by Kevin Sands
Well, nothing to do about it now. I tipped the coachman with the last few septs in my pocket, then looked to see where Mr. Solomon had brought me.
In the center of the grounds stood a mansion, three stories high, made of worn white stone. A wide expanse of lawn surrounded the house, unusually big for a home this deep inside a city. Even odder, the lawn looked like it was in need of a good trim. Someone’s servants hadn’t been doing their jobs.
The gate was unlocked. I entered, and though I was already late, I moved casually, keeping an eye down the path in case I really was walking into a trap. I saw nothing. At the door, I used the knocker, a bear’s head made of iron, gripping a large brass ring in its mouth.
I waited. With every passing second, I wondered whether I’d missed my shot. I was reaching for the ring again when the door opened—and I got another surprise.
A house this size should have an army of servants, and one of them should have opened the door. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with a lady.
At least, that’s what I assumed. Her clothes were too fine for service: a silk taffeta dress, a wide-brimmed, flowered hat, and a parasol—strange that she carried it indoors. And everything was red: the silk, the parasol, her jewelry. She wore a ruby necklace, garnet bracelets, and a fire opal brooch. Even her hair was red, the deep scarlet of sunset.
I removed my tall hat. “Pardon me, my lady. I’m Callan. I have an appointment with Mr. Solomon?”
She held the door, waiting until I’d passed to shut it behind me.
“I apologize for being late,” I said. “There was a problem on the—”
The woman spun on her heel—red shoes with copper buckles—and walked away, parasol over her shoulder. It threw me off—was I supposed to go with her?—as she headed down the hall without a word.
I decided to follow. The air was stuffy, uncomfortably warm, and though I glanced through every door we passed, I couldn’t see a single servant anywhere.
The Lady in Red said nothing. About halfway down the corridor, she turned abruptly to the right and led me into a long gallery, a dozen glass display cases all the way down the room. The woman slipped between two of them, then passed through a door and shut it behind her.
That message was clear enough: wait here. Sweating from the heat, I loosened my collar, examining the pieces on display.
The gallery felt a lot like a museum, though nothing here was labeled. In the case closest to me was a long silver staff that looked like an undulating dragon, a head rearing at the top. In the display next to it hung a robe of crimson velvet, patterned around the edges with ebony brocade. Farther down was a tome, bound in leather and open to a page in the middle, written in a language of odd, spiraling symbols.
The art on the walls was mostly portraits of no one I recognized, or landscapes of places I’d never been. But there were two objects that caught my eye.
The first was a painting. It was huge—hung at one end of the gallery, it was broad enough to cover the whole wall—and an absolute masterpiece. It showed a forest, the woods dark and foreboding, with a pond painted on the lower left. In the center stood a bear. Her fur was a rich, vibrant chestnut, her countenance proud and noble as she gazed out at me. In the background, slinking near the pond, was a fox of reddish-brown, nose pressed to the ground.
The artist had painted the fox very differently from the bear. The fox looked downward, eyes drawn in a way that made her seem both cowed and untrustworthy, like a defeated enemy waiting for a chance to stab you in the back. Between the bear and the fox, under the full twin moons of Mithil and Cairdwyn, a crow perched high atop a branch, head to the side, looking disinterested. Behind them all, a sheep lay curled in the grass, asleep.
Or possibly . . . dead? I don’t know what made me think that, but the feeling hit me all the same.
The second piece that caught my eye was in a display against the opposite wall. It was a dagger, suspended by its crosspiece, point hanging down. The hilt was wrapped with a fine coil of gold. The coil thickened toward the pommel, expanding to form a golden snakehead with tiny emeralds for eyes. The crosspiece, too, was made of gold, and the blade . . . I’d never seen anything like it. It was wavy, tapering to a razor-sharp point. The metal was black, a fine sheen coating it as if the blade had been oiled. A droplet glinted at the tip.
“Magnificent, isn’t it?”
