She hid in the shadows, crouched on a rooftop adjacent to the two-story building after she’d spied the single occupant of the Clockwork Emporium retiring for bed. He was a creature of habit, extinguishing the lights then heading upstairs. A bit of steam and smoke arose from vent shafts during his nightly bath, and then he appeared in the bedroom where he read for an hour each night.
Darkness then fell, silence. Peace.
He slept with open windows, and one of her spotters, a young boy she paid two silver pieces a night to watch her marks, had reported he remained there until the seventh toll each morning without moving, never stirring or awakening, even when they’d tossed a few rocks against the bricks beside the window.
Xavier was a heavy sleeper, the best kind of mark for a thief like her.
Grinning, Rosalia slid down a drainage pipe to the ground when the guard patrolling the adjacent alley vanished around the corner. Then she scampered up the wall of Xavier’s shop with a pair of gloves she’d borrowed from Mira that made scaling vertical surfaces as easy as walking down the street.
I’ll have to make friends with Bonare and ask for a pair of my own, she thought.
When she reached the short ledge outside of Xavier’s window, she remained crouched there while peering inside. He didn’t stir, body motionless beneath the thin blanket. Still.
Perfect.
She raised the window a few inches higher and slipped inside through the gap. Crouched, she stole a glance at the slumbering man in the bed and frowned. Something seemed off. Strange. She studied him for a while longer up close, head tilted until she realized what was amiss.
Why isn’t his chest moving? Why isn’t he breathing?
Why wasn’t there a feeling of life and warmth coming from him, the sensation she felt whenever people were nearby, the way she knew when there were guards on the patrol or her fellow thieves on the prowl?
Her pulse crashed through her veins. Despite all her experience as a thief and instinct telling her to haul ass to safety, she moved closer to inspect the figure in the bed.
Her worst fears had come true and someone had died while she was on the premises robbing them. Or had she entered a setup? Would she descend the stairs to find a dozen armed guards awaiting her arrival, blades at the ready, bows trained on her chest?
Rosalia moved closer, wondering if he was still warm to the touch, or better yet, still able to be resuscitated. She’d recently learned a new medical maneuver brought from another continent, compressions of the ribs meant to restart the heart.
Her hands hovered above his chest, palm down and poised to mimic what she’d seen at the square while the healers gave lessons. Torn between greed for the item and an innate altruistic desire, she chose the latter.
And pressed down on hard wood. Unyielding, firm wood.
It wasn’t a euphemism. The man was actually made of wood.
What the hell?
For the first time, she realized something was amiss with Xavier’s face. Her eyes finally focused in the dim moonlight and took in features that weren’t human. Or elven. Rosalia stared down at glossy cheeks crafted from polished wood, flesh-toned screws visible at the corner of the mouth and jaw. The edge of a wig had been fastened to the brow. It wasn’t a person.
The best automaton to ever cross her vision lay in the bed, clothed in linen pajamas with the sheets tucked up to its chest. It had the same shape and dimensions as the man it was modeled after. Marveling over the work of art, she stared at it for a few moments longer before swallowing the hard lump in her throat.
If Xavier wasn’t here in bed, where was he?
A smart thief would leave.
A better one would solve the mystery and acquire the prize.
Gods. She had to know now. How the hell could she possibly turn back with this kind of juicy mystery looming in front of her face?
Determination flooded through Rosalia, helped by a healthy dose of curiosity. She crept to the open doorway leading into a hall cushioned by a long rug in the style of all textiles imported from the neighboring nation of Nairubia.
This area was unfamiliar territory, a blind spot she hadn’t and couldn’t investigate while casing his store. She held her breath and focused on the silent atmosphere for the buzz of magic, the whistle of spellcraft, or any signs of life down below. Step by step, she descended.
Nothing.
