The Spirit Thief

CHAPTER 28

Miranda woke slowly, her mind rising like a bubble from her deep sleep. Below her, Mellinor was still sleeping, his currents deep and calm at the bottom of her awareness. She let him be and drifted upward, the dandelion fluff of her thoughts coming and going on their own time. Everything felt wonderful, like she was floating in a warm, lavender-scented cloud while someone played music in the distance. She winced, off-key music. Unbearably off key. Her thoughts began to thicken into consciousness, falling into place while worries filled the cracks between them. Suddenly, she wasn’t quite as comfortable. She hovered for a moment on the edge of sleep, fretting, and finally decided that if she was awake enough to fret about waking she might as well go all the way. At least then she could stop the awful music.

She opened her eyes to find herself buried at the center of a large feather bed. An elderly maid dozed in a chair by the bed’s foot, her soft snores stirring the dust motes that hung suspended in the honeyed sunlight pouring down from the high windows. The awful music came from behind a large folding screen, which split the already small room in half. Miranda shifted experimentally, and she jumped as something heavy rolled across her chest. With some effort, she freed one of her hands from the tightly tucked sheets and groped clumsily across the comforter. After a few uncertain moments, her fingers closed around a soft leather pouch filled with the heavy, familiar shapes of her rings. An incredible feeling of relief rushed through her, and she sighed contentedly. At the sound, the sleeping maid leaped from her chair.

“Lady,” she clucked, shuffling across the thick carpet to pull the sheets tighter. “Please do not move.”

“Is she awake?” an excited voice called from behind the screen. There was a shuffle, and then King Henrith came bounding into view, a handsome but sloppily tuned tenor vikken dangling from his left hand. His cheeks and neck were wrapped in white bandages and there was an angry gouge across the bridge of his nose, but otherwise he looked quite well compared to the last time she’d seen him. The maid backed away reverently as he approached, and Miranda sank a little deeper into the bed.

“I was hoping you’d wake up during one of my visits,” the king said, grinning. “Of course, I haven’t been able to visit very often. Things have been busy, but I did think you’d enjoy some music.” He held up the poor vikken by its strings. “How did you like my—”

“It was lovely,” Miranda cut in. “How long have I been like this?”

“Well,” the king said and scratched the top of his chin, which was the only section of his beard that wasn’t covered in bandages. “Three days, I think. Really, it feels longer.”

“Three days?” She clutched her ring bag. “Eli is gone, I take it?”

“Yes,” Henrith said, sounding annoyed, “and all the loose gold with him, what wasn’t melted to slag, anyway. Honestly, I don’t think we could have expected better. I was more distracted by the state of the room and, of course, you and my brother. We thought you were dead as well, but your beast told us that you were merely suffering from exhaustion, so I asked one of the girls—”

“Gin told you?” Miranda sat up in a rush, but the pain that shot through her skull at the movement sent her right back down again.

“Well, he didn’t tell us exactly.” The king sat down on the nightstand. “One of the other wizard chaps spoke with him.”

“Other wizards…” Miranda closed her eyes. This conversation was veering rapidly in directions she didn’t think her battered mind could handle right now. “I’m sorry,” she muttered. “Could you start over? From the beginning, please.”

“There’s not much to it,” the king said. “They arrived right after I did. That night, when the shaking started and your dog ran off, I just couldn’t stay put. I kept hearing these awful sounds. It was like the forest itself was trying to get away from something.”

Miranda remembered the terrifying aura of Nico’s uninhibited powers and shuddered. The king didn’t seem to notice.

“I decided it was time to stop hiding, so I made my way back to the castle only to find everyone out in the yard because of a fire in the kitchens or some such. The kitchen staff had it well in hand, but with all the noises from the throne room and the stories the wounded soldiers were telling, no one wanted to go back in.” The king chuckled. “Nobody believed I was who I said at first. It took me a good hour to convince them I really was their king, and then it was another two hours after the water stopped pouring out of the castle before I could get together a group bold enough to go inside and see what all the fuss was about.

“I’m still not quite clear on what happened,” Henrith said, frowning. “But the wizards showed up about half an hour after we found you and just sort of took charge.” He gave her an amused look. “It’s funny, after four hundred years without them, Mellinor’s suddenly up to its neck with wizards.”

“These wizards,” Miranda said, reaching into her leather bag, pulling out the thick, gold loop of her Spirit Court signet, “do they wear rings like me? Are they Spiritualists? How many are there?”

“That’s the strangest thing,” Henrith said, adjusting his bandages. “They wore no rings, and they didn’t say anything about the Spirit Court. The serious fellow who leads them said he was with the League of Something or Other.”

Miranda froze. “The League of Storms?”

