Thief With No Shadow (23 page)

“Another sheep?”

“Yes.”

“I’ll put the clothes here. And here’s a towel. And Bastian, there’s food in the kitchen.”

Bastian bowed his head. “Thank you,” he said again.

“Are you all right?” Her voice was soft, tentative.

He scared her, standing outside in the dark, washing himself until his skin rubbed raw. “Fine,” he said. “I’m fine.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

H
ANTJE WAS MORE
alert in the morning, closer to wakefulness, to talking. The burns were faint blotches on his skin, pink and almost unseen. His mouth was healed, his eyelids no longer swollen. He muttered, turning his head on the pillow and clutching at the sheets.

“Hush,” Melke said, smoothing back his hair. “Rest easy, Hantje.”

His face twisted. The words became more distinct. “Sorry,” he said. “Sorry.”

“Hush,” she whispered again.

His breath came in sobbing gasps, as if he wept. Distress furrowed his face.

“Don’t cry.” She leaned close and pressed a kiss to his brow, smelling his despair. “It’s all right, Hantje. It’s all right.”

His body turned towards her. He burrowed his face blindly against her shoulder.

Melke put her arms around him and held him close. “Shh,” she whispered into his hair. “Hush. It’s all right.”

He was a child in her arms, thin and warm and shivering, crying. She heard his sobbing breaths and felt the trembling of his body. There was no question of withholding forgiveness. She loved him too much for that. Whatever he’d done—wraith, thief—she forgave him. She closed her eyes and rocked him gently. “Shhh.”

The sound of his breathing, those soft, choked gasps, the sobs...this was how he’d sounded when Mam died. His grief had been audible beneath the yells of soldiers and the thud of booted feet running on stone. She’d not seen him, but she’d heard him, heard
this.
She had reached towards the sound and fisted her hand in his shirt and pulled him, made him run. And while they ran, he’d sounded like this.

Hantje’s breathing slowly steadied. The trembling stopped. “Hush,” Melke whispered, rocking him, loving him. “Sleep.”

When she laid him down, distress no longer twisted his face. He slept calmly. She stroked the hair back from his brow, so black against the white of the pillowcase. “It’s all right, Hantje. Everything’s all right.”

The words were a lie. It wasn’t all right. But she wanted Hantje to heal, to not cry. To not scream that it was dark.

The memories were close to the surface. Too close. She’d buried them for years, had tried not to remember, but yesterday Bastian had asked and it was close again. The darkness. The rough, damp walls and stinking straw. The hunger. The terror. Da’s face. The sound Mam made as she died. Hantje sobbing.

Dark
, he’d screamed.

What had happened to him in the salamanders’ den?

Melke went to check on her broth. The scent...it was Mam. Lifting the lid, stirring the broth: Mam. But Mam’s scent was also blood, and the sound of her was also a crossbow.

Melke pressed fingers to her mouth. There was an ache in her throat.
No
, she told herself.
I will not cry.

But the tears were there and she couldn’t choke them back. There were too many tears. Too many reasons to cry.

She climbed the stairs blindly, closed the door to her bedchamber, and sat with her back to it. Mam. Da. Hantje sobbing, unseen. His scream:
Dark.

She wept, hugging her knees. It was too much. Too much. Far too much.

Endal pushed his head under her arm. He whined.

She couldn’t stop crying. The gulping sobs were endless.

The hound was half in her lap, heavy and warm, leaning against her. She hugged him, and cried, pressing her face into his black coat. Mam and Da. Hantje.

Endal stayed where he was, even when the tears had stopped. The hound-scent of him was warm and comforting. He smelled like Tass.

“You’re meant to bite me,” she whispered.

CHAPTER THIRTY

S
OMEONE HAD WASHED
his bloodied clothes and hung them out to dry. Bastian sat on the henhouse step and watched as the wraith unpegged them. Her hair was sleek and very black in the sunlight. She wore a different blouse. This one was blue-gray, the color of the sea during winter storms. Her skirt was the same, though. She’d worn it every day. Liana would know what to call the color. He didn’t. He’d seen plums that shade sold at the market, dark, neither black nor blue nor purple.

The wraith’s face was expressionless. She looked like an animated statue, living but lifeless, carved of marble, bloodless.
She has no emotion
, he said to Endal, rubbing a hand over the dog’s head, pulling gently at his ears. She’d never throw back her head and laugh deeply, from her belly, never love with passion, never weep as if her heart had broken.

She cries.

Bastian’s hand was startled into stillness.
Nonsense
, he said. And then he remembered the traces of tears he’d seen on her face at the salamanders’ den.
For her brother.
He’d grant her that; she felt emotion for her brother.

Not only for her brother.

He looked down at Endal. What would the dog know?

