“Yes,” Grace said.
“What if I refused?”
“We have something you need,” Laya said.
Rabbit pulled a folded cloth out of her pouch.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Rabbit isn’t just a good tracker,” Grace said. “She’s our best pickpocket.”
As Grace spoke, Rabbit unfolded the cloth to reveal an unpleasant iron talisman on a chain.
“I gave that to Lucille!” I grabbed for it, but Rabbit snatched it away and shoved it back in her pouch.
“In a room filled with cutpurses and thieves,” Grace said.
“And you have some nerve being offended,” Mary said.
“We want you to straighten out your personal life,” Krys said. “But you’re right. It’s not our fight.”
“But that treasure . . .” Grace said.
I nodded. “But that treasure.”
“You’re with us?” Laya asked.
After a moment I said, “Yes.”
I didn’t know if I should have been impressed or disappointed.
• • •
The next several days with Weasel and his growing army of brigands and thieves felt very strange. Weasel’s immediate crew too easily made the transition from wanting to beat me with blunt objects to slapping me on the back and offering me draughts of ale. Then there were the trio of assassins who had turned on Prince Oliver. When they lowered their masks I recognized at least one of them from my hallucinatory visit to The Headless Earl; he was easy to pick out because of the strange looks he gave me. Not hostile looks, more the kind of looks a stray dog might give you if you fed it a piece of cheese from your pouch; attentive, head cocked, trying desperately to figure out where the cheese is coming from.
Then there were the others, the recruits who came into Weasel’s encampment as we planned the largest theft in recorded history. Many of them I recognized, some from my last visit to The Headless Earl, some from my first one. A few I knew from back during my days when I had thieving as a profession . . .
That, in the end, was what made things strange—thinking of myself in the past tense. These men all had been my peers at one point, for better or worse. Now, for better or worse, I really no longer counted among their number. I was key to their plans, not because I was ever a particularly good thief, but because I was a royal insider.
With these new men came news of the situation deteriorating around us.
The armies of Lendowyn and Grünwald prepared to face each other. Apparently the return of the princess had not defused matters and it appeared Lucille’s father was pressing forward with an army whose size belied the state of the Lendowyn treasury when I had been princess. That increased everyone’s urgency.
Not that Weasel or his allies cared much about the potential for open war. They were more distressed at the obvious drain on Snake Bartholomew’s assets.
No one mentioned the Dragon Prince being anywhere near the front lines. To me that sounded like Snake. I doubted he would put himself in harm’s way, even if he had a dragon’s body. Best to sit behind the walls of a castle and let someone else’s army do the dirty work.
• • •
A fortnight after my “rescue” we exploited the one positive aspect of the massed armies on the Grünwald border. The concentration of Lendowyn’s army allowed Weasel’s much smaller force of outlaws and assassins to outflank them and cross the Fell River far behind the main body of troops.
True to his word, once the last boat ferried the last group of outlaws into Lendowyn, Prince Oliver had been left on the opposite shore, fuming but unharmed.
Moving over the next three nights, we reached sight of the castle without being detected. Of course, remaining undetected at this point became a significant issue, given the large city surrounding the castle. If we had planned this expedition with mercenaries rather than an army of thieves, this would be problematic.
As it was, Weasel’s army of nearly fifty brigands, cutpurses, thieves, and outlaws was able to slip into the city largely unnoticed in groups of twos and threes over the span of two days. This was a good thing, as any large body of men would probably be noticed by the large lizard periodically circling the castle.
The girls had stayed out of trouble, despite the presence of a few late arrivals from the White Rock Thieves’ Guild. This wasn’t due to any deference to Weasel, but due to the fact that Mary—the one most likely to feed those men a sensitive part of their own anatomy—had left to enter the city a full day ahead of everyone else. No one noticed the lanky redhead missing before the thief army started melting into the city, and I was able to slip the rest of the girls in, in three groups, mixed with male escorts.
The fact that the first group I sent was weighted two-to-one in favor of my girls didn’t register on anyone. And since that didn’t register, no one realized that by the time I sent Rabbit and two men into town, the odds would be three to one.
After that, the girls were on their own, and I had a break-in to supervise. I was in the last group to slip into town, along with Weasel and one of his goons.
• • •
Four hours past midnight, and I stood with Weasel in a stable in the shadow of Lendowyn Castle. It was cloudy and the moon had set, and the night was broken only by a few flickers of torchlight from high on the castle walls. My breath fogged, but the air in the stable was warmed, not just from the snorting horses in their stalls, but from the press of black-clad bodies that had been filing in over the course of the night.
We had been waiting for close to half an hour for the trio of Oliver’s turncoat assassins to complete their job.
“Mr. Blackthorne,” Weasel said as we waited. “Do you have a backup plan?”
“Those are your people.”
“It was your plan.”
“I never guaranteed this would work. Snake could have changed the guard rotation or where men are stationed—”
“Perhaps. But do you want to explain that to the men in here?”
