The Shadow Thieves

by Alexandra Ott

  And part of me is a little bit relieved. Being on my own is what I know how to do. And as much as I wanted this to work out, as much as I still want to be connected to my brother, I’ve always known this would happen. I’m the sister he doesn’t want, and the sooner he can go back to his perfect life without me, the better.

  I was never going to get a real home.

  But despite how many times I’ve told myself that this might happen, the reality of it is like being punched in the gut. The conversation moves along without me for a few minutes as I stare at my plate, at the dishware and the table and the floor that no longer belong to me, that never really did.

  I’m a thief again, trying to take things that aren’t mine.

  “Alli?” Ronan says. It’s probably not the first time he’s called my name just now. Both he and Mari are staring.

  “Hmm?”

  “Mari can pick you up about ten tomorrow morning. Is that all right?”

  “Yes, fine.” As if I have anywhere else to be.

  Mari goes on for a couple of minutes about some of the shops we can visit, and I attempt to nod and smile in all the right places. The whole time she’s speaking, Ronan’s eyes are glued to her, like a moth drawn to a flame. She’s a little more subtle, but her eyes keep darting over to him, too. Yep, definitely his girlfriend.

  When the topic of our shopping trip has been thoroughly exhausted, she asks Ronan about some case he’s working on at the office. He mentions paperwork but is vague about the details. “Anyway, how was your day?” he asks her.

  “Oh, you know. The usual.” Her gaze drops to her empty plate.

  Ronan shifts in his chair, setting down his glass. “Oh. Good.”

  I know an attempt to hide something when I see it. “Where do you work?” I ask.

  She darts a panicked glance at Ronan, who clears his throat and says, “We first met at work, actually. I only moved into this building after Mari told me there was a room for rent here.”

  “So you’re a lawyer too?” I ask her.

  “Not exactly.” The two of them share a helpless glance, and then Mari looks at me. “I’m a protector.”

  For the second time in as many minutes, I feel like all the air has been thrust from my lungs. This time, the words pop out of my mouth before I can stop them. “You’re kidding.”

  “I just finished my training a few months ago,” Mari says quietly. “Youngest in my class.”

  I glare at Ronan. “You didn’t tell me?” He has to know what this means to me. I’m not sure how much about my actual case he’s been told, but working in a law office and knowing the judge, I don’t doubt he’s had access to my records. And even though I lied to the judge and left out some rather important details, Ronan still has to know what they did to me. How it was protectors who nearly killed me with a curse, who arrested me and threw me in prison, who got me into this whole awful mess. And he’s dating one. Just casually bringing her over for dinner.

  The heat of my anger floods my veins. This is bad, bad, bad. I swore I wouldn’t get angry, I’ll lose everything if I get angry, I’ll say something I don’t want to say—

  It’s too late. I’m shaking, and blood is pounding in my temples. I’ve got to get out of here.

  I lurch to my feet, my chair banging against the wall. “May I be excused?” It’s all I can do to force the words out.

  I don’t hear if anyone answers. I run, past the protector at my brother’s dinner table and down the dark hallway, into the bedroom that belongs to no one.

  Chapter Two

  Sunlight wakes me, which is how I remember I’m not in prison anymore.

  It streams through the tiny window above Ronan’s spare bed, which is tucked into the corner of the room. There’s also a wooden trunk near the door and a single white chair that belongs with the rest of the dining set but doesn’t fit in the kitchen. Nothing else.

  Ronan didn’t bother me last night after I fled the Disastrous Dinner. Either he’s trying to give me space or he doesn’t care about my feelings. I’m too tired to figure out which.

  I have no idea what time it is, but judging by all the light, I’ve probably overslept. At least there’s one good thing about only owning one set of clothing: It doesn’t take long to get ready in the morning.

  I crack open the bedroom door and peek out. The door to Ronan’s room is closed, and the hallway is dark. I don’t hear anyone in the kitchen or living room. Probably safe to emerge from hiding.