She searched for something
, Endal said.
In her room, on the stairs, in the kitchen. Out here in the yard. When she couldn’t find it, she cried.

Bastian glanced at the wraith. He couldn’t imagine her searching, crying.
Nonsense
, but his tone was uncertain.

I do not lie
, Endal said firmly.
Scratch me.
He nudged Bastian’s hand.

He rubbed his fingers over the dog’s head, watching as the wraith reached up and unpegged his trousers and folded them neatly.

Do you know what she looked for?
But even as he asked the question, Bastian remembered. Guilt twisted in his chest. It was an unfamiliar emotion.

No. I could not help her.
Endal’s tone was regretful.
But if you ask her, maybe I can find it for her.

Guilt was forgotten. Bastian was surprised into stillness again. Did Endal like the wraith?

The wraith turned, his folded clothes in her hand. She hesitated. Her chin rose slightly.

Endal nudged his hand again.
Ask her.

There is no need. I know what she was looking for.
Guilt twisted again inside him.

“These are yours.” The wraith held the clothes out to him, as haughty as a queen giving alms. Flowers were stitched on the cuffs of her blouse.

Bastian took them wordlessly, making no move to stand. The fabric was warm. The wraith turned to go.

“Wait.” It was a command.

He saw her stiffen, saw her chin rise a fraction higher. She turned back to face him. She met his gaze unflinchingly.

Bastian put the folded shirt and trousers on the step beside him.
Endal, tell me if she lies.

The wraith looked down her nose at him. “Yes?”

“You gave your word, at the salamanders’ den. Do you intend to keep it?”

She wasn’t as emotionless as he’d thought. He saw a tiny flare of anger in her eyes, a tightening of her mouth. “Yes.”

Endal was silent. She told the truth.

Tension eased inside him. Bastian began to rub the dog’s head again. “It must be soon,” he said. “The psaaron will come when—”

“When the moon is full. I know.” The wraith’s voice was brusque, edged with hostility. She turned to go.

“No.” His hand stilled. Tension returned, tight in his gut. “When the tides are high. The moon need not be full.”

The wraith halted and turned her head towards him. Her dark, arching eyebrows were drawn together in a frown. “Liana said spring equinox. That’s full moon, is it not?”

“A psaaron reckons by the tides.”

The wraith shook her head slightly. He saw that she didn’t understand.

“It’s equinox when the tides are high. Not merely when the moon is full, but several days either side.”

Her frown deepened. “But—”

“A psaaron’s measurement of equinox is not as narrow as ours.”

“So...sooner.”

“Five days.”

Her expression was proud and cold, her posture very straight-backed. Endal stirred slightly.

What?
Bastian asked.

She’s afraid.

“Very well,” the wraith said, her voice as haughty as her face. “Thank you for telling me.” She began walking towards the kitchen door.

“The necklace,” Bastian said to her back. “Do you believe you can steal it?”

The wraith halted again. This time she turned around fully. She made him wait several seconds before answering. “Will I succeed? I don’t know.”

It wasn’t the reply he’d wanted. Honest, but he’d hoped for confidence, for certainty.

“I don’t know how they caught Hantje. It may be something I can avoid. It may not.”

There was dryness in his throat, in his mouth. If he and Liana packed their belongings and left now, today, would they be far enough away when the psaaron came? Nowhere near water. Inland.

“I will need shoes. I have none.”

The words jerked his attention to her feet. He saw no bandages beneath the hem of her skirt. Bastian frowned. “Are those—”

“Liana lent them to me. But they’re unsuitable for travel.”

He recognized the slippers. Soft leather, thin-soled, with a pattern of beads stitched on the toe. Unsuitable for travel.

The slippers were his mother’s.

Yesterday he would have been furious. Today he didn’t hate her enough.

“I can buy shoes in Thierry,” he said. “Tomorrow. If you give me your size, and some money.”

Her nod was that of a fine lady to a servant, but even that failed to make him angry. The proud tilt of her chin hid fear, and part of him respected her for that. He’d rather have haughtiness than cringing.

Bastian rubbed Endal’s ears. The dog leaned against his leg. His weight, the warmth of his body, were comfortable and familiar. He was aware of Endal’s contentment. It hummed in his mind, like the purring of a cat. “If...” He hesitated. Was he a fool to ask such a question? Or a fool not to?
Endal, tell me whether she lies.
“If I take Endal with me to Thierry, will you be here when I return?”

Something flashed in the wraith’s eyes again. She looked down her nose at him. “Of course.” Two words only, but they were ice-cold and contemptuous.

She turned on her heel and walked away.

Bastian ignored her scorn.
Did she speak the truth?
he asked the dog.

Yes.

He experienced an odd skip of lightness in his chest. Thierry tomorrow, with Endal.