Dance of Thieves (Dance of Thieves 1)

I knelt to rummage through the bottom drawer for a shirt. “White? Gray?”

“What about you, Kazi?” he asked. “Do you always listen to your mother?”

I paused, gripping the socks in my hands, kneading them between my fingers. “It’s different for us, Jase. I already told you. She’s a general and has a lot of responsibilities. We don’t see each other often.”

“But she must still worry about you. And today—” I heard him sigh. I heard the guilt. “This isn’t your battle. First the labor hunters, and now this. Does your mother even know you’re here?”

Does she? Loss flooded my throat. It had gripped me today with a fresh, cruel hand, reaching into my heart, tugging, reminding me of what I had lost. When I saw the concern in Vairlyn’s eyes as she looked at my neck, when she shooed me into the house like one of her children to have my injuries tended, I saw the lost moments with my own mother, all the memories I never got the chance to make. That was something else the Previzi driver had stolen from me. Six short years was all I had with her. My mother’s absence hit me in a new, bitter way, because sometimes you can’t begin to know everything you’ve lost until someone shows you what you might have had.

I rummaged through another drawer. “How about this cream one?”

“Kazi—”

I stood and faced him. “Stop. You don’t have to feel guilty. My mother raised me from a very young age to be a soldier. And apparently I do it well. I’ll take my reward now.”

I drew his mouth to mine and I kissed him, long and hard, working to create a memory I could hold on to. When I pulled away, I began buttoning up his shirt. His chest rose in a deep quivering breath. “I guess there are some advantages to having bandaged fingers.”

“I think you can do your socks yourself. I have to get ready too.” I sh

oved him back in the armchair then threw him three pairs to choose from. “How’d your talk with Jalaine go?”

He was quiet, as if thinking it over. “It went well,” he finally said. “I’m all caught up on arena business now.”

“That much to catch up on in just a few days?”

“The arena is a busy place. A lot can happen in a short time.”

I asked if I could go along with him tomorrow and he seemed pleased, but warned me he would have a full day and I might be left to my own devices at times. His being busy was convenient for me—it would give me time to look around unfettered, maybe just to find more of nothing. Is that what I hoped to find? Nothing? I wasn’t sure anymore. For months, I had thought that finding the captain would close a door in my life. Many doors. It would not only erase present dangers but erase past failures too. It would make something right. It would bring justice to many where it couldn’t be found for one.

Jase noticed my silence. “What is it?”

Secrets I still can’t tell you, Jase. Oaths I can’t break. Truths I want to share but can’t. What is this? I knew the answer now as certainly as I knew the exact shade of Jase’s brown eyes. “Turn around,” I said. “I need to change.”

His mouth pulled in a smirk. “You forget that I’ve already seen you half naked?”

The intimacies of being chained together and my thin wet chemise had left little to the imagination when we were in the wilderness. “But only half. Turn.”

As he pulled on his socks, I threw on fresh clothes and began brushing my hair. I casually asked, “Will there be guests at dinner tonight?”

“No, just the family.”

“What about the guest staying at Darkcottage? When I was in Synové’s room, I saw someone go in there.”

He pulled on a boot and a puzzled expression filled his face, but he didn’t miss a beat. “No guests. It was probably just one of the groundsmen checking to make sure the windows were all shut. It looks like there’s a storm moving in.”

A storm. It made sense. I had seen the thickening clouds. And every window and shutter was pulled tight.

“He had white hair,” I added.

Jase stood, thinking for a moment. “Tall?”

I nodded.

“Yes. That’s Erdsaff. Good man. He’s been with us for years. Summer storms can be the worst.”

I thought about the sudden violent storm that had hit when Jase and I crossed Bone Channel, and as I did the room flashed with light and a crack of thunder shook the windows—as if on cue to confirm it was only a groundsman I had seen.

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