The Smoke Thief

by Shana Abe

  She was so damned willful. She had put herself in danger without a second thought for most of her life, repeatedly, determinedly. She'd succored that wolf cub and told him her secrets and never once thought of the consequences—

  Kit discovered that beyond his fear for her, beyond his indignation, was a new, spinning exhaustion. He slumped to the rug, not even making it up to the mattress. He tipped his head back against the footboard and glared up at the ceiling, seeing her face instead, her flushed cheeks and the sweep of her hand as she'd left him behind in his room.

  Porridge again. Rue stared down at the tin of dried flakes in the larder, her lips pursed in distaste. They'd been to market yesterday but most of what they'd bought—the pilchards, the cheese and nuts, the marzipan pastries—was gone. There was a handful of figs left, and the brick of butter had scarcely been touched. She found the bread they'd not finished, the loaf stiff already because Christoff had rewrapped it too loosely in its cloth.

  She slammed the bread down upon the chopping block. She stalked back to the pantry and eyed the tin of porridge, then smacked it with the back of her hand, sending it flying to the wall.

  The lid broke off. Tiny grains flung out like gay confetti.

  She stood there staring down at the mess, trembling, feeling cold and hot at once.

  It was over. Her life, her dreams, everything over. She'd done it herself, she'd given up everything—

  She couldn't breathe. She felt it happen, how her lungs pinched closed, how her breath squeaked. Blue spots burst and reappeared at the edges of her vision. She dropped to her knees and pressed her forehead to the immaculate floor. She barely felt the stone.

  Her life, her house, her freedom. Her future and her heart, and now she was bound to him forever, and he'd never love her as she did him, he didn't even know what love was—

  She would be his wife. He'd asked her price and she had named it, fierce small Zane, and she would never walk free again, never never never. She would spend the rest of her days in Darkfrith, in the shadow of obedience to him and the tribe and all those waiting ghosts.

  In time, Rue came back to herself. The floor was icy. Her hands were clenched in her hair. She lifted her head and stared blearily about the kitchen, so bright and clean it belonged to some other world. She sat back on her hips and wrapped her arms around her chest until she could make the shivers stop.

  She rose to sweep up the porridge. There would be no mice in Far Perch to clean it for her.

  Time shifted. He was aware of that, of how it stretched long and thick like taffy, or chopped short into blunt impressions: the blinding blink of sunlight against the ceiling. The nap of the rug beneath his fingers. He knew that he was lying flat upon it, that he had come to rest on his side and then his back. He felt sick and then not sick, very light, floating like smoke but not so focused.

  He was ill. Kit perceived that. His entire leg burned with the fires of hell—it hadn't been so painful last night, but now—and he felt the sweat gathering over him, welling in the dip of his chest, dripping down his brow and groin and arms.

  How had this happened? He'd been sick before but nothing like this, nothing so quick and lethal, a disaster boiling behind his eyelids.

  Crocodiles. Fever. Kit realized abruptly what was about to come.

  Their blood reacted to poison in particularly savage ways. It would either kill him or not, but without question it would consume him down to the marrow. If he woke again—if he saw her again—whatever happened, he must not hurt her—

  He managed, in his excruciating lethargy, to roll over to his knees, to raise himself that way. He put his good foot beneath him and held himself there, his fingers pushed hard into the rug, his head bowed. He thought of Rue. Of where she might be. There was danger and he had to protect her. . . .

  He drew his torso upright. His hands found the footboard, nice solid wood, a stable comfort beneath his palms. Kit concentrated, marshaling what he found of his strength, and with great effort hauled himself to both feet, leaning heavily over the bed.

  He crawled atop it. He fell upon the covers and the ironed clothes. He laughed into the sheets because he'd done it.

  He was not going to die upon the floor.

  Rue, he thought, and dropped his face to the bright satin.

  She lingered downstairs. She felt ridiculous, loitering in the kitchen and then the drawing room, covered in just the drapery from his front hall because she didn't want him to hear her creeping back up the stairs.