“Yes! That’s the one!” Henrith grinned. “There were more than fifty at the beginning—seemed to pop right out of thin air, gave us quite a fright, I can tell you—but most vanished again after an hour or so. Now there are maybe eight or nine. Still, they’re doing a great job fixing the damage Renaud did to my throne room, and at no expense to us, so I’m inclined to let them be. Though I would like to ask you for your version of what happened that night. The doctors demanded we take it slowly so as not to risk your… Where are you going?”

Miranda had swung her feet over the edge of the bed and was shoving her rings back onto her fingers. “Thank you for your hospitality, my lord,” she said in a rush. “The Spirit Court will not forget such kindness, and I will of course be happy to relate what happened in the throne room, but I can’t afford to waste any more time in bed.”

“Are you sure you should be getting up?” Henrith said, eyeing her suspiciously. “The doctors still aren’t sure what’s been wrong with you.”

For a moment, Miranda considered trying to explain the dangers of opening one’s spirit for prolonged lengths of time, especially to such an extreme degree as she had, and then accepting a new spirit on top of that. However, seeing the concerned look on Henrith’s face, she opted for something less explanatory and more understandable.

“It’s just exhaustion,” she said, sliding to the edge of the fluffy mattress while ignoring the increasingly urgent calls from her muscles that standing would be a very bad idea. “I was a bit overzealous with my abilities. Luckily, I recover quickly.”

Henrith arched an eyebrow at her but didn’t say anything as she took a deep breath and, gripping the heavy bed frame like a lifeline, hauled herself to her feet. It hurt every bit as much as she’d expected, but she firmly ignored the pain and set about looking for something more substantial than a woolen nightgown. Fortunately, some thoughtful servant must have anticipated this, and a delighted smile spread over Miranda’s face when she saw her riding suit, freshly laundered and mended, laid out on the dresser under the window. Using the heavy furniture to support her sleep-weakened legs, she hobbled along the wall to the dresser. When she picked up her jacket, something white tumbled out of the pocket and landed on the thick carpet by her feet.

“Ah,” the king said. “We found that with you, in the pocket of the librarian’s uniform you, um, borrowed. It looked important, so I told them to keep it here for you.”

Miranda bent down and picked up the rectangular object. It was an envelope. She turned it over. Stamped at the center of a large glob of green sealing wax was a fanciful, calligraphic M that she recognized all too well. However, what caught her breath was the name written across the fold in neat, precise capitals.

“Etmon Banage,” she read, frowning in confusion. What in the world could that thief have to say to her master? She slid her thumbnail under the wax, but, right before it cracked, she thought better of it. No matter the source, opening the Rector Spiritualis’s private mail was not a wise career move. Squishing her curiosity, she tucked the unopened letter back into her coat pocket and reached instead for her freshly pressed shirt. She draped it over her arm and turned around, looking at the king expectantly.

He looked back at her, smiling pleasantly, and showed no signs of leaving.

“Thank you for your concern, Majesty,” she said pointedly. “I really do appreciate it, but I’ve had my time to lie about. I must do my duty.”

“Fine, have it your way.” The king sighed sullenly, tucking the vikken under his arm. “Just don’t blame us when you get sick again. I’ll wait for you in the garden.”

She dropped a half curtsy as he walked back behind the screen. She heard the footman greet him, and then the scrape of the door as he left. When it closed, she gave herself a little shake and, with the maid’s stony assistance, began the painful work of getting dressed.

Fifteen minutes later, Miranda was dressed and on her way to the throne room. She probably should have gone to meet Henrith in the garden first, but the League of Storms took priority over just about everything, even courtesy. She felt ten times herself again back in pants with her rings and Eril’s pendant in their rightful places. Her spirits were in an uproar, both at being left behind and at the new interloper they could feel through Miranda’s skin. She sent a warning thread of energy down her arms, and the ruckus quieted instantly. Miranda felt guilty forcing them down after everything that had happened, but dealing with the League of Storms was not an activity that bore distraction.

She paused at the end of the corridor and smoothed over her hair with her fingers one more time. When she was satisfied that she looked as collected and competent as she could make herself without a mirror, she turned the corner into the promenade hall and stopped dead in her tracks.

The throne room looked nothing at all as it had when she’d last seen it. The marble floor was smooth again, with no sign that it had ever been scoured by the acidic soul of a dead enslaver. The colored-glass windows were unbroken, filtering the sunlight into colorful streams that played across the gracious golden fixtures and delicate ornamental stonework, all of which was back in its proper place. The roof had been restored to its original graceful arch, and the walls were smooth and straight again, as though they’d never been broken. Only the great golden doors were immune to this miraculous repair. They hung sadly from their hinges in a cascade of melted gold and iron slag, just as Eli’s lava spirit had left them.

Men in austere black coats were standing in pairs over the few remaining spots where the damage was still apparent. Most of them seemed to be lost in deep contemplation, studying the last bits of wreckage as if the shattered stones were works of art. As she watched, one of them waved his hand, and a cracked stretch of wall righted itself before her eyes.

“Should you be up, Lady Spiritualist?”