She reached the store counter and surpassed the point of no return. By design, most vaults were dug out of the earth and placed beneath shops, especially the stores of the Twilight Gardens District built into the shelf of the mountain steppe. The rest were usually found to the rear of the shop counter in a secure room. One such room loomed before her, its door hanging open to reveal a workshop stocked with gears, metals, and tools. She ventured there, careful enough to avoid a few subtle spells chiseled into the tile floor. She ducked beneath an obvious trap designed to sense movement and treaded lightly beyond a tricky ward meant to immobilize its victim.
Traps always came in pairs, an obvious one to distract a sloppy thief from the true danger hidden nearby.
Rosalia froze. But a man as smart as Xavier wouldn’t stop there. He’d have a third. Something even more insidious if he wanted to punish a burglar. Her gaze darted toward the wall, and she saw it, painted onto the red stones with red ink, a perfect match only visible from the right angle.
Pay attention, she chastised herself. That could have been her death. Or worse. She couldn’t determine the type of sinister magic lurking in the enchantment, but looking at it raised the hairs on her arms. The pounding drumbeat of her own pulse became a deafening roar. She waited until it calmed before proceeding forward, scooting to the left, avoiding tricks below, to the sides, and above. So far, only simple magical wards, no pressure plates, and no clockwork beasts or elemental hounds.
Simple.
She crossed the threshold and took in her surroundings. Smooth, moonstone tiles gleamed above her in the ceiling, each one unique and different from the last with miniature craters and textured indentations resembling the heavenly body’s surface. A combination wall safe gleamed to her left, not even hidden behind a portrait or some other distraction to veil it.
Whether it was a decoy or trap, it was far too obvious to be real. She ignored it.
Against another wall opposite the entrance to the room, an immaculate worktable lay before her. There were cogs everywhere in bins and hanging on walls, spools of metal wire, tools sorted by size on tables, and so many wonders well worth stealing if she hadn’t come for one item and one item alone. She moved about the room with increasing confidence as she became accustomed to spotting his wards, felt the edges of portraits—abandoning that effort when she realized Xavier had better wits than to use the cheapest tricks in the book. She tapped on the walls, listened for hollows beyond them, and finally crouched beneath his desk. He had concealed no buttons, levers, or secret mechanisms she could find.
The vault could be closer to his shop counter.
Where would a brilliant clockwork mechanic hide his most treasured jewels and belongings? He wouldn’t use something so simple as a bookshelf door activated by pulling a novel, or a pattern of bricks to tap on the wall. As she rubbed her face in consternation, her gaze darted to the decoy safe.
She moved to it and removed a small alchemical lamp sphere from her pouch. Shaking it stirred the contents and shed light. There was magic there, and it ebbed toward her like a subtle, living force of nature. Her sense of self-preservation told her to leave the safe be. She stepped back from it, shook her head, and then suddenly understood.
Few thieves ever remembered to ever look up. She’d glanced at the ceiling to admire the work, but she hadn’t really seen what was there. Studying the ceiling revealed an imperfection, one of the tiles reflecting the light brighter than the others. The difference was so minor only the sharpest eyes would see it.
After determining the work table would bear her weight and held no nasty tricks, she climbed onto
it and squinted until she noticed a small glyph concealed among the miniature craters in the tile. She touched it and prayed she was right.
Upon contact, a static spark leapt between Rosalia’s fingertip and the stone. Somehow, even as the scream rose in her throat, she managed to choke it back and make a pitiful squeaking sound instead.
At that moment, the stone floor soundlessly sank into a deep depression, that revealed the inside of a narrow, descending stairway. Once Rosalia confirmed she hadn’t pissed herself in terror, she eased onto the topmost step and felt for magic again. It always came to her as something of a buzz, or a sense of heat or unusual cool where such things didn’t belong, magic carrying its own scent in the air, its own taste.
At the bottom of the stairs, she found no further tricks or traps, no floor plates meant to hurl poisoned daggers, no sensors designed to pierce metal spikes through the ground. What she found was something else entirely. The tunnel opened into a receiving room designed to host many guests, outfitted with luxury chairs, velvet divans in remarkable shades of green and teal, and plush arm chairs. The rugs beneath her feet were soft. Silk. Even though there was no one in sight, she moved off their path.
