by Rachel Aaron
Miranda nodded and stood stiffly, mindful of every tiny noise she made in the now-silent room. As she turned to leave, she stopped suddenly. Her hand went to her pocket and fished out a white square.
“I’d almost forgotten,” she said, turning back to Banage. “This is for you.”
She laid the envelope on his desk. Then, with a quick bow, she turned and marched across the great stretch of empty marble to the door. Pulling it open, she plunged out of the room and down the stairs as fast as her feet could carry her.
Banage watched the door as it drifted shut, the iron hinges trained after centuries of service to never slam. When the echo of her footsteps faded, Banage let go of the breath he’d been holding and let his head slump into his hands. It never got easier, never. He sat for a while in the silence, and then, when he felt steady enough to read whatever she had written him, he let his hand fall to the letter she had placed on his desk.
When he looked at the letter, however, his eyebrows shot up in surprise. The handwriting on the front was not Miranda’s, and in any case, she never addressed him as “Etmon Banage.” Curious, he turned the letter over, and all other thoughts left his mind. There, pressed deep into the soft, forest-green wax was an all-too-familiar cursive M.
Banage dropped the envelope on his desk like it was a venomous snake. He sat there for a few moments staring at it. Then, in a fast, decisive motion, he grabbed the letter and broke the seal, tearing the paper when it would not open fast enough. A folded letter fell from the sundered envelope, landing lightly on his desk. With careful, suspicious fingers, Banage unfolded the thick parchment.
It was a wanted poster, one of those mass-copied by the army of ink-and-block spirits below the Council fortress. An achingly familiar boyish face grinned up at him from the creased paper, the charming features older, sharper, but still clearly recognizable despite more than a decade’s growth. His mocking expression was captured perfectly by the delicate shading that was the Bounty Office’s trademark, making the picture so lifelike Banage almost expected it to start laughing. Above the picture, a name was stenciled in block capitals: eli monpress . Below the portrait, written in almost unreadably tiny print so they could fit on one page, was a list of Eli’s crimes. And below that, printed in tall, bold blocks, was wanted, dead or alive, 55,000 gold standards .
That’s what was printed, anyway, but this particular poster had been altered. First, the 55,000 had been crossed out and the number 60,000 written above it in red ink. Second, the same hand had crossed out the word wanted with a thick, straight line and written instead the word worth .
“Eli Monpress,” Banage read quietly. “Worth, dead or alive, sixty thousand gold standards.”
A feeling of disgust overwhelmed him, and he dropped the poster, looking away as his fingers moved unconsciously over the ring on his middle finger, a setting of gold filigree of leaves and branches holding a large, murky emerald as dark and brooding as an old forest. He stayed like that for a long, silent time, staring into the dark of his office. Then, with deliberate slowness, he picked up the poster and ripped it to pieces. He fed each piece to the lamp on his desk, the heavy red-stoned ring on his thumb glowing like a star as he did so, keeping the fire from spreading anywhere Banage did not wish it to spread.
When the poster and its sundered envelope had been reduced to ash, Banage stood and walked stiffly across his office to the small, recessed door that led to his private apartments. When he reached it, he said something low, and all the lamps flickered, plunging the office into darkness. When the darkness was complete, he shut the door, locking out the smell of burnt paper that tried to follow him.
CHAPTER
2
Eli Monpress, the greatest thief in the world, was strolling through the woods. His overstuffed bag bounced against his back as he walked, and he was whistling a tune he didn’t quite remember as he watched the late afternoon sunlight filter through the golden leaves, bringing with it a smell of cold air and dry wood. So pleasant was the scene, in fact, that it took him a good twenty paces to realize he was walking alone.
He stopped on his heel and spun to see Josef, his swordsman, sitting twenty paces back in the middle of the path with Nico, Josef’s constant shadow, sitting beside him. Beside her, Josef’s famous sword, the Heart of War, stood plunged into the hard-packed dirt, and beside it lay the enormous sack of gold they’d liberated from Mellinor’s sadly destroyed treasury. Despite the fine weather, none of them looked happy.
