The Star Thief

by Lindsey Becker

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Text copyright © 2017 by Lindsey Becker

  Illustrations copyright © 2017 by Antonio Caparo

  Cover design by Marcie Lawrence. Title lettering by Antonio Caparo. Cover art © 2017 by Antonio Caparo. Cover copyright © 2017 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Hachette Book Group supports the right to free expression and the value of copyright. The purpose of copyright is to encourage writers and artists to produce the creative works that enrich our culture.

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book without permission is a theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like permission to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), please contact permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  Little, Brown and Company

  Hachette Book Group

  1290 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10104

  Visit us at lb-kids.com

  First Edition: April 2017

  Little, Brown and Company is a division of Hachette Book Group, Inc. The Little, Brown name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Becker, Lindsey, author.

  Title: The star thief / Lindsey Becker.

  Description: First Edition. | New York : Little, Brown and Company, 2017. | Summary: “Young parlor maid Honorine and her friend Francis find themselves in the middle of an epic feud between a crew of scientific sailors and the magical constellations come to life”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016023401| ISBN 9780316348560 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316348553 (ebook) | ISBN 9780316348584 (library edition ebook)

  Subjects: | CYAC: Fantasy. | Inventors—Fiction. | Constellations—Fiction. | Mythology, Classical—Fiction. | Sailors—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.B43475 St 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016023401

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-34856-0 (hardcover), 978-0-316-34855-3 (ebook)

  E3-20170225-JV-PC

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1: The Omen Stones

  Chapter 2: The Nocturnal Girl

  Chapter 3: Pirates in the Parlor

  Chapter 4: The Mapmaker

  Chapter 5: At the Edge of the Forest

  Chapter 6: A Wolf, a Lion, and a Ship in the Sky

  Chapter 7: Among the Sailors and the Stars

  Chapter 8: The Lion Hunt

  Chapter 9: The Forest in the Sky

  Chapter 10: The Lost Mordant

  Chapter 11: As the Crow Flies

  Chapter 12: The Eternal Lightning

  Chapter 13: The Flight on the Amazon

  Chapter 14: The Abandoned Temple

  Chapter 15: A Key from the Ironwood Tree

  Chapter 16: The Gates Beneath the Sand

  Chapter 17: Sandstorm

  Chapter 18: The Hall of Research

  Chapter 19: The Captain’s Plan

  Chapter 20: Sabotage on the Gaslight

  Chapter 21: The Rogue Mordant

  Chapter 22: The Island of Stars and Bones

  Chapter 23: The Surprisingly Dangerous Key

  Chapter 24: The Stars of Stolen Fire

  Chapter 25: The Lost Constellation

  Chapter 26: The Shipwreck

  Chapter 27: The Seedling Forest

  Acknowledgments

  For Katie and Sunshine

  Honorine realized it was going to be a difficult night when she stepped into the east parlor to do a bit of light dusting and found it on fire.

  “Sharps and mercers!” she said as a spray of hot embers erupted from the fireplace. There were plenty of other rooms in the enormous Vidalia Estate that might have burst into flames—like the empty bedrooms upstairs kept for guests who never arrived, or the pantry with its thousands of pieces of silver, which had to be polished even though no one used them—and she might not have minded one bit. Instead, the room that had caught fire was the east parlor, Honorine’s favorite room in the house. It was full of strange and delightful artifacts, books and bones, skulls and carved tusks, insects pinned inside shadowboxes, and glass cases of dead birds stuffed with oiled cotton, all acquired by Lord Vidalia on his extensive travels.

  She quickly set down her dusting rags and lantern and went to work putting out the flames.

  “Don’t worry, sir,” Honorine muttered as she stamped the smoldering rug with the worn heel of her boot. “I’ll save your treasures!”