What the hell? She ventured farther inside and breathed in the metallic scent of coin nearby. Lacherra often teased that Rosalia’s ability to smell gold was uncanny.
Traveling through several more rooms of increasing luxury, Rosalia came upon the motherlode of all art collections. It lay beyond a wide arch, its space lit by wall sconces powered by magical charms and light emanated by heatless, blue flames. The cobalt glow illuminated paintings and shelves with rows upon rows of books. More rugs in the eclectic and colorful style of Nairubia, their kingdom’s western ally, sprawled across an immaculate, polished floor.
There was a feeling in her gut, a pull that told her to continue through the network of tunnels. Left, right, and straight, left again. She’d always called it her thief’s intuition, a remarkable sense that told her where to find the most valuable jewels.
The tug guided her through another open archway at the end of a long corridor into a realm of limitless riches.
Wealth beyond anything Rosalia had ever seen in all her life spanned from one side of the vault room to the next. She stared into the glittering space flooded with gold and gasped. Tidy piles of coins rose tall as she stood, and thousands more overflowed from open chests among precious jewels on blankets of velvet.
She’d known Xavier made a healthy living at his craft, but she’d never thought he could have amassed so much money fixing clocks, ovens, vault doors, and airships. There had to be something underhanded and illegal taking place in that store.
And somewhere in the midst of so much wealth, she’d find her answers—and the prize.
Despite her gift, she treaded with caution, too prudent to risk disturbing coins strewn over the ground. She didn’t want to alert a potential danger to her presence in the underground lair. He seemed a smart man, and she had no doubt that something had been left behind to dissuade thieves.
Some wealthy members of the city preferred to purchase vault keepers, and three-headed hounds had become a favorite in the recent years. Unfortunately for many owners, a poorly trained hound’s loyalty could be bought with a shank of griffin meat. She’d brought some in preparation of this, but exhaled a sigh of relief when she didn’t pick out their telltale, smoky odor amidst the scent of precious metal.
The air became too still, the rooms too silent, only the rapid thump of her own heartbeat in her ears. Her palms dampened the inside of her leather gloves, and her mouth became proportionately dry.
Where was it? And why did she feel so much dread?
In the next chamber, the ground had been carved to create four deep valleys with two intersecting paths rising above them. The hollows had been filled with hundreds upon thousands of coins, a king’s ransom hidden beneath the shop. More coins than any man could spend in a lifetime invited Rosalia to fill her purse to the brim.
A few unpolished rubies tinkled behind her, sliding down a mountain of gold without any apparent reason for moving. The hairs raised on the back of her neck.
Ignore it. It’s nothing. After all, as far as she could tell, no one else occupied the mysterious vault.
At the end of the catwalk, she found several shelves. Books, trinkets, jewels, and an assortment of beautiful, priceless things decorated it. Fascinated, Rosalia ran her fingers over the spine of a book and removed a fine layer of dust.
The Scholar’s Truth
A well-loved book written by Saudonia’s founder, a wise old man still considered to be the best monarch their kingdom had ever seen. None could compete with his coveted title except for perhaps the late King Gregarus Varro XVII.
And while the man was still a popular figure in history, she couldn’t imagine why anyone would keep a book printed a thousand times over on the press, inside a locked vault.
Unless...
Rosalia raised the cover to reveal handwritten ink across the aged pages. She almost died on the spot.
Xavier Bane owned one of the originals. One of seven famed originals, three lost to time, one in the museum, one buried with the king, one guarded by the church, and one owned by the current ruler, King Gregarus Varro XVIII.
Now it was two lost to time, because she’d discovered one, a fortune that could free her forever from a life of theft. She could sell it to any of their frequent buyers and be on the next boat out of Enimura by dawn. To hell with their client.
