The Thief

by Aine Crabtree

  “And what about outside?” Rhys said lowly. “Are you forgetting whose jurisdiction that is?”

  “Certainly not yours,” Tailor said, tone flat. “You’re on the wrong side of the mirror, Ryan. I don’t know what your mother’s led you to believe, but you don’t have a kingdom here.”

  “Yet,” Rhys said.

  Tailor’s gaze was cool. “Don’t say that in front of the principal,” he said, with exaggerated pleasantry.

  Rhys glared at him, and, with a look in my direction that might almost have been remorseful, he stalked off into the crowd.

  “Royalty,” Tailor sighed. “They think they own everything.”

  Does he know? I couldn’t even look at Tailor now, even though I really wanted to. I wanted another look at his eyes, to see if maybe the color matched mine. Had he known the whole time? Did he have any idea?

  “Have you seen Charlotte?” he asked, surveying the crowd. “She’s supposed to be grading this mess.”

  “She was talking to Gabriel awhile ago,” I said.

  “One of these days,” he grumbled, almost to himself, “she’s going to do something she can’t take back...”

  “And you’re going to say ‘I told you so’?”

  He glanced at me, his flat brown eyes like a solid negative force. “Or nothing,” I amended.

  “Forget it, I’m going to check the classrooms,” he grumbled, heading off for a side door to the stairwell.

  I turn back to fiddling with my display, wondering why men only ever seemed to be scary. Where was Mac when you needed balance?

  As if summoned, he appeared at my elbow. “Holy crap you will not believe the day we’ve had,” he said. Destin and Bea were weaving through the crowd behind him.

  “Have you seen John Tailor?” Bea asked, expression intent.

  “He was just here,” I said, confused by everyone’s collective unease. “He went to look for Charlotte. I’ll go get him - can you watch my board until Camille gets back?”

  “Umino grabbed her when we came in, to get her ready for kendo stuff,” Mac said.

  “She was with you?”

  “Just go get John,” Bea said tersely. “We’ll explain everything when you both come back.”

  “A-alright,” I said, slipping through the crowd to the door Tailor had used. I went up the stairwell and out the door to the second floor. I spotted someone down the hall, looking over the banister at the atrium below. I approached, thinking it was Tailor, but I soon realized it was Gabriel.

  “What are you - ” I started, but he clapped a hand over my mouth and pointed to the three people in the atrium below.

  Tailor

  There she is.

  I come around the hall and can see her in the foyer, talking to someone whose back is to me. A man, with dark hair and a long wool coat. I assume it’s Gabriel. They’d been spending far too much time together. Charlotte has always had the worst taste in men, and it had only deteriorated when her older brothers left town. She has this habit of attaching herself to people who see her as nothing more than a resource. Gabriel is by far the worst person I can imagine her with.

  I’m about to call out to her, berate her for abandoning the festival, and the students she’s supposed to be grading. But before I can, the man spots me, recognition sparking in his bright blue eyes, and he immediately bends down to kiss her. It’s a kiss for my benefit, I know instinctively. Just as he intends, I freeze, blood running cold. Simon.

  I’ve always known, somehow, that he would come back eventually. But this is not what I’d been prepared for. Simon pulls back from Charlotte, smirking at me over her bright copper hair.

  I was wrong. This is worse than Gabriel.

  Charlotte turns, flushing bright red. “Oh! John...look, Simon’s come home!”

  “Is that what this is?” I say, tone as flat as I can manage.

  “Look at you, Tailor, you’re a step away from being an old professor. Just what I expected,” Simon says, giving me an evaluating look and curling a possessive arm around Charlotte’s shoulders.

  I haven’t seen him in over a decade, but he hasn’t changed much. There are lines starting to show around his forehead and two-day stubble on his face. A little ragged around the edges, maybe. A little dark around the eyes, a little cruel around the mouth. But some girls go for that.

  “I’m - I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Charlotte says. “I know you were worried about him, but I knew he was fine.”