I glanced back into the shadows, to see the vague outlines of more than two score ruffians. I couldn’t help but wish for one of Brock’s herb packets and a fire to toss it into.
“If we need to, I’ll think of something.”
“Good man.”
Fortunately for everyone, I was not required to indulge in my talents for improvisation. After another quarter hour, a tiny bright flame flared twice in the small doorway beside the main drawbridge.
“That’s the signal,” Weasel said. “Get the boats.”
“Boat” was a generous term for the three misshapen objects we hauled the quarter mile to the moat’s edge. They were, at best, improvised half-breed rafts made from rope, canvas, planks, and logs covered with a generous coating of still-tacky tar until the thing was blacker than the sky above us. They were wobbly, leaky, and just enough to ferry us across the twenty yards to the raised underside of the drawbridge where three ropes waited for us.
It took three trips for the entire group to make it across, the last half-dozen men swimming as one of the “boats” inevitably sank into the moat. Luckily for those men, the Lendowyn crown never could afford to stock the moat with anything more threatening than leeches or the occasional frog.
Weasel’s thief army slipped into the main courtyard, squishy and non-squishy alike. They hugged the walls and the deepest shadows as they filed in. Even with my eyes well adjusted to the dark, a quick glance at the space didn’t reveal anything out of place, though the last time this many people filled this courtyard was my wedding.
I led them to an oak door at the base of the keep. In a siege it could be barred and sealed against invasion, but now it was just overseen by a conveniently deceased guard. I paused by the body, wondering if I had known the guy. He was almost certainly one of Snake’s loyalists. Snake wouldn’t give guard duty to anyone questionabl
e. But still, the corpse lay there wrapped in the colors of the Lendowyn crown, and everything felt deeply wrong.
Not that anything had been right for a long time.
From behind me I heard Weasel’s voice. “What’s the holdup, Frank?”
I didn’t have much choice, did I?
I pushed the oak door open, revealing a dark stone corridor. I waved Weasel in.
“Here.”
The thieves filed in after me, and after the last of them slipped in, I led them through a maze of corridors and down to the treasury. No one questioned the absence of the guards and the fact that the doors hung open. The glint of gold and jewels in the dim torchlight was enough to capture their attention. Even Weasel, the practical one, stood in the doorway staring in at the piles of treasure that disappeared into the darkness out of the torches’ reach.
That momentary distraction was enough for me to slip away. They’d notice me missing in a few moments, but I was betting that the unimaginable riches laid out before them would take priority. Weasel would probably be relieved that he didn’t owe me a share.
I was just happy that the girls had been here and already gone with whatever they could carry. Good for them. I had other priorities.
I scrambled up the levels of the castle, up past the great hall and the royal chambers. The Tear of Nâtlac had to be here. I had already narrowed down the possible locations by a process of elimination. Snake would not have wanted to destroy the jewel, as it was the only way back into his own skin. It followed from that that it would be unlikely he would risk flying off with such a crucial element of his plans. For that matter he wouldn’t hand it off to a subordinate, however trusted.
Of course, that left a limited number of places it could be, as the castle itself was not constructed to accommodate a dragon. It had to be in the upper reaches, close to where Princess Snake had handed Lucille his “gift.”
I slipped out of a door and into the night air. I shivered a little as I looked out over the shadowed towers of the castle, silhouetted by the faintest hint of dawn, still hours away. My breath came out in a fog, and I felt my heart thud in my throat.
It wasn’t fear. I had been in more dangerous situations before.
It was memory.
I stood here, in the upper reaches of the castle where I had spent time talking to Lucille, my dragon husband, before her duties had taken her away, and before my own depression and self-pity had taken me.
Did I miss that?
What sense did that make? I didn’t belong here. The old fishy wizard was right. I fit much better in the role of Snake the thief . . .
I faced the night sky and whispered, “If that’s the case, I best get to some stealing.”
CHAPTER 29
“Okay, let’s see if this thing was worth it.”
I pulled the ugly iron talisman from around my neck and held it up so it dangled, slowly twisting on its chain. I didn’t know exactly what I’d do if this didn’t work. Even if my reasoning had been perfect and the artifact was up here somewhere, there were still innumerable hiding places, and without some further direction I could spend days searching buttresses and parapets for something not much larger than the talisman I held out in front of me.
I stared at the thing, wondering if there was some sort of invocation needed for it to work, or if I’d be able to tell if it was working.
I needed to stop thinking of ways this could go wrong.
Looking at the twisted knot of iron made my brain ache with a sense of wrongness—especially when I realized that I saw the thing quite clearly in near darkness. It didn’t help that it appeared to be slowly twisting in on itself, despite hanging straight down from its chain.
A glow pulsed within it. Something about it made me sick to my stomach, but I couldn’t help but stare deep into the pale emerald light. As I did, the twisted iron moved apart, like an eye opening, an eye that didn’t belong in this universe.