  A small piece of paper lies in the center of the kitchen table, almost blending in with the white paint. The note is written with neat, careful handwriting:

  Alli,

  I have to leave early for work, but you can heat up the bowl of oatmeal on the stove, or there’s fruit in the icebox. Mari will be by to pick you up at 10.

  Please give her a chance.

  —R

  Yeah, I’ll give her a chance, all right. I shove the note aside and watch it flutter to the floor.

  So far, the only redeeming quality of living here is the food. Once I figure out how to work the stove—another questionable decision of Ronan’s, giving me access to fire—the oatmeal is delicious. I’m contemplating whether or not to finish off the last bowl of fruit when a key scrapes the lock of the front door.

  Oh great. The protector has a key, and I don’t.

  “Hey, Alli.” Mari smiles at me as if nothing happened last night.

  I don’t say anything.

  “Ready to go?”

  I fold my arms across my chest. “I don’t think so.” Old Alli, the defiant girl from the orphanage, has risen up inside me, and this time I don’t feel like stopping her.

  But Mari surprises me. She folds her arms in imitation, staring me down. “And why’s that?”

  “I don’t want to go.” I almost add, And you can’t make me, but that would only seem more childish. If they’re going to stop treating me like a child the second I turn thirteen, then they might as well stop now.

  “Alli.” Mari leans against the side of the partial wall that separates the kitchen from the living room. “Look, I get it. You don’t know me, I don’t know you. But Ronan really wants this to work out, and I do too. Can’t you at least give it a try, for his sake?”

  Ronan wants it to work out, does he? Could’ve fooled me.

  But I have to admit, there’s a little spark of hope rising in my chest again. I wanted this to work. I still want this to work.

  But how in Saint Ailara’s name does he expect me to get along with a protector?

  Time to find out if she means what she says.

  “How much did he tell you about me?” I ask.

  Mari lets her arms drop but keeps her fingers interlaced, one thumb tapping a beat against the other. “He told me you just got out of the juvenile center.”

  “Did he tell you why?”

  Her thumb taps faster. “He told me you fell in with the wrong crowd, got into some trouble. Petty theft, I think he said.”

  Figures. He doesn’t want his precious protector girlfriend to know what a delinquent his sister really is. “Well, then he’s a liar. I was in there for theft, but it sure wasn’t petty.”

  She doesn’t blink, or look shocked, or any of the other things I expected. She seems undaunted by this information. “Oh?”

  “And that’s not all. They tried to arrest me before, and I escaped from the holding cell. Then I broke into the Atherton mansion.”

  I pause, watching her for even the slightest flicker of surprise, but her face is a mask now. So I keep going. “And because I broke into the Atherton mansion, somebody died.”

  Mari doesn’t move. “I see.”

  “I just want you to know that you and I can never be friends.”

  “Because of what you did in the past?”

  “No.” I take a deep breath. “Because no matter what my brother might tell you, I’m not a good person. I’m not innocent. I did things that can’t be undone.”

  Mari waits silently
for me to continue. I try to put my thoughts in order, to figure out how to explain something so obvious and yet so hard to describe. “You’re supposed to catch people like me. So no matter what I say or do to try and redeem myself, there’s always going to be a part of you that’s watching me. Waiting for me to slip up, to be the person that I’ve always been. Waiting to stop me. I’ll always be trying to prove to you that I’m different, and you’ll always see the part of me that isn’t. So you can either be a protector or you can be my friend, but you can’t be both.”

  She waits, unflinching, until I’m finished. Then she straightens, taking a step forward. “All right. Now it’s my turn. I don’t care what you did in the past. You’re important to Ronan, and that means you’re important to me. And you’re right, I’m going to be watching you. I don’t want to see you throw away your life, or risk anyone else’s. And if it comes down to it, yes, I will stop you. But you know what? That’s exactly what friends do. They look out for each other. I’m here to be whatever you need me to be, to help you however I can.”