  Damnit, Charlotte. He can’t be serious about her. He’d always ignored her. This is some sort of punishment he’s arranged for me. Because as much as I’ve wanted to forget, Charlotte always did like him. All of the awful boyfriends she’s had over the years, may have just been replacements for Simon. She’d been a wreck when he and Kyra had run away senior year.

  “I wasn’t really all that worried, to be honest,” I say.

  Simon leans against the banister in the foyer, as if he owns the place. It ticks me off. He’d never been part of this school; he’d left before it was even built. I’ve never had any true claim on Charlotte, but Havenwood is a part of me. I hate it most of the time, and maybe it’s the spell binding me to the foundation talking, but this is my school, not his. I am not his subordinate here.

  “Aren’t you going to tell him our happy news, Charlotte?” Simon says.

  Charlotte fidgets.

  “There’s going to be another Graham,” he says smoothly. “A real one, this time.”

  I look at Charlotte. At her stomach. She flushes harder.

  “John, don’t look like that,” Charlotte pleads. “It’s good news.”

  Then why do you look so guilty? I think. There’s a sort of buzzing in my ears. Half of me wants to run away, at least until I hit the limit of the binding spell. The other half wants to murder Simon where he stands.

  “That’s more like it,” Simon says appreciatively, eyes on my expression. “Do you get it now? You know what it feels like?”

  “What what feels like?” I say through my teeth.

  “Are you seriously going to pretend it never happened?” He’s suddenly seething, pushing past Charlotte to get in my face. “I suffered in ignorance for years because of you, trying to understand why my powers wouldn’t work in my own home. I was free of you...I should have been fine. But every night I came home to my apartment, there was a little brat waiting, and my powers would curdle and die. Did you think I’d never figure it out? Did you think I was that stupid?”

  I’d stopped breathing while he spoke. “No,” I say, a horrible night of despair I’d tried to forget pushing its way back up into my memory. I hated her so much, for the way she manipulated Simon. And me.

  Charlotte is looking at me like I’m a stranger. Panic rises, but I push it down. “No,” I say. “You’re imagining things, Jul isn’t - ”

  “So you’re saying you never slept with Kyra?” Simon demands, and I flinch at the words. Said out loud, they seem real. I want it to be impossible. That night should never have happened.

  “Tell me the truth!” Simon shouts.

  My voice sounds over-quiet in the wake of his outburst. “Once,” I say, swallowing. “Only once...”

  “Once is all it takes, buddy,” Simon snaps. “Do you have any idea what you made? I’ve done the research. I know the prophecies. Born of absolute power and nothingness.” He laughs, and it echoes bitter around the atrium. “That’s your girl. The monster to end all monsters. If she’d been mine - if she’d actually been mine - none of this would be happening right now. Kyra would never have left me. So I’d never have taken that mirror from Gabriel Katsura, and he wouldn’t have needed to move his pet Wolf into your range. The Ender wouldn’t have followed them here. And I wouldn’t have had to bring Charlotte into this.” He kisses her on the forehead but his grin is cruel.

  She pushes him away, aghast and trembling. “Simon!”

  “Everything that’s happening,” Simon states, focused on me, “is your fault. I want you to rem
ember, when you look at the ruin I’m going to make of your life, that you ruined mine first.”

  “Simon - ” I protest, but the windows by the doors begin to melt, the glass peeling away and twisting into jagged shapes that hang in the air. They float around him, an airborne barrier of crystalline knives.

  “Has my mother told you where my father’s mirror is, yet?” he asks, advancing. “His masterwork. The one that goes In Between.” The glass knives twirl around him. “Give me the mirror and maybe I’ll go quietly.”

  I back up, an arm out to shield Charlotte. Good god, she’s carrying his child, is he insane? I reach for the part of me that keeps my students in check, but it’s unchanged. The same ever-present heaviness I’ve felt since I was small. The heaviness that had unknowingly kept Simon from his true strength - from the part of him that had no place on this side of the mirror.

  He chuckles at my confusion. “I’ve been building up an immunity to undisciplined Tailors for years,” he snarls, saying the name like a curse. “You’ll need better training if you want to compete with the likes of me. Now let’s see,” he says, withdrawing a handmirror rimmed in silver vines from the interior of his coat. “Where is your lovely daughter?”