Eli heaved a dramatic sigh. “What?”
Josef stared right back at him. “I’m not taking another step until you tell me exactly where we’re going.”
Eli rolled his eyes. This again. “I told you before. I told you this morning, we’re going to see a friend of mine about getting Nico a new coat.”
“I didn’t ask what we were going to do when we got there.” Josef folded his arms over his chest. “I asked you, where are we going ? We’ve been walking vaguely north for almost a month now, and since yesterday we’ve been walking in circles around the same four miles of woods. This is the second time today we’ve passed that beech tree, and I’m tired of lugging your ill-gotten gains.” The sack of gold jingled as his large fist landed on it. “Admit it,” the swordsman said, giving Eli a superior sneer. “You’re lost.”
“I am not.” Eli threw out his arms, taking in the scant undergrowth, rocky slopes, and slender, white-barked trees of the small valley they were in the middle of climbing out of. “We’re in the great north woods, which the Shapers call the Turningwood, and the Council of Thrones doesn’t have a name for because we left the Council maps a week ago. Specifically, we are in the Thousand Streams region of the Turningwood, a name you might appreciate, considering all the valleys we’ve had to climb through. Even more specifically, we are in the northeast corner of the Thousand Streams, where the streams are slightly less numerous. A little farther north and we’d be in the foothills of the Sleeping Mountains themselves, and a little farther east and we’d hit the frozen swamps on the coastal plain. So, as you see, I know exactly where we are, and it is exactly where we are supposed to be.”
Despite such a grand display of navigation, Josef did not look impressed. “If we’re where we’re supposed to be, why are we still walking?”
Eli turned and started up the hill again. “Because the house of the man we are looking for isn’t always in the same place.”
“You mean the man isn’t always in the same place,” Josef said, making no sound of following him.
“No.” Eli panted as he reached the crest of the valley. “I mean the house. If you don’t like it, complain to him.”
“ If we ever find him,” Josef said.
Eli shook his head and started down the other side of the hill, wishing that the swordsman would apply his stubbornness to something useful, like being a perfect gold carrier, or finding them something tastier than squirrel to eat. By the time he’d reached the bottom of the next valley, Josef had still not crested the ridge of the one before. Eli grimaced and kept walking, though more slowly and with one ear out for the sound of jingling gold, which would tell him if this was just a Josef bluff or if he was actually going to have to go back and push the man up the hill. Fortunately, the decision was rendered moot when he took another step forward and found nothing but air.
He yelped as the world spun upside down and sideways. Then, with a sharp pain in his ankles, it stopped, and he found himself hanging high in the branches of a tree. Blinking in surprise, Eli looked down, or up, depending, and saw he was strung up by his ankles in the branches of a large oak. That much he’d been prepared for, but how he was hanging took him by surprise. Instead of ropes, a knot of roots with dirt still clinging to them bound his feet, ankles, and lower legs. They moved as he watched, creaking with a sound very much like snickering. He was still staring at the roots and trying to figure out what had just happened when he heard Josef come over the hill. Eli craned his neck and started to yell a warning, but it
was too late. The second Josef was off the rocky ravine, a snaking cluster of roots erupted from the ground and grabbed his feet. The swordsman flew into the air with a lurch and came to rest neatly beside Eli.
“Well,” Eli said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Josef didn’t answer; he just scowled and bent over, wiggling his foot. There was a flash, and a long knife dropped out of his boot before the roots could tighten. The swordsman caught it deftly an inch from Eli’s face and bent over, reaching for the closest root.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Eli said, glancing up, or down. “It’s a bit of a drop.”
Josef followed his gaze. The ground swung dizzyingly a good thirty feet below them, but the drop was made even longer by the enormous hole the roots had left when they’d sprung. Josef shook his head in disgust and stuck the knife into his belt. “I thought you were friends with trees.”