I turned. A man stood at the far end of the gallery, by the forest painting. He looked to be in his late thirties, hair slicked back, smartly dressed in a jacket, waistcoat, and cravat. He gave me a ready smile as he approached, the Lady in Red following a pace behind.
This had to be Mr. Solomon. “Your whole collection is impressive,” I said.
“The other pieces are important,” he agreed, “but you clearly have an eye for value. That dagger belonged to my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather.”
Mr. Solomon seemed to have an appreciation for value himself, if not good taste. Each of his fingers, including his thumbs, were laden with rings. Bracelets poked from under crisp, starched sleeves, shining with the silvery luster of platinum. He had a diamond brooch pinned to his lapel, and a necklace of gold, the pendant’s gem a sort of coppery color.
I didn’t recognize the stone. But when I saw his pendant, it made me think back to the woman who’d interrogated me at the helioport. And then the pieces came together.
The golden ticket to the Malley. The painting, not just of a fox and a bear, but of Fox and Bear, Shuna and Artha. Its composition, the high majesty of the Bear and the low cunning of the Fox. And the artifacts all around me. I was certain they were enchanted. And certain of something else, too.
“Your ancestor was a Weaver,” I said. “And so are you.”
I kept my face neutral, but my stomach was tense. Even without the Old Man instilling in me a mistrust of magic, I’d have been nervous. Traditionally, enchanters and thieves weren’t friends, a consequence of having patron Spirits who hated each other. Most people only paid lip service to the Spirits, but it was a rare thief who didn’t drop a sept into a Fox shrine before pulling a job. Maybe this was a trap after all.
Mr. Solomon’s smile widened. “Well,” he said softly. “So you do know what you’re doing. Or did you find out who I was before you came?”
“I never do that,” I said truthfully.
“Really? Why not?”
“Because who you are is none of my business.” That had always been one of the Old Man’s rules. If a gaff pays, pull it. I thought I’d change that after he left. Guess not.
“But I’m not wearing the star pendant,” Mr. Solomon said. “So, tell me: How did you know I was a Weaver?”
I recalled another of the Old Man’s rules. Never tell the client your secrets. They’ll think more of you—and will never cross you—when they think you can read their minds.
I doubted a Weaver would think I read minds. But regardless of how I felt about the Old Man, his rules had always kept us one step ahead of trouble. So I shrugged. “This and that.”
Mr. Solomon laughed, delighted. “You are exactly as advertised.”
I was glad he’d brought it up. “How did you get my name, anyway?”
“A suggestion, through a correspondent of my acquaintance.” He looked at me a bit smugly, as if saying You have your secrets, I have mine. “Regardless, you are correct. My great-et-cetera-grandfather was a Weaver. A High Weaver, in fact. The greatest our Order has seen in a thousand years.”
He motioned to the portrait above the dagger. The man in the frame was much older than Mr. Solomon, and he had a long white beard. But they had the same eyes—calculating, like they could see right through you.
“As for me,” Mr. Solomon continued, “I am a Weaver as well. Though I prefer to think of myself as a weaver, small w. I know the art. The Weavers of today—” I could hear the capital letter in his voice—“are
dilettantes playing at magic. I doubt more than two of them could craft something as wondrous as this.”
I turned back to the dagger. “It’s an odd metal,” I said. “It looks like it’s weeping.”
“It is. The blade is made of skystone; what the naturalists call ‘meteorite.’ It’s not the skystone that weeps, however. My ancestor bound the dagger with the essence of seven thousand snakes. The drops are poison. The tiniest scratch is fatal.”
I’d told Bronwyn my sparkly necklace was bound with a million fireflies. My claim was a lie. I was sure Mr. Solomon’s wasn’t. “Must be priceless,” I said.
“Would you like it?”
I paused. “You’re giving me your ancestor’s dagger?”
Mr. Solomon laughed. “I’m not giving it to you, Callan. I’m offering you the chance to take it.”
A test. Inwardly, I cursed.
