by J. C. Welker
Stripping off her damp clothes, she dragged herself into bed, never letting go of the vase, wondering on tomorrow’s promises. She drew the vase to her chest, to her heart, and whispered the words like she used to as a child. “I wish…” She cast it up into the heavens.
A prayer.
When she was younger, she used to wish on many things, blowing on dandelions, lighting them on fire, or chasing star trails. Each time, she tied a knot in her hope and hung on tighter, casting the same pleas. She wished for a glimpse of her parents. Warmth in the winter. Slow kisses. A love that could mend a heart. To carve out a place of her own in the world. A home. She wished for something she could never reach, to wake up one day and feel whole…
Rebel wished.
As she did, she could feel the wish like a tangible object snaking its way around the walls of her heart. And when sleep pulled her into its embrace with a prayer still on her lips, the vase seemed to whisper her name. A tear grew in the crook of her closed eye and slipped down her cheek. As it landed on the vase, the jewels glowed for a split second, unbeknownst to Rebel. If only she knew more about vases. Or wishes.
Then she’d know just how unfortunate her life would become.
Chapter Two
Three types of souls paid visits to Skinner’s Black Market Shop. First were the motley of underworld types, crime lords who sought out life-threatening devices to further their criminal acts. Then there were the souls pawning half their lives to obtain one more fix of whatever poison haunted them. Which left the third kind, the street thieves and charlatans, those who survived one pickpocket at a time.
Those like Rebel.
Huddled in the back alleys of the West End’s Soho district, the Black Market could be found scattered among entertainment shops and late-night cafés, home to both rich and poor. But the market itself was hidden, sandwiched between a tattoo parlor and a Taiwanese teahouse, leading Rebel to its cloaked entrance. Morning light filtered between the buildings as she slipped down the passage to the iron door at its end. She gripped her satchel, feeling the vase’s comforting heaviness and her beloved little book within, the one left with her as a child. It became her lucky charm, like her pendant, and she hoped this time it would pay off.
Once she reached the door, she pressed a silent bell. A spy-hole scored in the door opened and eyes peered through. “Password?” said a gravelly voice behind it.
“‘Ulula cum Lupus, cum quibus esse cupis,’” Rebel answered. Who keeps company with the wolf, will learn to howl. The password never changed, but then anyone who could remember that was as good as in.
The peephole slid closed.
A second later, the door unlocked and opened to a massive man. Skinner’s bodyguard and enforcer was built like a mountain. His arms, covered in watercolor splashes of tattoos, were larger than Rebel’s thighs, and his head was as globular as a cannonball. If she were to imagine what a giant might look like, he would be it.
“Judas, how’s the weather up there?” Rebel grinned.
He glanced down his nose at her, unamused. “Get in, poppet.”
As Rebel crossed the threshold and the door closed, a confusion of voices overwhelmed her. The madhouse market overflowed with rustlers and stalls packed into an alleyway as long and curving as a python. Tables brimmed with hand-sized crystals, ancient antiques, ivory from elephant tusks poached by sick criminals, horned skulls, shrunken heads, and the brain of some animal, or at least, she hoped it was an animal.
It had been Jaxon who first introduced her to Skinner’s Market, where thieves offered stolen goods and bartered without fear. It became her least favorite place for anyone with a soul to venture. Not even London’s winter chill could drown out the stench of illegal activity.
Traders haggled over items, shouting beyond their trolleys to one another in languages Rebel couldn’t decipher. Many even came to the market in disguise. Several men in masks passed without noticing her. But two girls with jewels covering their ears glanced her way, their eyes seeming as black as the night. She gripped her bag, following Judas through the market all the way to its end, where another iron door existed.
A sign dangled above it, heralding: Skinner’s Paragon.