  I try to swallow away the lump in my throat. “Sending me away from Ronan will not be helping me.”

  “No, it won’t. So let’s make sure it doesn’t come to that.”

  I take a breath. “How?”

  She pulls something from her pocket and dangles it in the air, smiling. A brown leather wallet. Ronan’s.

  “How about we start with shopping?”

  • • •

  Shopping is only half as bad as I thought it would be, which means it’s still pretty awful.

  But at least Mari doesn’t try to force me into any clothes I don’t like. She lets me take the lead in picking stuff out, and she makes the occasional suggestion when I get overwhelmed by the number of things on the shelves. Still, she’s very firm about the need for what she calls “winter clothing,” which is what I call “extremely big overcoats designed to withstand an ice age.” In Azeland, we could get away with light coats and boots during the coldest days, and I’m not used to being bundled into a thousand layers of heavy fur-lined cloth. But Mari insists.

  “You’ll need it in another month or so,” she says, while I glare at her from beneath a wide fluffy hood that cuts off my peripheral vision.

  Another month or so. Right. Because that’s when they’re going to cast me out on my own, and there won’t be anyone to make sure I have a warm coat.

  I sigh. “Can I take it off now?”

  “Wait,” she says, rushing toward another shelf. “Maybe you need a scarf.”

  The memory hits me out of nowhere. Me, standing in a room a bit like this, posing in a dress, while women bustled around me, taking measurements and adding accessories. . . . Picking out a disguise to wear for my Thieves Guild trial, before everything went wrong.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the image away. I don’t want to think about that. I don’t want to think about him.

  “Aha!” Mari returns in triumph, bearing a thick woolen scarf that she drapes across my shoulders. At least there aren’t any ugly patterns on it. “That’s it; it’s perfect.”

  “Does that mean I can go now?”

  “Oh, you’ll need to pick out at least one more coat. For when this one’s drying out and you need another.”

  I sigh. “I hate winter.”

  Mari grins. “For someone born in Zioni’s Month, you really ought to have her blessing.”

  I roll my eyes. “So everyone keeps telling me.” I don’t add that I don’t know when I was born, since my mother apparently never bothered to provide anyone with that information. The Sisters at the orphanage just picked the same date that I arrived at the orphanage.

  Hmm. Maybe Ronan knows the real date? Or at least remembers which season it was in?

  The only other upside to suddenly being in my brother’s life, in addition to the food: Finally I can ask someone questions about that part of my life and get real answers. I don’t know how much he remembers, but surely it’s more than I do.

  Funny. It never mattered as much to me before. Where I came from, who my family is. What my life was like, and could have been like. Knowing my brother. It’s like I didn’t even realize how important it was to me until I had a chance at having it. And now I don’t want to let it go.

  But I don’t have a choice. Ronan made it perfectly clear. I’m only here for a month, and then I have to move on.

  Mari seems to have picked up on my mood and takes pity on me. “I suppose we could always come back for the second coat another time, if you’re ready to go.”

  I picture myself a month from now, huddling in a frigid workshop somewhere while a snowstorm howls against the windows. Completely alone.

  “No,” I say, “I changed my mind. Better make it two.”

  Finally, once Mari has run out of things to make me try on, we head back to the apartment, weighed down by many purchases. I now own what must be the world’s largest collection of thick knitted sweaters, heavy fur-lined coats, and puffy winter hats. Mari seems to think that these items are insufficient, and is already planning for another shopping trip. I make noncommittal sounds and just let her talk.

  Our final purchase is a big wooden wardrobe to store all of this stuff in, which Mari buys from a carpenter’s shop down the street. The shop employs a magician who helpfully enchants the wardrobe to move on its own so we don’t have to carry it. I’m pretty sure this service costs extra and is the kind of thing I never would’ve wasted money on, but Mari hardly bats an eye. She follows the magician’s instructions, using the magic words to coax the wardrobe up the stairs and into the apartment.