I’d walked right into that. Robbing museum displays was not my specialty. I’d impressed him by sussing out he was a Weaver—or a weaver, small w, as he insisted—but now I was about to undo that by fumbling over a case I didn’t know how to crack.
Still, I couldn’t very well say no. I leaned in and examined the display, thinking. I doubted he expected me to just smash the glass and take it. Though that might surprise him . . .
No. If he was looking to hire me, what he needed was deception, not force. Besides, he was a Weaver, capital letter or not. Breaking the glass might shoot fireballs at my head.
I couldn’t see any evidence of a mechanical trap, but then, that wasn’t a skill the Old Man had taught me. The case itself was seamless, with nothing that looked like a latch. There was no clue on the dagger itself, either, or on the stand
but now that I was really looking at the crow, I saw I was wrong. At first, I’d thought his expression was disinterested, but that wasn’t true. The bird looked more . . . sardonic. Though whether he was mocking himself, the Fox and Bear, or me, staring up at the painting, I couldn’t tell. But those eyes. There was something almost . . . familiar? I swear I’d seen them somewhere before—
Wait.
Painting?
Crow?
What . . . ?
I blinked. And my heart skipped a beat.
I was no longer in front of the dagger’s display case. Somehow, I’d come to the other side of the room, looking up at the forest painting of Fox and Bear.
How did I get here?
Across the gallery, still next to his ancestor’s dagger, Mr. Solomon watched me, grinning. The Lady in Red hovered over his shoulder and smirked.
“You’re wondering what just happened,” Mr. Solomon said. “Come and see.”
I crossed the room, cautious now. “Did you just . . .” I didn’t know the right word. “. . . ‘magic’ me over there?”
“Not like you think. You walked there on your own.” He stepped aside and motioned to the display. “Look closely. Not at the dagger. Look at the glass.”
I hesitated. Last time I’d done that, my brain had gone to sleep.
“Go on,” Mr. Solomon said. “If you don’t look at the dagger, it won’t harm you.”
I took a breath and examined the front pane of the display.
“A little lower,” Mr. Solomon said. “Try to catch the light.”
I bent until the lamplight passed through the case. Where it did, I could see something faint. It looked almost like the smudge of a finger, but it looped and curved, a symbol of incredible complexity. I’d never seen anything like it.
“What is that?” I said.
“Do you know what it is Weavers do?” Mr. Solomon said.
I shrugged. “Not much. I know you enchant things. I know it’s done by binding the souls of living creatures. The greater the soul energy, the longer or stronger the enchantment. But they don’t last forever. And it’s illegal to steal the souls of people.”
“That’s largely accurate. Though it’s not just souls. The energy from any living thing will bind an enchantment. Plants, for example, or the foam that grows on the sea. And while it’s illegal to take someone else’s life, you can. You can even draw the energy from your own.”
I’d never heard of that. “It won’t kill you?”
“It will, if you go too far. It’s not something the less skilled should experiment with; one needs to know where the limits are. But it can be done. The question is, regardless of where you draw the life energy, do you know how it is bound?”
I shook my head.
“Runes,” Mr. Solomon said. “Weaver runes must be engraved, carved, or painted on the object in question. It is the combination of runes and life energy that creates the bond and forms the enchantment.” He tapped the display case. “That symbol you see is a rune, smelted directly into the glass. Here, as you ponder the value of the dagger through the display, the binding acts hypnotically. It blanked your mind, leaving it open to suggestion. That allowed me to place a new thought there, until your mind reasserted control. I told you to walk over to the painting and study it.”
Or so he said. I felt a pit grow in my gut. Before today, my only experience with enchantments was with things like sparkling jewels, endless-water jugs, and light globes. “I didn’t realize bindings could be so . . . personal.”
“Of course you didn’t. Most Weavers know barely more than you. The true art has been lost for centuries. What the modern guild does is one step above parlor tricks.” He said it pleasantly enough, but I could hear the contempt under the surface.