When Judas pushed open the door and Rebel entered, the scent of spices, metal, and grease hit her. Neon lights flickered, glinting across the objects overcrowding Skinner’s shop. Pirated paraphernalia filled every cabinet, while jewelry in display cases lined the room. Then there were the peculiar items, clear spheres winking with moving lights, and pouches of effervescent dust. Possibly drugs. Two cages swayed from the ceiling, one housing a forest owlet and another a snub-nosed monkey, neither of which she imagined were legal to have, or to sell. However, the real sight hung on the walls.
Weapons.
Countless devices gleamed before her, used for no other purpose than to inflict bodily harm onto another. There were small firearms, large firearms, curved swords, scored daggers, and objects Rebel had never seen, though she was certain they were deadly.
The criminals who visited the shop were about the worst mortals humankind, let alone London, could produce. Usually she granted Jaxon the task of peddling her items to Skinner, as she despised it. He took great pride in swindling her, offering less than what he would to Jaxon. But she wouldn’t—couldn’t—trust anyone with the vase, not when her heart lay on the line.
Beyond the counter, a curtain draped over a doorway shifted, and as it parted, Skinner entered. He may have appeared elderly, but his presence could be felt like a thunderstorm. His pale hair matched his mustache and he bore his typical garb, a frock coat embroidered with two dragon eyes upon the chest. The creature’s irises were fashioned from priceless yarn and emeralds, seeming to follow her every movement. The amount spent on the garment alone could have fed the Institute for a year.
“It’s been an entire two days, girl.” Skinner greeted her with a predatory grin and his face wrinkled up. “Up to no good again?”
“Only up to good,” Rebel said. “Come bearing treasures.”
“Deals are made after midnight. Besides, I’m in no need of trinkets.”
“Oh, it’s no trinket. You’ll break your rule for this.” She gave a devilish grin of her own and withdrew the vase. Like before, it seemed heavier, the weight of it pulling her hand down as though it preferred to stay inside her satchel. She hefted the vase on top of the glass counter, never taking her hand off it.
At the sight, Skinner’s mouth dangled open. “Where’d you get that?”
“Does it matter?” She shrugged, satisfied at his reaction.
As he gazed at it, his eyes glazed over. “Never thought I might see it…”
“You know what the vase is, then? An antique?” Rebel’s pulse thumped. At last, she’d stolen something worth the effort. She’d pirated antiques before but never anything like this.
“First of all, it is no vase,” Skinner said dreamily. “It’s a vessel.”
“Vessel?” Her brow quirked. She hadn’t removed the vase’s top, but she was certain it was hollow, the neck too thin to hold anything other than liquid, or perhaps smoke.
Skinner ignored her, more focused on the vase. “So very special…the desires, the casting of dreams, the fine, fine, impossibility it brings…” He crooned, sounding odd and maybe a little drunk. He blinked a few times, coming back to reality, and reached for the vase.
Rebel yanked it back.
“How should I know it’s real unless I see it?” he spat.
“Seeing doesn’t mean touching. Your reaction tells me it’s real.”
His mustache twitched. “Fine. Asking price?”
“Five thousand pounds.”
He scoffed as if she’d hit him. “Are you missing a few buttons? Don’t be naive.”
Rebel leaned over the counter with a towering boldness. “It’s worth triple that. Don’t stiff me this time, Skinner. All I need is five.” If he wouldn’t fulfill her demand, she’d have to resort to other extremes, li
ke say, blackmailing the vase’s original owner. It was ill-judged, but people do desperate things when, well, desperate.
“And what do you need with all that loot?” he asked. “Hmm, Fingersmith?”
That name had been whispered throughout every alleyway and underground thieves club of London. The girl they only knew as the Fingersmith. Rumored to possess hands of a magician. To pick any lock she chose. To have shot a man when she was fourteen years old.
At first glance, most thought they could take advantage of Rebel—a grave error of judgment. The Fingersmith had become someone they learned to take precautions against, like a rose with overgrown thorns. Which meant everything from her routine to the avenues she chose to tread were carefully schemed to avoid rival thieves. It’s how she survived, by living a life of isolation and anonymity. No one knew her identity but Jaxon. Not even Skinner. Secrets equaled safety. For a thief, secrets meant the difference between waking up to a blue sky, or to iron bars.