  Jul

  My mouth was cool as Gabriel suddenly took his hand away, reaching inside his jacket. He pulled out a vial and hurled it over the banister. It shattered on the floor at my fa- at Simon’s feet, furling sickly yellow smoke. The three of them coughed, collapsing unconscious. Simon’s glass barrier clattered lifeless to the floor.

  “Was that a spell?” I asked.

  “Or science,” he said. “Depends on who you ask. I doubt when Charlotte gave it to me that she expected she’d be on the receiving end,” he said, descending the stairs swiftly.

  I followed, my steps tentative.

  “I’ll have that back...” Gabriel picked up the handmirror from Simon’s grip and tucked it inside his own jacket. Then he pulled a small scroll of paper from another interior pocket. He put it in Tailor’s hand, curling his slack fingers around it.

  “If only that were enough...” he murmured.

  I looked down at the two men on the ground. Even unconscious, Dad - Simon - looked haunted, hand outstretched for something that wasn’t there. Tailor’s glasses had slid down his nose, showing long eyelashes that I’d seen in my own mirror. So he really hadn’t known, after all. So I was a mistake he’d made. Born of absolute power and nothingness. What had Dad meant by that?

  “You said you wanted to help Camille,” Gabriel said, looking toward the hall that led to the gymnasium. She’d be in there now, warming up for the exhibition match. “How far are you willing to go?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She is the Wolf,” he said, and I gasped. “The one Meredith has come to destroy. But we can’t use the Tailor’s Sword on Meredith without exposing Camille to the full brunt of her own powers. She would be lost. There is, however, another way to neutralize Meredith,” he said, his black hair swinging around his face as he turned to me sharply. “I wasn’t quite sure how to reach it, until just now. A weapon, hidden inside a mirror. I think you know the one I mean. We have to get there before Simon. Camille will never be safe as long as Meredith runs loose - and no one will be safe if Simon claims that mirror.”

  Bea had said never to show anyone that mirror. But if Simon wasn’t my father, then Bea wasn’t my grandmother. Not really. My heart constricted. What did I owe her, really? Maybe she’d vowed to hide it, but saving my friend was more important than some dusty old promise.

  Guilt flared up like a warning sign. Bea had helped me. Helped all of us, even Camille, despite her distrust of Gabriel. But the thought of Meredith reaching Camille...of finding her a pile of ashes, when I could have saved her...

  “It’s just finding a weapon?” I asked.

  “In and out,” Gabriel said. “No need to be In Between any longer than we have to.” He seemed nervous, somehow. Reluctant. It sealed my decision.

  “Okay,” I said, looking down at Tailor. “For Camille.”

  “Lead the way,” Gabriel said.

  The monster to end all monsters, Dad had said. That was just his jealousy talking...right?

  The sky was bright over Bea’s house as Gabriel pulled his weathered car into the driveway. Smoke billowed up from the chimney, and bursts of flame spit up, threatening to catch the roof.

  “What on earth...?” I wondered.

  “So it’s here after all,” Gabriel said grimly. “I was so sure it was at the school. I underestimated her paranoia.”

  “What’s here?”

  “Beatrix thinks she can contain the uncontainable,” he said. “Hurry, we need to rectify her mistake before the house goes up in flames.” He exited the car swiftly. I followed, and we entered the house.

  He immediately made for the tearoom, inspecting the wall with the bookshelves. “There used to be a door to the basement here,” he said, pulling books out of the way. His eyes caught on the chesspiece bookend. “The queen, is it?” He twisted it, and there was a grinding sound as the shelf slid back. He made an appreciative noise, looking at the steps that appeared at his feet. “She’s been quite busy in the last decade,” he said.

  The computer monitor showed a figure wreathed in fire in a room made of stone.

  “Clever girl,” Gabriel said, staring at the screen. “Clever, and also very stupid.”

  He picked up a headset and put it on. “Meredith?” he called. “Meredith, can you hear me?”

  The flames dwindled, leaving the image much darker. A bedraggled woman in charred, stained leather looked up curiously.

  “Who’s there?” she demanded.