“For the last time, it doesn’t work like that,” Eli said. “That’s like saying, ‘I thought you were friends with humans.’ Anyway, don’t be a grouch. We’ve found it! This is the Awakened Wood that guards the house.”
Josef sighed. “Wonderful. Fantastic welcome. Is your friend always this friendly, or are we a special exception?”
Before Eli could answer, a woman’s voice interrupted. “Eli Monpress.” The words were heavy with laughter. “I wouldn’t have thought we’d catch you.”
Both men craned their necks. Directly below them a tall young woman in hunter’s leathers stepped out from behind the tree they were dangling from, a smug smile on her tan face. She was very young, not more than sixteen, and lanky, as though she hadn’t quite grown into her limbs yet. She crossed her long arms over her chest and stared at them as though daring Eli to try and talk his way out of this one. Eli opened his mouth to oblige her, but he never got the chance. From the shadows behind the girl, a pair of white, thin hands in silver manacles shot out and closed around her throat. The girl’s eyes bulged and she dropped to her knees as Nico flickered into sight behind her.
“Release them,” Nico said in a dry, terrifying voice. “Now.”
“No, Nico!” Eli shouted. “She’s not going to—”
The rest of it was lost in the girl’s roar as she ducked and tumbled forward, using Nico’s own iron grip to take the smaller girl with her, slamming them both into the ground with Nico on the bottom. As soon as she was on top, the girl elbowed Nico hard in the ribs. Nico gasped, and her grip faltered. The girl shot up, rolling gracefully to her feet. When she turned around, she had a long, beautiful knife in her hands, the blade glowing with its own silver light.
Nico was back on her feet in an instant, and for a breathless moment the two watched each other. Then the girl in the hunting leathers shook her head and slid her knife back into the long sheath on her thigh.
“I begin to understand why you needed that coat,” the girl said, not taking her eyes off of Nico. “Let them down, gently please.”
The tree made a sound like a disgruntled sigh and lowered its roots, releasing Eli and Josef just a little higher than would have been a safe drop. The men landed hard in the dirt, and while Josef was on his feet almost immediately, Eli took a bit longer to get his breath back.
“Hello, Pele,” he coughed, trying to discreetly determine if his back was broken. “Always a pleasure.”
Pele arched an eyebrow. “Can’t say I feel the same.” She glared at Nico, who was still watching her from a crouch. “Must you always bring such trouble?”
“Trouble is my element,” Eli said, sitting up. “And is that any way to greet a customer?”
“Your custom is usually more trouble than it’s worth,” she said with a frown. “Get up. I’ll take you to Slorn.”
“Wait,” Josef said. “You mean Slorn as in Heinricht Slorn? The swordsmith?”
“He makes a lot of things besides swords,” Pele said crossly. “But yes, that Slorn, and he’s going to be testy if you make him wait. Now follow me, quickly. We’ve wasted enough time rolling in the dirt.”
“And whose fault was that?” Eli muttered, but the girl was already disappearing into the woods, slipping between the trees like a passing sunbeam.
“You never told me you knew Heinricht Slorn,” Josef said, walking over to where he’d dropped the Heart of War. He almost sounded hurt.
“I couldn’t,” Eli said, picking the leaves out of his hair. “Not talking about him is part of knowing Slorn. He’d never sell me anything if he thought I’d been spreading his location about, or the fact that he really exists. Most people think he’s a myth made up by the Shaper Wizards to sell more swords. When that tree sprung, I was half afraid he was going to have the Awakened Wood toss us out altogether because I’d brought you two. But, seeing he sent his daughter out to greet us, I think it’s safe to assume we’ve captured his interest enough to at least get our pitch in.”
“Daughter, huh?” Josef said, picking up the Heart and sliding it into its sheath on his back. “She’s pretty good to throw Nico around. Must be some kind of family.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Eli said, wincing as he stretched his bruised back. “We should get moving, though. Pele was right about Slorn’s hatred of waiting. The man is brilliant, but…” He paused, brushing the dirt off his coat as he searched for the right word. “Eccentric.”
Josef snorted. “Funny way of putting it, coming from you.”
