva job, kid,” she says. “And that was quite a your little speech was quite a bluff.”

  “I wasn’t kidding.” I say. “I’m not living through the rest of this mission with Trevor’s brand of torture. I can’t do it, Fagin.”

  She gives me a look. “I know.” She nods at Nico, then drifts toward her own quarters. “Get some sleep. We’ve got a long way to go yet.”

  Nico settles on the small sofa catty-corner to the dining booth and gestures to the space on the floor in front of him. “I could help you get out of that costume if you want.”

  I give him a cock-eyed smile and plop myself down on the floor in front of him, my gown pooling around my crossed legs in ripples of green silk. “I’ll settle for one of your infamous massages, if you don’t mind.”

  His fingers are magic, and that’s not an overstatement. Within minutes, he has worked his will on the knots in my shoulders and neck until they melt beneath the heat and pressure of his hands. I groan and roll my head forward, eager for this delicious release to flow further up the back of my neck.

  “Not to spoil the mood, but,” Nico says, the hesitation obvious in his voice, “what Trevor said. I’ll listen if you want to talk about it.”

  “I know.”

  “It’s just—and don’t take this the wrong way, I’m not pressuring you into talking about what happened to your parents—but, I don’t understand why she would go after you so vehemently about something so painful and personal from your past. I mean, that kind of fuck-with-your-head bullshit is more likely to make you screw up than encourage high performance. Why would she do something like that?”

  “She a narcissistic freak who likes messing with people’s heads.” I say, leaning forward so he can reach further down my back. “She’s not living rent-free in mine anymore.”

  “Just tell me there’s nothing else going on here.” He stops massaging, lets his fingertips rest on my shoulder blades. “There was a whole lot more beneath the surface of her tirade.”

  I glance back at him. “Like what?”

  “I dunno. All that talk about not being able to save your parents. Just tell me you’re not thinking anything crazy.”

  Oh God. Does he know something? “Define crazy.”

  “Crazy like, changing a fixed point in time that could impact the future.”

  Nervous, now, that he actually can read minds, I scoot forward out of his reach and struggle with my gown. “What the hell gave you that idea?”

  “I don’t know, it was weird how she kept pushing you to say there’s nothing you can do. It sounded like she was goading you into something.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” I turn away, but he catches my arm and pulls me close to him.

  “You know the penalty for meddling with history. At best, your memory is wiped, and you get a o
ne-way ticket to the Hotel Prison Planet. At worst, you’re executed. Clémence, please.” He takes my face in his hands, again, but this time instead of a kiss, I get eyes that are sober and pensive. “Promise me you’re not going to fuck with the timeline.”

  I blow off his concern with a soft pffft, but he knows it’s not agreement.

  “Dodger!”

  “I’m not going to fuck with the timeline,” I say, more forcefully than intended. “Yes, I hate colonizers. I want them to pay for decimating my family two hundred years from now. But I’m not stupid enough to risk a memory wipe or death. I just want to finish this damn job and go home, okay?”

  “Okay,” he replies. He chews his lower lip, then gestures at my neck. “I can finish the massage.”

  “Later,” I say, suddenly exhausted from the stress. I don’t like lying to Nico about something between the two of us. It makes my stomach queasy.

  “I’m gonna turn in, too.”

  Once in my cabin, I sit in the dark staring at a blinking cursor on a blank computer screen. The replicator will create the aged parchment and replicate quill strokes to perfection. My fingers tremble as I type the words that will change everything; an incantation that will speak into a different world into existence. It will restore what I’ve lost. It will set things right.

  My Dearest Thomas,

  I weep for our lost love as I prepare to marry the king. I beg you, do not exile me from your heart. I could not bear it if you do. Please, my dearest, do not abandon me in my hour of need.

  Your Faithful and Loving Servant,

  Anne

  Chapter 20

  Like living in the pit of hell, Beelzebub’s fire roasting my immortal soul for all eternity: That’s the best way to describe every moment I’ve endured since the day this mission bomb dropped. After all of Fagin’s scolding about keeping the tightest rein on my temper, I’m livid to discover that keeping even the tiniest embers of a revenge quest smoldering is a laborious, patience-defying task.

  It’s been several weeks since I stole the limning, which caused quite a commotion at court when Henry ordered an extensive search of courtiers’ chambers. Given that the locket is safely stowed on our ship, it will remain an unsolved mystery. The king has already commissioned another limning of Anne from Master Holbein.

  Things have settled somewhat since.

  Except that I’ve been unable to plant the letter in the king’s apartments.

  Christmas is a few days away. With the flurry of activity, and the increase in courtiers arriving at court for the holiday, there has been time to sneak back into Henry’s chambers.

  It’s risky. I got lucky the last time I snuck into Henry’s apartments. I’m not so sure I’d get a merciful response from the king if I infiltrated his inner sanctum a second time.

  Implementing Plan B—getting the fake letter into the hands of Anne’s enemies, so one of them can deliver it to the king—is riskier. If it falls into the wrong hands and it’s traced back to me, I could find myself locked up in the tower or worse.

  Charles Brandon—a staunch supporter of Queen Katherine—could be trusted, but he has spent more time at his residences than with the king because he despises Lady Anne. Any way you look at it, once the letter is out of my hands, I lose control. There’d be no telling when—or even if— the letter might make its way to the king. Better to bide my time and figure out a way to plant the letter myself.

  Waiting to deliver this damn letter is hard enough, but the prospect of sitting through one more sewing circle with these simpletons the pretender queen calls her royal ladies-in-waiting is maddening. If I’m forced to take part in that charade much longer, the only escape from the agony will be wrapping my fingers around each of their puny necks, squeezing until their eyes bulge, and the last of their pathetic, worthless breaths escapes their lips and—

  Jesus. Where did that come from?