The green glow faded until I was looking through the open iron framework at the silhouette of a parapet near the top of the tallest tower. As the otherworldly eye closed again, I saw a dim reflection of the sick green light wink at me from the top of the parapet.
I put the talisman away.
I can take a hint.
• • •
The unused tower was one of several places around the castle that, over the years, had been closed off due to lack of funds. It was easy enough to get inside from the roof and begin ascending. However, about halfway up, I ran out of stairs.
And floors.
I climbed out onto a pile of broken stone and timbers, looking up at the hollow interior.
It’s never easy.
I pulled myself up on the pile of rubble near one of the walls. Then I pulled myself up and started to scale the inside wall toward the top of the tower.
I’ve had worse climbs in my career. The remains of the stairway left more than enough purchase for me to make my way upward. It just took a while in the dark. I lost any sense of time, and when I squeezed out of one of the upper windows to climb up the last dozen feet to the parapet, the sky had turned much lighter.
But I saw the Tear of Nâtlac, its chain wrapped around the neck of a gargoyle. I couldn’t believe my luck, having something finally going right.
I was right not to.
• • •
I climbed out of the tower, back onto the roof, and the sky’s rosy dawn glow was already fading. If all had gone as planned, Weasel’s men were long gone and I was the only invader left in the castle. My strategy, as it was, was to hide myself somewhere and stake out an opportunity to try and ambush the dragon.
When a shadow passed between me and the sky, I realized that the “ambush” part of that plan wasn’t going to work.
Something thudded onto the castle roof behind me.
“Frank Blackthorne.”
That impossibly deep voice was very familiar to me, but it had been months since I’d found it actually frightening.
“You’re not going to kill me,” I whispered. Unfortunately, my certainty was tempered by the memory of what had happened to the late Wizard Elhared when he said pretty much the same thing to me. You don’t tend to forget plunging a dagger into your own neck, regardless of who happened to be wearing it at the time.
“No one said anything about killing you.”
Unfortunately, that was not at all reassuring.
I slowly turned around toward the speaker. The dragon faced me, early morning light shining almost iridescent against the black scales, the serpentine neck twisting so that the massive head hovered above me, looking down, giving a bowel-draining view of a set of jaws that could easily snap me in half.
For months I had grown used to Lucille in this skin, to the point where I had forgotten the atavistic fear of standing this close to something that could crush me like a bug while setting me on fire. Forgotten it, but I hadn’t lost it. I just could see Lucille inside the dragon’s skin.
The dragon now—the posture was different, the look in the eyes, the cock of the head. Everything screamed to me that this was someone else, and the thought was so wrong that everything inside me dissolved into quivering spineless jelly.
It was a miracle I didn’t collapse into a blubbering puddle.
“Your reputation precedes you.”
“I could say the same.”
“Perhaps, then, you might rethink what you are doing.”
I held up the Tear of Nâtlac so it glittered between us. “Perhaps you might rethink what you’re doing.”
“Believe me, I have thought quite deeply about this.”
“Put it on,” I said. “End this.”
The dragon laughed. It was unnerving when Lucille had chuckled in that form, but with Snake behind it, the laugh felt as if a crack in the world had suddenly started leaking all the sanity out.
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The dragon shook its head. “That is why you should join me, Frank. Our goals coincide, the only issue you have with me is the timing.”
“Hardly the only issue.”
“Beyond possession of this body, what is there?”
“Really? You think I haven’t noticed you starting a war with Grünwald?”
“Please. You tell me that war with Grünwald is anything other than inevitable? You stood in front of the queen herself and prevented an invasion.”
“And you’re trying to provoke one!”
“First rule of war. Advantage goes to the party that chooses the time and place of battle. And if you care for Lendowyn, you should welcome my hand in this.”
“By all the Dark Lords of the Underworld, why?”
The dragon lowered its head until its eyes were nearly even with my own, the fang-filled mouth barely a foot from me. If it hadn’t been a dragon speaking, it might have been a conspiratorial whisper. As it was, the words vibrated the teeth in the rear of my mouth.
“Because, Frank, Lendowyn is not going to win any other way.”
The dragon withdrew and cocked its head. When Lucille looked at me like that it was inquisitive. When Snake did, it was just condescending.
“Return that token, and I promise I will relinquish this body—but only when the throne of Grünwald is empty of my pretender brother.”
“No. I’ve seen what you did to Sir Forsythe’s men.”
“Your posturing is becoming tiresome. Those men were threats to the crown.”
“You, maybe. Not the crown.”
“You know Lendowyn law. While I wear this body I am the prince.”
“I’m not going to let you do this.”
The dragon laughed and lifted a taloned hand to reach for me. I backed up a step and dropped the jewel to the flagstones at my feet. I rested my heel on it and said, “Stop.”
The dragon stopped reaching for me and said, “You aren’t going to destroy that.”
If you were certain, you wouldn’t have stopped reaching. “Back off, Bartholomew. You must have some idea why I put this on. I could happily live the rest of my life in your skin. But I think you want it back, or you would have smashed this yourself.”