“That’s the thing with secrets, they aren’t meant to be shared,” Rebel replied.
Skinner squinted, glancing at the vase again. “Let me make a call. You wait.” He glanced toward Judas and disappeared into the back of the shop.
Nerves fluttered in Rebel’s chest. Was she really getting the money? Her grip on the vase tightened. Her wishes were coming true. At last, she could fix her heart. A laugh filled her, slipping through her hungry lips. The noise sounded foreign in the shop, a sound of hope cutting through darkness.
Judas glared. “Find something amusing?”
“Oh, just life and fate.” Rebel waved it off, and her pendant swayed around her neck, brushing against her heart like a mother’s caress. She wondered if somehow her mother had been looking out for her.
The moment stretched as she tapped her foot happily against the floor. She felt the vase warm under her fingers, then a little jolt. Static electricity. As she rubbed the base, the gems appeared to brighten and that sensation surfaced again. Even if she’d tried, she couldn’t explain it. Though the vase had been in her hands for a night, it felt as if it were somehow hers to possess. Like a guiding light she couldn’t resist, as though the heavens had placed it there for her. She shook her head at the thought. It was just an object.
But she felt…guilt?
Guilt was harmful to a thief. The reason Rebel rarely lockpicked homes, rather pilfering trinkets from shops, jewelry, or gold. The smaller the item, the less it weighed down her soul. Still, she had tasted the blackness of rot inside herself, heavy with the scent of something dark. To be a true Fingersmith, she had buried some of the goodness inside. Sometimes her heart felt stained with so much surrounding darkness that it simply engulfed her light. But she had to believe the Creator understood what she had to do.
“No…” At Skinner’s voice, she glanced up, hearing him in the back, speaking over the phone to someone. It was difficult to decipher his words, but she caught the important ones. “…the girl has the vessel… No, come now… I’ll keep her…”
Rebel’s foot paused.
Skinner came back in wearing a grin. Carefully, she slipped the vase inside her satchel before asking, “Who was that?”
“Business associate. He’ll come for the vase, give you what you want.”
He was lying.
Rebel knew, because the best thieves were silver tongues, including herself. She didn’t care for the false gentleness in Skinner’s voice, or that this plan of hers wasn’t going to play out as she wished. This hadn’t the feeling the other times she’d bartered over items. Skinner was stalling for a reason. Whoever had been on the other end of the phone, she had no desire to find out. Trying her best to look calm, she took a step backward.
Judas’s hand wrapped around her arm.
She jerked, but he didn’t budge. “Remove it if you want to keep it,” she hissed. Everyone knew if you laid a hand on the Fingersmith, it ended up broken. Which she had done, even been proud of. It would be easy to ignore when men harassed her, but give them an inch, and they took a mile. She let no insult or grabby hands go without punishment. But Judas was simply smiling, like a mountain about to cause an avalanche.
Skinner chuckled. “Don’t know what you stole, do you?”
“It’s just a vase.” Rebel tugged her arm, but it remained in Judas’s grip. Her brain rocketed ahead of her well-intentioned plans, and she slipped her other hand into her jacket pocket, feeling her brass knuckles.
“You commoners are such fools,” Skinner said. “Does just a vase have the power to bend men to their knees? The Prince has offered a great fortune to the first who delivers it.”
“Prince?” She didn’t know any gangster by that name. Didn’t want to.
“You be good. Maybe I won’t sell you to the river sirens.”
Rebel peered up at the bodyguard, realizing Skinner had no intention of letting her leave with or without the vase. Countless escape plans began filling her mind. At moments such as this, she liked to construct scenarios of what her parents might have taught her. The uppercut is golden, her father would have said. Uppercut with a foot was even better.
So kick, Rebel did.
She flogged Judas between the legs. He squealed like a popped balloon, giving her the instant she needed—she swung, cracking the brass knuckles against his face. Blood gushed from his nose and she darted toward the door like a bat out of hell.