  In the back of my mind, there’s an uncomfortable twinge; a moment’s tortuous hesitation as I let the warning bell in my brain stall the race toward the line I plan to cross. My patience, though thin as a silkworm’s cache, must coalesce into stone-cold resolve to get this job done.

  The war between my better and darker angels is in full swing:

  You’ll be on the run forever if you do this. What about Nico? And Fagin?

  They killed your parents and sold you into servitude. Just plant the damn letter and be done with it. You’ll be doing history a favor.

  I run a finger back and forth around the outline of the folded page that’s been tucked into my pocket for weeks. There’s a sharp twinge on my index finger; I’ve run against the paper’s edge at the perfect angle for a paper cut. When I withdraw my hand from my pocket, there’s a tiny pearl of blood on my fingertip. I suck it clean and let the pain—insignificant compared with the pain in my gut—feed the revenge-rage like a wellspring.

  Setting the scenario where Henry thinks she’s in love with Wyatt should result in banishment to a nunnery. Even sending her home to Hever Castle, never to lay eyes on her again, would be enough to keep her from conceiving the queen who destroys my world.

  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t at war with the world. This act could soothe the Valkyrie riding me. If I’m lucky, peace will follow.

  What if it doesn’t? What if it costs you everything?

  I can do this. I could save Papa and Maman and bring them into the future with Fagin, Nico, and me. The thought of my family restored and safe, as though their deaths never occurred, pulls a lump of emotion into my throat.

  No time for sentimentality. I shake my head to clear the fog; there will be time for tears later, when I have them all together.

  Resigned to the fate of yet another exhausting needlework circle, the ladies-in-waiting entourage—strutting through the corridors like peacocks—follow Lady Anne to her apartments. Fagin’s skirts swish with the rhythm of her walk as she follows me. The rest of the ladies are close behind us.

  Anne and her sister, Mary, lead the pack, chattering away like a couple of hens in a barnyard. They enter the staircase first. Coming down the staircase, carrying a tray of wine goblets, is Becca Trevor—again, dressed as a servant boy. Our eyes meet and she give me a smarmy smile.

  Lady Anne pauses on the stair, one foot on the next tread, and tosses a bright smile over her shoulder at me as she massages her flat belly.

  What an odd thing for her to do.

  “I have such a furious hankering for apples,” she says, laughing. “The king says—”

  Like a lightning strike from a cloudless sky, a masked figure in a black cloak tears down the stairs. It moves so fast it’s hard to imagine its feet are touching the ground at all. Lady Anne doesn’t have time to look up.

  Even for those of us who manipulate its fabric, time is a quirky, unsettled thing. It has a funny way of speeding up or slowing down when traumatic events snatch the rug out from under you. I’m not sure how much time passed. What felt like forever was probably only seconds.

  The assailant tucks chin to chest as he drives a black-cloaked shoulder into Mary Boleyn’s right side with enough force to make her teeter on the stair’s edge before she spills backward, arms wind milling in a useless attempt to keep herself upright.

  Mary crashes into Madge and there’s a sickening crunch of bones as momentum and gravity tumble them down the stairs like a pair or dominoes. I push Grace Parker and Anne Saville, both rigid with shock, out of my way, trying to get to Fagin. Screams erupt as people realize what’s was happening.

  Fagin pushes Jane Seymour to the bannister and lunges forward, grabbing fistfuls of Anne’s kirtle to keep her from taking a disastrous backwards nosedive over sprawled bodies. Lady Jane Rochford backpedals away from the scene. When she realizes I’m standing between her and safety, she shoves me with both hands.

  I fall into the path of the would-be assassin, who vaults over me, and the last two stairs.

  Scrambling to my feet, I look up at Fagin.

  “I
have her!” She cradles a whimpering Anne in her arms. “Go!”

  Hiking my skirt to my knees, I bolt through the gallery after the retreating figure, who slams through several older women, knocking them to the ground. The attacker doesn’t slow, but keeps on at full sprint, even in heavy black boots.

  The figure deftly maneuvers around the next corner without sliding and bursts through the terrace doors leading to the gardens.

  The slick checkerboard stone floors of the palace are the polar opposite of the cinder racetrack that Nico and I use for our training: no traction at all. I’d give anything to be wearing track shoes instead of these lame satin slippers that send me skidding past the corner when I reach it.

  I stumble into more courtiers and disentangle myself before racing outside.

  The broad-shouldered figure sprints through the gardens toward the large pond hosting a pair of swans, pausing briefly to look behind him several times as he goes. His cloak flaps around the ankle-length black pants he wears.

  Pants not of this century.

  “Nico, this guy is not a local. Did you see his pants?” I say, gasping as I dash toward the retreating figure. If not for the pre-mission physical training, running while costumed in thirty pounds of Tudor regalia would would border on impossible. “Any outside cameras in this area?”

  “Dodger,” Fagin’s hoarse whisper breaks into the conversation. “Are you sure he’s not a local?”

  “His clothing isn’t of this time period.”

  “Dodger,” Nico says. “There here are two cameras in the rose garden to your right and several in the trees down the path toward the meadow.”

  “I lose sight of him every time he takes a turn through the gardens. You’re likely to see him before I do if he tries to sneak around to the left.”

  “I don’t know about that. He seems to slow down long enough to let you catch up to him a little bit.”

  True to Nico’s assessment, the assailant pauses at the next corner of the terrace and glances back at me before continuing on.

  “All right, asshole,” I say. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”