  She couldn't say when she realized he didn't have to hear her. She was standing in the sumptuous drawing room, far from the patch of sunlight that picked out the white and mauve primroses woven into the rug—like the sun was contagious, like it would burn her up—when, without even considering it, she Turned to smoke. She filtered up to the next floor without causing a sound beyond that of falling damask.

  In the state room that she'd claimed she dressed—simple clothing because she had no maid to assist her, but still quite fine, ecru silk and wide, open skirts embroidered with plum blossoms and vines. It felt good to wear her own garments. It felt like she did not have to pretend to be anything she was not. For a change.

  But Christoff did not come. She brushed her hair and considered that, slowly braiding it and winding it into a heavy knot at her nape. She picked up her cap of soft-stitched lace, allowing the ribbons to run through her fingers, but finally decided against wearing it. She disliked having her ears covered; it went against her instincts as both a drákon and a thief. She'd put it on later if she had to.

  If she had chosen her gowns sparingly for her time at Far Perch, at least Rue had brought a full array of cosmetics: rouge and elderberries and perfume, velvet patches and scented water. She used a delicate, expert touch. No one knew her face as she did. And in the end, after at least another hour of tarrying, the looking glass showed a proper gentlewoman once more, someone she had not seen for days. Weeks. The woman looking back at her revealed nothing of the fear and confusion and desperation that bubbled beneath her smooth calm. She looked like a lady. She looked like she belonged here in this house.

  Rue turned her face away. Without even trying, she was wearing a new disguise.

  She stood, pacing away from the mirror. Why had he not come?

  She straightened her stockings beneath the gown. She tapped her fingers on the bureau, angling a glance out past the sheer curtains to the street below. There were people out there in carriages, in sedan chairs and on foot. Stupid, normal, mule-witted people, going about their business. They had no idea of the tightly wound secrets in their midst.

  Rue took a breath and left her room. She found the marquess's door slightly ajar, perhaps as she'd left it, and placed her hand upon the wood. She looked about his chamber and thought it empty.

  “Christoff.”

  He did not answer. There was a silhouette upon the bed.

  She took a step forward and then it hit her: the citrus tinge of the salve. The hot, ripe aroma beneath it, the dead quiet all around.

  “No—”

  She said it even as she was rushing to the bed, even as she was rolling him over onto his back, smoothing his damp hair from his face.

  He was flushed, more scalding than the sunlight. His lashes flickered open.

  “Mouse . . .”

  “Don't speak,” she said, frightened. “Move up here—can you manage it? Try. I can't lift you. There—there—just a little more.” He was straining for air, his fingers clenched into the covers. She bent over to examine his injured leg.

  “Oh, God. Why didn't you tell me?”

  Blood, infection, that curdling smell. Why hadn't she noticed? She'd made love to him this morning, she'd felt pleasure she'd never conceived, and all this while—

  “Nothing,” he mumbled, turning his head. “Nothing to concern you. I'm well enough.”

  “You jackass.” Anger replaced the fear, and with it she had the strength to pull him up properly the rest of the way in the bed, r
ipping the shirt apart, placing her hand over his heart.

  Staccato, uneven. She stared down at him, unwilling to move, trying to force him to life, to health, with just her palm pressed upon his skin. But he rocked his head back and forth and licked his lips. She glanced away, searching for the basin and pitcher of water nearby, leaving him to pour a cup.

  “Drink this.”

  He did, thirstily, his hands rising to wrap around her own.

  “Mouse,” he said again, and met her eyes. His mouth lifted into a wry curve. “Perhaps you won't have to be Lady Langford after all.”

  “Where is the salve?” she demanded.

  “Too late,” he answered softly. “Get away while you can.”

  “What do you mean?”

  His eyes closed. “I love you,” Kit said, and his body went lax. Then he Turned.

