To make a long story short, I let him crawl into my pocket until only his stockinged feet stuck out, and then I buttoned him up. It took two months. At the end of three months, I had forgiven his debt and bought the manse outright, though for half my original offer. I’m not rapacious, but I’m not a charity either.
Holgren, forswearing his powers and unfazed by it, rented a warehouse out by the docks and began to tinker. He’d spend hours there, absorbed in tearing apart arquebuses, examining the innards of locks, setting fire to things, and generally making an unholy mess. When he wasn’t in what I came to call his workshop, he was out around town badgering smiths and tanners and bakers and tailors and tinkers and chandlers and stonemasons and glassblowers. He also seemed to attract others infected with his peculiar madness. At any time of the day or night, there would be two or three men, and even sometimes women, in his shop, setting things on fire, making an unholy mess, and grinning like idiots. I had no idea what they were doing, but it made him happy. That was all I needed to know.
At the end of the day, he’d come home and explain the latest theory he was exploring, and I’d pretend to understand what he was talking about. I’d tell him about the latest financial endeavor I’d sunk some of our money into be it spices from beyond Chagul or property in what people had begun to call the Charred Quarter. He’d nod and smile and pretend he was interested, and we’d eventually wander off to bed, happy just to be with each other at day’s end.
Perhaps it sounds boring, but given the choice between boredom and excitement—well. I’d had all the excitement I cared to. Several lifetimes of it.
And boring was fun. While it lasted.
Michael McClung
Michael McClung was born and raised in Texas, but now kicks around Southeast Asia. He's been a soldier, a cook, a book store manager, and a bowling alley pin boy.
His first novel was published by Random House in 2003. He then self-published the first three books of the Amra Thetys series, the first being The Thief Who Pulled on Trouble's Braids, before signing them and the fourth book (The Thief Who Wasn't There) with Ragnarok.
In Michael's spare time, he enjoys kickball, brooding, and picking scabs.
Website: http://somethingstickythiswaycomes.blogspot.com/
The Amra Thetys Series
The Thief Who Pulled On Trouble’s Braids
The Thief Who Spat in Luck’s Good Eye
The Thief Who Knocked On Sorrow’s Gate
The Thief Who Wasn’t There
Thief Who Spat in Luck's Good Eye Page 23