  Lord Vidalia, as always, did not reply. He simply watched from the painting over the mantel, where he sat ever silently with his beautiful, elegant wife and their infant son, Francis, on the deck of a ship, surrounded by dark water and thousands of stars. It had been painted in 1879, according to the signature scrawled in the lower corner of the canvas, and was the only existing portrait of all three Vidalias together in the same frame, because shortly after it was finished, Lord Vidalia vanished.

  Honorine hurried to get to every errant spark, stumbling around the furniture, the display cases, and the mounted specimens of animals packed into the huge and terribly cluttered room. She tripped over a red fox as she stomped about on the rug, then grabbed the nearest vase of fresh cut roses, snuffed a burning ember in the mane of a regal Barbary lion, and ran straight under the belly of a giraffe to toss the contents of the vase—water, roses, and all—into the snarling fireplace. The flames expired at once, hissing out a tremendous ball of sooty smoke. Honorine winced as it washed over the oil painting above the mantel. She grabbed a broom and waved it about to clear the air.

  “Who was supposed to be tending this fire, anyway?” she asked, but the specimens declined to reply. Fires burned throughout the night, even in the empty rooms of the manor house, because Lady Vidalia kept strange hours and was deathly afraid of the dark. But fires were always to be attended, no matter how tedious a chore it might be. This was the inspiration for Honorine’s lantern, a device of her own design and making. With more electric light, there would be less need for open flames burning all over the house and many fewer hours spent waiting around in otherwise empty rooms. Her latest prototype included a voltaic pile battery powering a squat lightbulb, which sat inside the glass chimney of an old kerosene lamp. With the fire now out, Honorine picked up her little lantern to inspect the damage.

  To her relief, the painting was unharmed. The Vidalia family looked exactly as they always did. Lord Vidalia, noble and dignified, with thick streaks of gray in his hair. Lady Vidalia, luminously beautiful, with her burnished bronze skin and her black hair a magnificent crown of waves and ringlets set with shimmering green gemstones. The baby, Francis, sitting on his father’s knee, was a bundle of white lace with a round little face and huge brown eyes.

  Nothing above the fireplace seemed to be burned beyond repair, but there was something else that troubled her.

  The mantel was empty.

  “And what happened to Lord Vidalia’s things?” Honorine said with a scowl. His hat and gloves and sword usually rested under the family portrait. She peeked quickly into the cavernous fireplace, worried that the heap of charcoal and ash might be the gloves and hat, but there was no sign of the sword, and that shouldn’t have burned to dust even if it had been tossed into the flames. The rest of the room seemed undisturbed, until she
came to the little alcove containing Lord Vidalia’s old writing desk, surrounded by framed charts of the sea and the stars. Someone had riffled through the desk, leaving doors ajar and drawers hastily shut with corners of parchment sticking out like sharp little tongues. Honorine found the missing items from the mantel on the floor beside the desk, along with a handful of odd black feathers and several small books dropped in a careless pile.

  Honorine placed the sword and the gloves gently back on top of the mantel, and then, after a quick peek around to see that the room was still empty, she placed the hat over her dark red hair. Picking up her broom to sweep the hearth, she imagined that instead of standing in the parlor, she was at the railing of Lord Vidalia’s ship, looking down at the golden sand of an uninhabited beach, ready to jump into the surf and charge ashore… when the broom straws brushed over something odd lying in the ashes.

  It was another small book.

  With one of her dusting rags, Honorine brushed the wet soot from the cover. It was similar to the books on the floor near the writing desk, bound in soft leather, roughly the size and weight of a deck of playing cards. The cover bore the image of a pointed crown with star-shaped jewels set at the tips. It seemed familiar, but it didn’t belong in the parlor collection. She had cleaned and tended every item in this room dozens of times, and she was certain she had never seen this book before. Honorine gingerly opened to the first page.