  It was violent and rushing, nothing of the mastery she was used to with him but something powerfully uncontained. She felt the air suck past her in a whoosh of upward smoke, she could not see through it, there was an ominous rattling and thumping that shook the world, and then—he was gone.

  Rue pivoted, frantic, searching the chamber and ceiling, dropping to her knees to check the floor beneath the bed, but he truly was no longer in the room.

  She dashed to the window. The chipped pane now held a white cobweb of cracks. Nothing beyond it but a blanched blue sky . . . and there, high, high up. The sky contained a single cloud.

  Herte glittered from the sheets. She grabbed it, stuffed it back under his mattress and Turned, shoving through the broken window to surge up into the day.

  He did not follow the wind. She went after him as quickly as she dared, knowing how it must look to anyone below. True clouds did not move at will. They might be odd puffs of smoke, remnants of a fire since smothered—but they would not dissipate. He churned and whirled in unchecked motion. If he Turned again—if he became man—

  And like some evil wish, it happened just as she thought it, the smoke drawing together with black purpose, his shape all at once clearly visible, a wild stream of blond hair, a comely slack form. He dropped to earth, never waking. She streaked beneath him and became a dragon—oh, heavens, here in the open pale sky—breaking his fall with her back, flipping and rolling when he bounced off her, catching him in her talons.

  He was a good weight. She dipped and recovered in a reel, her wings straining to regain dominion of the wind.

  From far, far below came a breaker of sound. She knew what it was without looking, the collective gasp of countless Others, their faces aimed up to the heavens.

  A pair of steeples whipped by, somber gray pinnacles pinstriped with soot. Where were they? She did look below her now, past the bowed head of Christoff, his blowing hair, but the map of rectangles and half-circle streets was unfamiliar. She'd never done this before. She'd never had to fly like this as a thief, and certainly never in daylight. Her world was the city at human height—the safe night—oh, why couldn't she recognize anything—

  Kit Turned again. Just like that, he vanished from her grip. She careened with his sudden loss but came out of it better this time, able to rise and circle and search for him once more.

  Smoke below her, a helix so thin she wondered that it could be him. Quickly she did the same, and hoped that all those people below rubbed their eyes and imagined their minds were playing tricks when the white dragon vanished against the blue.

  Let him stay like this. She could follow him; they were so much less conspicuous.

  But he did not. At a dangerously low height she saw him gather again, and this time he was a dragon, and she was too far. Still she raced toward him, still she tried. His wings spread; his eyes opened. He soared sharply upward, speeding away from her, and she veered so close to the ground she caught the screams and shouts of the people stopped in their tracks.

  “Great God—did you see—”

  “It's a bloomin' dragon, by Mary and—”

  “Miranda! Get down—”

  Rue chased him as a long silvery plume, no longer concerned with natural shapes, her only goal to reach him before he tore away completely. He flew as if he had a purpose, taut and thin and his wings crooked in a hard, fixed arch that let his tail flap behind. She could barely keep up. At least they were moving fast. At least the buildings and streets and green parks below rolled under them in a shaded blur. She hoped fewer people were glancing up as they charged from ward to ward.

  The sun sparked at the horizon. It was water, the Thames. And then Rue understood what he was doing—if he could.

  He Turned twice more before they reached the docks, first smoke, then man, and the second time she was ready for it, already below him to let his body strike hers. She caught him more skillfully now, holding him to her as lightly as she dared, her eyes fixed on the warehouses rising up from the arch of the world like a giant's dim toys.

  Where was it? It had all happened so swiftly before, she barely recalled any of it but for the smell of the river and the flying tempest of shingles.

  Kit's arm moved. He raised it, reaching up to grab her leg, his fingers brushing her scales. He let it drop again, limp.

  There. One of the largest buildings of them all, and the only one with a hole smashed through its roof. A flock of gulls decorated the exposed beams. They turned their heads as one to watch her descent, a hundred black polished eyes, then burst upward, screeching, blinding her in a whirlwind of wings and feathers and sharp yellow beaks.