Eli just gave him a look and set off through the trees.
Though she’d entered the woods only moments before them, there was no sign of Pele’s passing. Eli, Josef, and Nico stumbled in the direction she’d gone, following the dry streambed that was the best they could do for a path. Now that Pele had come out to greet them, the trees were whispering openly, and what they had to say made Eli’s ears burn.
“Honestly,” he muttered, kicking a sapling as they passed. “She’s right here.” He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t listen to them, Nico! They’re just a bunch of prejudiced, gossipy old hardwoods with nothing better to do.”
The trees rustled madly at this, but Nico just kept walking with her head down, giving no sign that she heard his voice or theirs. Eli looked away. The girl was looking bad. She’d been unusually quiet since they’d left Mellinor, even for Nico, and while she’d been eating as normal, she seemed to be getting thinner. Eli didn’t know if that was just the effect of seeing her without her bulky coat all the time, or if he just thought she was larger than she was, but he’d heard Josef talking to her about it as well, at night when the swordsman thought he was asleep. Also, no one, wizard or otherwise, could miss the way her manacles danced on her wrist, jittering across her skin even when she was sleeping. That was new since she’d lost the coat, and Eli didn’t like it one bit. Overhead, the trees were whispering again, and Eli gritted his teeth, picking up the pace as they pushed through the thickening woods.
Fortunately, they didn’t have much farther to go. The woods opened up just a few steps later, and they found themselves at the edge of a sandy-bottomed valley. At the center, sitting crooked on what had been the sandy bank of a now-dead stream, was a house. It was two stories and heavy-timbered, with a shingle roof and a tall chimney made of river stones. It was a handsome house and well constructed, but quite normal looking until you got to the foundation. There, things took a turn for the bizarre. Where a normal house would have sat on the ground, or stood on stone supports, this one crouched on four wooden legs. They were made of the same dark wood as the cabin, beautifully carved with scales and lifelike wrinkles right down to the clawed feet. At first glance, this could have been passed off as eccentric architecture, but then the legs moved, like an animal shifting its weight, and the house shifted with them.
“No matter how many times I see it,” Eli said, “I never get used to it.” He set off across the sand, dragging Josef, who was still gawking, along behind him.
Thanks to the legs, the house’s doorstep was a good five feet off the ground. The gap was covered by a set of rickety
stairs that would have been suspect in a normal building, let alone a moving one.
“I hate this part,” Eli said, grabbing the rope banister as the house shifted again. “I’m already feeling seasick.”
“Just go,” Josef said, giving him a push. Eli grunted and stumbled forward, pulling himself up enough to knock on the door.
It was opened immediately by a scowling Pele.
“Took you long enough,” she said, stepping back. “Come in and don’t hang on the stairs. They’re set to go any day now.”
“Ever the charming and comforting hostess,” Eli said as he lurched into the house. Josef and Nico followed more gracefully, and Pele shut the door behind them.
They were standing in a tiny entryway lined with pairs of oiled boots and racks of heavy coats. Eli pressed himself against the wall, partially to make room for Pele to get by and partially to steady himself against the sway of the house as it rocked on its spindly wooden legs. If the motion bothered Pele, she didn’t let on; she simply turned and motioned for them to follow her down a long, narrow hallway riddled with doors to other rooms. They passed a sitting room stuffed with books, a small kitchen with a warm hearth and a heavy table piled with chopped vegetables, and even a stone-tiled bathroom complete with an iron tub and a barrel full of steaming water. As they walked, Eli could hear the house adjusting to accommodate their presence, the scrape of chairs scooting themselves under tables when they passed the kitchen, or open books slamming shut on the library desk. Josef must have heard it, too, for the swordsman’s hands went to rest on the blades at his hip. Eli let him be nervous. Explaining the complex ecosystem of Slorn’s house was more work than he had the patience for at the moment.
The long hallway ended at a closed door. Pele stopped and knocked softly. Almost instantly a deep voice inside rumbled, and Pele pulled the handle.