  Vidalia Field Almanac

  of the

  Celestial Constellations

  Both Known and Extinct

  This was mostly nonsense to Honorine, except for one word. Constellations. Being a sailor, Lord Vidalia had plenty of maps and charts of the sky all over the manor house. Following the patterns of stars was a very reliable way to navigate on the vast open sea, where there were no roads or landmarks to follow. Francis had been much more interested in the subject than Honorine, but she still knew many of the constellations by name. She and Francis had spent plenty of evenings and early mornings locating the patterns in the stars as Francis attempted to learn oceanic navigation from a bench in his mother’s rose garden.

  Honorine was more interested in the myths of the creatures and heroes themselves—the scorpion, the archer, the crow—and the legends about how they got their names and places in the sky. But Lord Vidalia had few books on such subjects in his libraries. His work was much more practical in nature, and Francis was only interested in the subject as it related to sailing.

  Honorine ran her thumb along the pages, which stuck a bit because of the water and singed edges. When she eventually managed to pry them apart, she stared at the open book in amazement.

  Gorgeous illustrations of fantastic beasts galloped and clawed and soared through an enchanted sky. Beautiful spotted bulls and golden lions, shining silver serpents and coal-black eagles, satyrs, centaurs, unicorns, and dragons—all painted with grotesque, snarling expressions in shimmering, iridescent ink. She pulled her fingers back from the page, almost afraid to touch them.

  “Honorine!” snapped a stern voice from behind her. “What are you doing?”

  Honorine quickly tucked the book in her apron pocket and flushed pink as she turned around to face Agnes, the head parlor maid.

  “Dusting,” she replied, tipping her head back to see Agnes’s face under the brim of Lord Vidalia’s voluminous hat. “As you requested. There was a small problem with the fireplace, but I saw to it promptly. We might want to get someone to sweep that chimney. I believe the flue may be stuck.”

  Agnes shook her head almost imperceptibly as she stood with her arms tensely at her sides and her mouth tightened into an impressively sour pucker.

  “Take that off!” she demanded, looking over her shoulder before snatching the hat off Honorine’s head and replacing it on the mantel.

  “It’s only a hat,” Honorine said. Agnes wiped her hands hastily on her apron as if the hat had left a residue on her fingers.

  “And Eve thought it was only an apple,” Agnes replied, narrowing her eyes in warning. “These are not playthings. If you have time for nonsense and foolishness, then I haven’t given you enough work.”

  Then she noticed the fine burns on the rug and the last thin coil of black smoke still twisting over the edge of the mantel. “Oh! Honorine!” She clutched her heart as she examined a peppering of faint singed spots across the top of a cherrywood cabinet. “Scorch marks on the furniture! Burns on the rug! Was this lion on fire?”

  “Only briefly,” Honorine replied. “He’s fine now.”

  “And did that have anything to do with… all this?” Agnes pointed accusingly at Honorine’s lantern.

  “No!” Honorine insisted. “It was the fireplace, I promise.”

  “And just look at the state of your uniform!”

  Honorine looked down at her smart gray woolen dress and her white apron trimmed in lace, once crisp and bright, now splattered and smeared with black ash and flakes of soot.

  “Oh, bother and bobtails!” she said as she batted at the dirt on the hem of her apron. She rather liked her uniform. The dress matched her gray eyes, and she even had a bit of gray velvet ribbon to tie back her hair. It was nothing as fancy as Lady Vidalia’s gowns, but it was far better than the damp, sticky clothes one had to wear to work down in the kitchens or the laundry.

  Agnes took a very deep breath and exhaled slowly, bringing one brittle hand to her tired eyes.

  “Do you know what will happen to you if you lose your position here, Honorine?”

  “Yes, Agnes.” Honorine sighed. “It would be straight to the mills for me.”

  She had heard it from Agnes many times before, and from the other help, though they mostly stayed far clear of her. No other manor house would take her in, once she had worked for the Vidalias. Their house was known to be cursed or haunted or at the very least bad luck, and the other fine families in town were deathly afraid that servants from the Vidalia Manor would bring the ghosts in with them.

