Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves 1)

I roost in darkness, but my bite is seen,

In rib and cheek, and wrist so lean.

With fierce teeth, and sharper claw,

None can escape my ruthless maw,

But a strutting hen can strike me down,

With its pretty legs in feathered gown.”

My stomach told me the answer to this one. Talk of chicken legs made the beast curled in my gut lift its sorry head. “Tonight,” I said. “I promise, the beast will be fed.”

She didn’t seem to hear my reply. Her right brow lifted, her gaze turned puzzled. She looked past me over my shoulder. “What is … that?”

I turned. In the distance, stark against a clear blue sky, a single cloud exploded upward. It wasn’t just any cloud. I had seen this kind before, but only when I was on safe high ground. It was a fat, bulging arm radiating miles into the sky, its muscles flayed open, purple and full, like a rampaging monster.

“Run,” I said.

“But—”

“We’re in a wash. Run!”

She trusted the urgency in my voice and ran, but we were still a long way from the other side. Silver fingers of water began shining in the distance, crawling toward us. “Faster!” I yelled.

Our steps pounded the sand and the fabric on her feet began unraveling, flapping loose at her ankles, but there wasn’t time to fix it. In seconds, we saw the frothing wall of water coming toward us, a deadly churning wave. She kicked the fabric loose. “Keep going,” she yelled, but I saw the agony in her face as she ran across the scorching sand. I scooped her into my arms and doubled my pace, my heart thudding in my chest, the wall getting closer, its roar like an animal bearing down, the trickling silver fingers already clawing at my ankles.

/> We made it to the other side, but the water was rising, already to my knees, and we still had to make it up the steep bank. I set her down, water now up to our waists, sucking to pull us into the current. The soft soil slipped beneath our feet, rain now pouring over our heads too. But we climbed, clawed, the water rising with us, both of us stabbing our walking sticks into the ground, stumbling, falling below the water, grabbing each other’s hands, and we finally made it to the crest, stumbling and pulling ourselves over the top of the embankment just before the wall roared past us. We collapsed, lying on our backs, gasping for air, rain pounding the ground around us, and then she chuckled. The chuckle turned to a string of long breathless laughs, and I laughed along with her. It was relieved, feverish laughter, like we had just slayed a monster that already had us in its jaws.

And then our laughter subsided, both of us spent from our dash across the channel, and the only sound was the slap of the rain. The heat of the wet soil steamed up around us, and I turned my head to look at her. Her eyes were closed, strings of hair clinging to her cheek, drops of water collecting in the hollow at her throat, a small vein pulsing in her neck.

I sat up and reached for one of her feet to look at the sole. She flinched at first, but then let me touch it. I gently brushed my thumb over the skin. There were already blisters forming. I reached in my pocket and pulled out a wish stalk. I chewed it, then pressed it to her foot.

“Does that help?” I asked.

She blinked, her eyes avoiding mine, her chest rising in an uneven breath, then finally she answered, “Yes.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

KAZI

The fire blazed and the smell of fat dripping from the meimol into the flames was intoxicating, a sweet perfume finer than any found in the jehendra. I breathed it in, heady with its scent, and my stomach churned in anticipation.

The hot throb of the blisters was gone. More wish stalks were wrapped on my feet. Jase had used his own shredded shirt to make a bandage, then carried me up to the ruins. I told him I could walk, but he had insisted I needed to give the wish stalks a chance to do their magic. We found a snug, dark cubby among the tumbled and leaning walls of the ruins, and between the roasting meimol and the dark cave with a roof I could almost touch, I was sure the gods had finally taken mercy on that poor, miserable wretch, Kazi, or they had just tired of tormenting her.

The storm had passed quickly—gone as fast as it had come. As soon as we reached the foot of the ruins, Jase had spotted several mounds and managed to spear a meimol on his second try.

Once the meimol had sizzled to perfection, we sat and ate, savoring the juicy dark meat, sucking on each bone, licking our fingers noisily with delight, and talking about some of our other favorite foods. He mentioned many that I had never heard of before, braised rabbit with fool’s sauce, huckleberry meringue puffs, and bergoo stew. I was surprised to learn that they had four cooks at Tor’s Watch, but his aunt did most of the cooking. I told him about Berdi’s fish stew that was a staple at Sanctum Hall. “I could eat it for every meal,” I said. “And then there are sage cakes.” I sighed longingly.

“Never heard of those.”

“Then you’ve missed out. They’re a heavenly vagabond specialty that can bring me to my knees.”

“And oranges.” His mouth pulled in a smirk, the fire casting a warm glow on his cheek. “You like oranges.”

I smiled and conceded. “Yes, probably my favorite of all. I never had one as a child. It wasn’t until I—” I caught myself before I revealed too much.

His brows rose. “Until you what?”