  Kit went to smoke, and so did she. He dropped into the warehouse, a man again staggering to his knees amid the rubble, and she caught him in her arms, hauling him upright.

  “Mouse,” he said, giving her a muddled, narrow-eyed look, but she was already dragging him to the smaller chamber, stumbling over shingles—hadn't anyone been back to clean this up?—stepping high with him over the stone doorway, easing him to the floor. He rolled to his side on the granite with a hoarse curse, rising up on his arms, shaking the hair from his face.

  “I'm right here,” Rue said to him, retreating to the threshold. “I'll be here.” And she shut the door before he could look back and catch the lie on her face.

  There was no lock. There was only a massive iron bar beneath the handle, which she shoved into place, sealing him inside.

  She dropped to her knees, gasping, hugging herself. Beyond the metal she heard his voice, a hollow rise and fall of dark, outraged despair.

  “Ruuuuueeeeee . . .”

  She became smoke. She hovered near the ceiling a very long while, awaiting discovery, but although people rushed back and forth all around the warehouse, no one bothered to enter its ruin. So she lifted up and spread herself as sparse as she could manage, a mirage of a cloud drifting toward home.

  ______

  Her house was contained. She knew it so well she did not have to seek out any little sly openings. There would be none. She slipped across the roof, nothing more interesting than steam rising from the wet wood on a warming day—but there had been no rain, and the day was not warm.

  At least none of the other houses on Jassamine was higher than her own, not any nearby. There was a chimney sweep four roofs down; she didn't see him but his ladder and bucket and broom, propped ready against the bricks. No one else was about. Rue took her shape behind her own chimney, the one jutting up from her bedroom.

  Quickly, quickly—

  She dropped to her stomach, crawling head down to the gutter, leaning as far as she could over the edge without losing her grip on the roof's edge. Her hair was a long brown banner flying loose below her; she had nothing to tie it back with. It tossed and waved in eye-catching motion.

  A huge ruddy tom crossing the yard below started and paused, its tail puffed, baleful yellow eyes aimed up at her. She ignored it, letting go of the roof with one hand stretched as far as she could manage, balanced on her hips, trying to reach the top pane of the window directly beneath her.

  Too far. Damn it. The tom stared as she inched farther down the
roof, her fingers still grasping air, and just as she was about to lose her balance Sidonie walked out of the back door, humming a Sunday hymn with a basket of clothing in her arms. She closed the door, slipping her feet into the wood pattens on the steps. The hymn cut short.

  “Shoo! Is that you leaving me rats on the stairs, then? Get home, you nasty beast—”

  The maid plopped the basket on the grass and the tom bolted. Rue, in trying to remain still, had leaned too far. She tipped from the roof.

  Sidonie glanced up at the sound, but all she would see was thinly rising mist. She studied it a moment, frowning, but Rue allowed herself to float away, harmless, nothing worth pondering.

  Sidonie lifted her basket. The laundry line was strung discreetly between two poles along the side yard; Rue heard her begin a new hymn as she turned the corner.

  She swept back to her house. She judged the space and the distance, hovered a moment, and then Turned, smashing her fist into the glass, saving herself a bare instant before she would have hit the ground.

  Sidonie ran up again but by then Rue was in her room, nursing her cut hand, finding her robe and covering herself as quickly as she could without getting blood on the sleeve.

  She heard the back door slam, footsteps rushing up the stairs. She managed to belt the robe closed and hide her hand behind her back just as Sidonie burst into the room.

  “Oh! Ma'am, I'm that sorry, I—” She stood there breathless, both hands over her heart in surprise. “I didn't know you was back, ma'am!”

  “Yes,” said Rue, trying to look as surprised as her maid. “I've been home just a half hour. I let myself in.”

  “Of course, ma'am.” She curtsied, backing away. “I just—I heard a noise.”

  “Indeed.” Rue glanced at her window, the shards of glass sprinkling the sill and floor in sharp icy bits. “Someone threw a rock. A child on a prank, mayhap.”