  It’s late afternoon, and Ronan isn’t back from work yet. Mari helps me store the shiny new clothes away in the shiny new wardrobe in my new (temporary) bedroom, by which I mean she does all the work of hanging and folding stuff while I hold out the shopping bags and try not to sulk.

  My less-than-enthusiastic attitude doesn’t seem to have deterred her in the slightest. We move into the living room, where she gets a fire going, straightens a few teetering piles of books, and then proceeds to the kitchen. “Believe it or not, Ronan’s actually the better cook, between the two of us,” she says, sounding apologetic, “but I’m sure I can whip something up. How do you feel about chicken soup?”

  “Strongly in favor,” I say, with more passion than I’ve had for anything else all day.

  “Excellent.” She rummages through one of the cabinets, searching for something. She must come over here a whole lot more than just “occasionally,” like Ronan claimed. She knows where to look for everything.

  “Bad news,” she reports after a minute. “There aren’t any clean bowls. How about I wash and you dry?”

  Reluctantly I join her in the kitchen. This was always one of my least favorite parts of living with a family, when I was adopted before: the chores. It’s not like I’m not used to having hard chores, since I spent most of my life in the orphanage and all. But I thought the whole point of being adopted was not having to do this kind of thing anymore?

  Still, beats dish duty in prison, I guess. I grab a towel and join Mari at the sink.

  By the time Ronan gets home a while later, the bowls are clean and the soup is steaming. “Smells delicious in here,” he says, hanging up his coat and entering the kitchen.

  Mari ladles soup into a bowl. “How’d it go today?”

  “The Parson case is still a nightmare. The whole office is drowning in the paperwork.” He takes the bowl from Mari, sets it on the table, and looks at me. “How was your day?”

  “Um, fine,” I say. “We shopped.”

  “We picked out two new coats, some boots, these really cute hats . . .” Mari cheerfully rattles off the list, passing me a second bowl of soup.

  She and Ronan keep up the casual, friendly conversation as we eat, pretending like nothing at all happened the last time we sat down to dinner. I’m not sure whether to be relieved or annoyed that my outburst has had so few consequences. It’s like it never happen
ed.

  Mari finishes her soup quickly. “Hate to eat and run,” she says, placing the empty dish in the sink, “but I’ve got a shift.”

  She gives Ronan a mushy look, and his face gets all soft and sappy as they say good-bye. Gross.

  “See you later, Alli,” she says, like we’re now best friends or something.

  “Bye,” I mumble, taking a hasty gulp of soup.

  After the door closes behind her, the apartment is filled with silence.

  Ronan has suddenly become very interested in his mostly empty bowl. He flips his spoon upside down, then turns it right-side up again.

  One major way in which my brother and I are not similar: He doesn’t like to talk very much.

  I’m going to have to be the one to break the ice, so I take a breath and plunge in. “Do you . . . do you remember when my real birthday is?”

  He looks up. “I’m sorry. I don’t know. We . . .” He stops. Twirls his spoon. Tries again. “I don’t know how much you remember about . . . about when we lived with our mother. But I don’t think we ever really celebrated birthdays. I remember going out for ice cream for mine a couple of times, but that’s about it.”

  I take a second to turn this information over in my head, letting it settle. “I don’t really remember anything, from before,” I say, hoping he’ll take the hint to elaborate.

  He does. “I don’t remember much, myself. We lived in this little house in south Azeland, by a park. It was painted all these bright colors on the outside—yellow, with green shutters and a red front door. We lived on the second floor, I think, and shared the kitchen with the downstairs neighbors. It had these twisty wooden stairs going to the second floor, and I remember when you were born, our mother kept worrying about those stairs—she kept saying you were going to fall and hit your head. You were so adventurous. You learned to crawl really fast, and you were always wandering all over the place, and she just knew you were going to tumble down the stairs one day.”