It would be a new life for her. At least it would be a new life if she didn’t owe Hadrian a fulfilled contract. First she’d find the mirror, then she’d consider selling the book on the open market, growing giddier by the second as she imagined escaping their dusty hell for a world of green grass and verdant forests.
Rosalia raised the book. A gold-framed oval looking glass glittered in the space it left behind.
She rolled her eyes. Of course, the item she’d been hired to steal had to be among the most worthless of everything on the shelf. Compared to The Scholar’s Truth, the mirror looked trivial and ordinary. She picked up the translucent pane then studied the trio of different metals framing it.
The creator had etched words in an unfamiliar language across the layers of gold, silver, and copper, and the glass portion provided no magnification or adequate reflection. She could barely see herself, and what she did see was distorted and… different. Something told her to look away, so she did.
As she turned her wrist, the glass caught the light of a nearby alchemical lamp and threw rainbows against the wall. Five coin-sized recesses spaced at an equal distance implied it had once held gems.
Some thief had likely pried them out years ago. She hoped their client didn’t accuse her or Hadrian of removing the stones.
“A two for one special,” she murmured, satisfied with the night’s events.
Rosalia wrapped the mirror in soft leather to protect it and prepared to secure the book as well. Behind her, metal coins chimed again and clinked against each other.
The same cold tickle went down her back, icing her blood and wetting her palms. Fear.
When Rosalia turned, she came face-to-face with an enormous pair of green eyes set above a scaled snout with two slit nostrils. The rest of the head emerged from the coin pile, leading to a slender neck, and broad shoulders. Jewels winked from beneath gilded scales where they had been lodged during the beast’s apparent slumber.
Her mouth fell open, and her body froze, knees knocking together.
Xavier did nothing half-assed, and he’d gone leagues beyond having a hellhound or mere traps. He owned the mother of all vault keepers, the kind of monster not even a king could afford—a gold dragon.
The book fell from her listless fingers, toppling to the ground at her feet. She bolted. Dashing full speed down the narrow walking path, Rosalia prayed to every god beneath Enimura’s pantheon that she was fast enough to reach the smaller opening before the dragon snapped
her up in its jaws.
“Stop! Wait!”
Rosalia recognized Xavier’s voice somewhere behind her, but the strange underground acoustics made it thunder around her with tremendous volume.
Keep running. The adrenaline pounding through her veins wouldn’t allow her to stop. Fear wouldn’t allow her to stop, though the underground cavern’s corridor suddenly seemed miles long and as large as the city of Enimura itself. The pulse pounded in her ears, but she urged her legs to move until the heart in her chest threatened to burst from its cage.
She’d never make it to the entrance of the hoard in time when every second mattered. Through the open passage ahead, she saw the way in had been sealed, only smooth stone in the place of the open rectangle that admitted her to the vault.
She swore and spun on her heel, glancing left and right until she saw the most unlikely contraption jutting from the wall—a waste chute of the variety often used to carry refuse to the sewers. She lunged toward it and clawed it open, chipping her manicure and tearing the nail bed in the process.
Later, if she survived her escape, she’d wonder why a subterranean vault needed its own trash chute.
Would the outlet support her passing through it? At a glance, she estimated it to be as broad as her shoulders, if not a little wider.
“Wait!”
Keep going.
Death by dragon’s maw or death by drowning—one seemed a thousand times more agonizing. With the beast hot on her heels and its owner calling her name, she dove forward into the drain and slid into the gloom below.
8
A MATTER OF LIFE AND DEATH
“AND THEN I dropped the book and ran like my ass was already on fire. I couldn’t control my hands. It just happened, my muscles locked up, and I rushed away.”
“It’s a natural reaction that happens whenever anyone encounters a dragon,” Mira explained, laughing. She’d been laughing at Rosalia ever since she climbed through the window into their apartment and flopped onto the floor beneath it, soaking wet and smelling of fetid sewer scum.
All That Glitters: a Fantasy Romance (Daughter of Fortune Book 1) Page 6