A hideous sound shrieked behind her.
Rebel staggered and looked over her shoulder for a split second. Skinner thrust out his hands, shouting in a language she had never heard.
At his words, grains of light flickered around his shoulders.
The dragon eyes stitched upon his robe began to peel away, slithering off the garment and into the air into full monstrous faces, coming alive before her. Thorny heads writhed back, lifting farther off the garment. Smoke issued from their nostrils, and as their mouths opened, tongues of flames sprouted in her direction.
Something told her to duck.
The fiery bolt missed the top of her head and smacked against the iron door in a hiss. A section of the metal door sizzled away, leaving a gaping hole. Coils of smoke disappeared off the end of Rebel’s hair where the fire had barely missed her. Her heart skipped a beat.
There was no other explanation for it but…magic.
She had no time to take in the supernatural happenings as the threaded dragons opened their mouths again. Scrambling to her feet, she barreled into the cages hard enough to let loose their inhabitants. The monkey whooped, the owl followed, both flying into Skinner’s face, and she hurtled herself through the still smoking hole in the door.
Rebel charged two, three, four blocks ahead.
Her boots thundered against the pavement, taking her farther from the Black Market. Lost in panic, she turned down another avenue, hurtling into a crowd of tourists loading into a bus. She rammed into people coming in the opposite direction. They cursed her, but she pushed through. Men and women, young and old, shoved by her in a bustling herd of humanity. She could have been a piece of rubbish on the street for all they cared.
After several minutes, certain no one was following her, Rebel slipped down an alley sandwiched between a café and a pub decorated with fluttering Union Jacks.
The winter air burned her lungs, and she hunched over, gasps sputtering from her lips. She fumbled inside her satchel and fished out the meds she needed. Her hands shook as she popped open the bottle and swallowed a pill. With every breath, her heart squeezed, struggling to break the chains feeling tighter. She reached back inside her bag, touching the vase for reassurance. It felt hot against her freezing fingers, and as her breathing calmed, time caught up with her actions.
What had she done?
A chime rang out from a nearby church bell, signaling nine o’clock. Signaling a hope of hers that had failed. Must hope tease her mind with happiness only to be snatched away? Now she’d never be able to return to Skinner’s, and after what she’d witnessed? After he had thr
eatened her with…dragons?
Rebel’s condition had never sparked hallucinations. Though, there was a first for everything. Whatever he had thrown at the door, whatever weapon he possessed—whatever he was—he would be searching for her and the vase. That much was clear. It must be worth far more than she knew if he was willing to burn her face off for it. She reached up, grasping for her good-luck pendant.
But her luck was changing.
Of course, she would have to disappear now. A plan took shape in her mind, and she decided on the safest choice. The fox. Only Jaxon knew where she resided. His club would give her refuge until she could plan her next steps. She needed to get to the river, to their meeting spot. She spun around when she felt a furtive movement behind her.
“Hello, pigeon,” a voice growled.
Chapter Three
Rebel’s eyes snapped up, meeting the bearded face of a man.
It was neither Skinner nor his bodyguard—but an officer. More specifically, the one following her from last night. She glanced at the heavens, wondering if the Creator was having a laugh. The officer’s uniform screamed authority, and the badge atop his tall helmet hailed: Metropolitan Police. The boys in blue loved sniffing out thieves. But she paid little heed, as she’d picked more locks in her young years than a master criminal and had never been caught. The only law that could capture her was time, and it was ticking away.
“Hand it over, pigeon.” The officer gestured to her bag.
Rebel sighed. How ironic. Could her life get any worse? “As you can see, I’m poorer than a vagabond.” She gazed down at herself. “There’s nothing in my bag except my hopeless dreams.”
“Is that why it looks so heavy?” His lips curved into a grin, and his teeth gleamed against his beard. He was a beast of a man, his vast shoulders pushing the uniform to its absolute limit. “Don’t be foolish. Give it here, girl.”