  “That’s right,” Agnes added. “Where you would work twelve hours a day in the weaving rooms.”

  “Crawling on the hot floor under the looms to gather up the cotton lint to be spun into cheap yarn,” Honorine continued.

  “That’s right,” Agnes said again with a firm stomp of her boot heel on the wooden floor. “That’s where I worked when I was your age. Not waltzing about a grand manor house in a fine dress. You are only working upstairs at the request of Lady Vidalia herself. So I have done my job dutifully, even though it has been far too much work for me to keep you presentable up here, where you might be seen by guests.”

  “Yes, Agnes,” Honorine said. “And thank you.” However, in all her years at the Vidalia Estate, Honorine had never seen anyone come to visit except for servants and other persons hired by Lady Vidalia, mostly doctors and mystics and fortune-tellers. They were shown up to the chambers in the west wing, where Lady Vidalia lived mostly in seclusion, surrounded by protective amulets and talismans.

  After Lord Vidalia’s disappearance, Lady Vidalia began collecting all manner of trinkets to counteract the curses and jinxes she thought must be hanging over the house. She had bundles of herbs hung over the doors and mystical runes carved into the stone turrets in the high brick fence around her property. She even had protective rocks she called omen stones strung up and draped like garlands in every window and doorway in the house, in the stables, over the gates in the fences, and across the glass roof of the old, nearly abandoned greenhouse out on the grounds. The stones resembled thick, broken yellow-green glass, strung on tangled silk lines, giving the effect of spiderwebs heavy with insect carcasses.

  “I still think it was a mistake,” Agnes continued to lecture as she moved about the room. “But it’s too late now to change it. The downstairs help wouldn’t have you anyway, even if they do need the extra hands.”

  She pulled back the heavy drapes and opened a window to air out the stench of smoke and burned silk.

  Honorine gasped.

  The
omen stones were glowing.

  Agnes’s face drained to pale gray. She snatched the curtains closed.

  “How are they doing that?” Honorine asked, watching the faint light shine out around the edges of the velvet drapes. “Where is that light coming from? Have they ever done this before?”

  But Agnes, for once, said nothing at all, not even to scold. Her silence chilled Honorine right down to the bone.

  Suddenly, a great, deep boom like a distant explosion rattled the windows and made the old house tremble.

  “Agnes?” Honorine asked in the thinnest of whispers. “What are omen stones… omens… of?”

  Honorine’s words settled like falling ash, and the whole house went still and silent. She could hear only her own breathing.

  After another moment of quiet, Agnes snapped back to attention.

  “Go up to your room, find something clean and acceptable to wear, and take your filthy uniform down to Jane so it can be cleaned before tomorrow,” she spouted.

  “But what was that?” Honorine asked. “What’s happening with the stones?”

  “The next time I see you, I expect you to be presentable,” Agnes continued, her scolding skills returned to full form. “Do not make me tell you a second time!”

  Honorine stayed half a moment longer in protest, then nodded and started across the room. Agnes went out the modest door tucked away at the back of the parlor, into the servants’ hallway, which allowed maids and footmen to have minimal interaction with guests and the upstairs residents. Such hallways traveled like arteries up and down the interior of the house, though they were rarely used in the mostly empty manor.

  Honorine gathered her lantern and dusting rags, a little bit upset with Agnes. She must have known what would make the omen stones glow as if they were electrified. Well, Agnes could issue all the orders and chores she wished. Rocks magically turning into lightbulbs was not the kind of thing Honorine could simply ignore. It was the kind of thing she planned to investigate immediately.

  Then the noise began.

  A great knocking started overhead, as if someone were stomping about in huge, heavy boots down at the farthest end of the upstairs hall. The sound grew louder, and closer, until the chandelier in the parlor began to shudder with each step. Then the knocking simply stopped, vanishing like a snuffed-out flame. Honorine felt her heart hammering in her chest as she waited and listened. All was still, until she raised her boot to take a step toward the parlor door.