He was a curious one, this Mr. Solomon. He carried himself with confidence—no, more than that. A sense of power. And he’d been manipulating me since I showed up. I was sure he’d told the Lady in Red to leave me in the gallery, so I’d have time to see the artifacts and be impressed. And he’d have time to study me and my reactions.
His smile appeared genuine—if I had to bet, I’d say he really was enjoying our conversation—but I’d need to remember not to drop my guard. Because while he was gauging me, I was measuring him. And I saw a lot.
He was arrogant. He considered himself not merely an outsider among his peers, but superior to them. He respected only power—true power—and wanted that for himself.
And he was cunning enough to get it. He’d timed his entry carefully, right when I was examining his ancestor’s dagger, because he’d wanted me to fall into its trap. He’d never intended for me to be able to steal the thing. Instead, he’d wanted to show me just what he could do.
None of this was enough to change my plans. Let him be in charge. What did I care? I was just here for the money.
“So,” Mr. Solomon said, motioning to the dagger. “Would you like to try again?”
I doubted he wanted his hired thief to be cowed. So I said, “No, thank you. Maybe I’ll rob you later.”
He laughed. “Very good. In that case, it’s time to meet the rest of the team.”
CHAPTER 6
Well, now. He was just full of surprises. “Your letter didn’t mention anyone else,” I said.
“I didn’t think it wise to put the details in writing,” Mr. Solomon said. “This won’t be a problem, will it?”
I shrugged, as if it were no big thing, but in truth, I wasn’t sure. I’d only ever worked with the Old Man before. Could a team Mr. Solomon picked be trusted? What if they weren’t any good? Was I supposed to risk my neck for strangers?
Mr. Solomon seemed to understand my objections instinctively. “Come along and listen to what I have to say. If you don’t like it, you’re free to leave.” His smile returned. “But you will like it, I think.”
I admit, he had me intrigued. So I let him escort me to the door nearest the dagger’s display. The Lady in Red followed, silent as ever, as he motioned for me to enter.
The room behind was a study. The shelves, filled mostly with books, looked nearly as old as the house itself, the wood s
agging low in the center. Where there were no books, Mr. Solomon had placed artifacts instead, mostly navigational objects: a sextant, a compass, a globe.
As in the gallery, there were no windows here. The light came from lamps in crystal sconces, though I couldn’t place the oil he was using; the room smelled of sweet smoke and old leather. There was a writing desk, chairs, and a sofa nearby, with a long, narrow table between them. And seated around it was the strangest group of thieves I’d ever seen.
They were all children.
In the chair to my left sat a boy of around sixteen, the oldest in the room. He had a face like a brute—square head; square jaw; thick, heavy brow—but the way his eyes studied the room belied a sharp intelligence underneath. He had a scar under his eyes, like he’d taken a blade that barely missed blinding him. Though he appeared relaxed, I noticed he kept his feet flat on the floor and his hands on the armrests, ready to spring at the first sign of a threat. He looked me up and down as I entered, then gave me a curt nod.
The boy sitting next to him was much younger, maybe ten or eleven at the most. He was remarkably good-looking—he’d be breaking hearts left and right in a couple of years—with a mop of blond hair he kept flipping out of his eyes and a friendly, welcoming smile. The smile widened to a grin when he saw me; he waved like we were old pals, though I’d never seen him before. If his amiability was an act, it was a good one: his posture matched his expression. He sat open in the chair, gawking at the curios on display, oblivious to thoughts of danger.
The third boy in the room was exactly the opposite. He stood by himself, pressed against the bookshelf facing the door, partially hidden behind one of Mr. Solomon’s globes. He was tall; so tall, in fact, that at first I thought he was older, though on closer inspection he was probably near my age. He was thin to the point of being undernourished, all skin and bones, with long, skeletal fingers to match. He was also ugly, and remarkably so: his face all angles, veins visible underneath. He barely glanced at me when I entered the room, and wouldn’t meet my eyes.