  Gabriel cast me a brief look and answered, “An old friend. Give me a moment and I’ll have you out of there.”

  “Let her out?” I exclaimed. “Are you crazy?”

  “Look at her,” he said, setting down the headset. “Do you see those walls?” The marble slabs that formed her prison still glowed from the firestorm she’d been brewing moments ago. The smoldering stubs of what used to be cage bars dotted the floor around her. “Your grandmother is clever, but she doesn’t know Meredith like I do. The prison is already melting, if the roof doesn’t catch first. The stone will keep her at bay for maybe another hour, and when she gets out... Have you ever seen hellfire with a temper?” He descended the steps swiftly, and I followed.

  “You said she wants to kill Camille,” I said. “How does letting her out help anything?”

  “Your house will remain intact, for one. I can direct her where I want her to go, for another. I’ve got a much better temporary solution lined up, one that if executed properly, will prevent her from harming Camille for the near future. And while that’s in place, you and I can unearth a permanent solution In Between.”

  At the base of the steps was a heavy stone door, and a keypad recessed into the wall. Gabriel approached it, inspecting its design.

  “Five letters...oh, Beatrix,” he chuckled. He punched a code into the keypad. SOREN. “Paranoid, but sentimental,” he said, and pressed enter. A noise of denial came from the pad. Blinking in surprise, Gabriel glanced back at the chesspiece that had opened the door and immediately punched in GAVIN. The light turned green.

  “How did you know that?” I asked. “Who’s Gavin?”

  “Ask me later,” he said. “You might want to go hide somewhere.”

  I swallowed, remembering her grip on me at the lumbermill. “I - I don’t think she can hurt me.”

  His mouth twisted. “Lucky you,” he said, and pushed the door open.

  “There he is,” Meredith grinned, stepping around the molten pillars. Smoke rose from her leather attire. “Hey, handsome. Delivering my Wolf at last? I had a feeling about this one - ”

  “It’s not her,” Gabriel said, pushing me behind him. “She’s a Null, or couldn’t you tell?”

  “What’s a Null?” She quirked an eyebrow.

  Gabriel waved a hand in annoyance.
“You forgot. Never mind. The point is, I found it for you.”

  “And here I thought you’d never come through,” she grinned.

  With a glance at me, he stepped forward and whispered something in her ear. Her eyes widened, and then she laughed. “No wonder,” she said. “Those Uminos are always a pain in the ass. It’s like their whole purpose is to piss me off.”

  “Not their whole purpose,” Gabriel says, stepping back.

  “Well, hopefully next time I see you, I won’t remember I owe you one,” she said. “Sure you don’t want a good-bye kiss?”

  “I’ll pass on the burns, thanks,” Gabriel said.

  “Too bad, too bad,” she laughed, striding out the door.

  I watched her go, apprehensive. “Are you really sure that was the right thing to do?”

  “Sloppy, last minute execution, perhaps. A risk, I won’t deny. Nothing here is ideal, but it’s going to work out in the end,” he said. “Well, as long as Tailor figures out his present.”

  Chapter 19

  Mac

  “Oh no...oh no, Mac, look,” Destin says, nodding at the front of the gym.

  I turn; there’s Meredith, scanning the room intently. I turn around, hoping she won’t spot us easily from the back.

  “What’s she doing here?” I say in hushed panic. “Did she burn down the house? I mean, that fast? That was like three feet of solid granite!”

  “We don’t know what she’s capable of,” Destin points out.

  “Ok, what do we do, what do we do?”

  “We’ve got to get Camille out of here,” Destin says.

  “Alright, you get little red riding hoodie and I’ll get the big flaming wolf,” I say.

  “She’s gonna torch you, man,” Destin warns.

  “Just get going!” I say, pushing him towards the dojo where Camille will be warming up. She and Hyde are supposed to have an exhibition match any minute now.

  I move towards the front of the room, dodging between clusters of people admiring the science exhibits. Meredith couldn’t look more out of place, clad exclusively in stained brown leather, tangled hair sticking out every which way. People instinctively shy away from her, but she seems to take no notice. Her eyes land on the most official-looking person in the room.