Miranda jumped at the voice, and she turned to see a handsome middle-aged man in a long black coat standing a few feet behind her with a polite smile on his face.

“My apologies,” the man said and held out his gloved hand. “I did not mean to frighten you. I am Alric, deputy commander for the League of Storms.”

Miranda took his offered hand firmly, keeping her eyes locked on his face. This was not the time to show weakness. “Miranda Lyonette.”

“Ah,” he said, smiling, “Master Banage’s young protégé.”

“How unfair,” Miranda said, taking back her hand. “You know who I am, but I’ve never heard of you, Sir Alric.”

“The League lives to serve, lady. We have no need to make a show of our achievements.” He smiled as he spoke, but the thin-lipped expression did not reach his blue eyes. “Now”—he took her arm and began walking her toward the throne room—“to business. I was hoping you would wake up before we finished our work. I have several questions I’d like to ask you about the night all this unpleasantness occurred.”

Miranda nodded. “You want to know about the Great Spirit.”

“Of course not,” Alric said. “That’s your realm, lady, not ours. Our interest lies in the one called Nico.” He stopped, and his grip on her arm tightened. “You know what she is, of course.” He smiled at her. “Tell me, then, why did you let her escape?”

Miranda stepped back, putting some space between them. “It was my duty to see to the welfare of the spirits first,” she said, keeping her voice steady and neutral. “Considering the extraordinary circumstances that night, I judged her to be the lesser threat.”

“The ‘lesser threat’?” Alric chuckled. “I sincerely doubt that.”

As he spoke, his pleasant smile took on a sinister tint and, despite the warm sunlight, a shiver ran down Miranda’s spine. Suddenly, she was uncomfortably aware of just how powerful a wizard the man standing in front of her was.

“That night,” Alric said, “the demonseed inside the girl awakened, correct?”

“She did change,” Miranda said, choosing her words carefully. “But things were happening very quickly, and I have no experience with demons. Some of your members must have been close by, since you arrived in Mellinor in such a timely fashion. Surely you can ask one of them.”

“The League can move quickly when it needs to,” Alric said. “And seeing how every spirit within a hundred miles of this place was in a screaming panic on the night in question, we felt it necessary to move very quickly indeed. Thus, imagine our surprise when we arrived and found not only no demonseed but no spirits that would tell us where it had gone. I was hoping you could shed some light on the subject.”

“I’ve told you what I know,” Miranda said coldly. “She changed, and my ghosthound was injured trying to subdue her. However, one of Eli’s companions was able to bring her under control, and she changed back.”

“Awakened demons don’t just ‘change back.’ ” Alric leaned closer. “Isn’t there something else you’d like to tell me?”

“No.” Miranda glared stubbornly.

Alric’s blue eyes grew colder still, but before he could speak, a man’s voice called his name from the throne room.

Miranda jumped at the low, rumbling sound. Alric gave her a final warning look before turning on his heel and marching back into the throne room where the man who’d called him was waiting. The man was standing at the center of the sun-drenched hall and was wearing the same long black coat as all the rest, but Miranda was positive he hadn’t been there when she’d arrived—there was no way she could have missed a man like that. He was enormously tall, close to seven feet, and every inch of him—the ready tenseness of his broad shoulders, the lightness of his boots on the stone, the clenched hand on the hilt of his long blue-wrapped sword—spoke of a man who lived for one purpose: to fight. To fight and win.

He turned as Alric approached, and his silver eyes flicked to Miranda for only a moment, but a moment was enough. She felt blinded by the intensity of his attention, the sheer weight of his focused gaze, enough to make her lungs falter. She hung on his look, pinned like a fly, until his eyes flicked down to Alric, and the air came thundering back.

Without a word, she turned on her heel and fled. Her spirits were wide awake, yet oddly silent, their attention buzzing against her shaking fingers. She shoved her hands in her pockets and walked faster. So that was the Lord of Storms. For the first time, she understood why Banage had been so adamant about leaving demon matters in League hands. The silver-eyed man did not look like someone who took well to having his affairs meddled in. She almost felt bad for Eli and Josef. If the Lord of Storms himself was here looking for Nico, it was only a matter of time before they found her. Alric had said that awakened demons don’t go back to sleep and, whatever Josef’s sword had done, Miranda believed him. She shuddered, remembering the flickering glow of Nico’s lantern eyes. Despite Eli’s pleas, she didn’t see how something like that could ever go back to being human. Hopefully, the thief and the swordsman would have enough sense to give her up quietly when the Lord of Storms came, or there wouldn’t be enough of them left for her to catch, much less bring back to Banage.

That thought nearly made her sick, and she put the whole affair out of her mind. Whatever horrors were yet to happen, it wasn’t her problem anymore. That thought cheered her up immensely, and she threw open the door to the stables with remarkable gusto for someone who’d spent the smaller half of a week in bed.

Gin was where she knew he would be, sprawled at the center of the stable yard, eating a pig. The stains on the cobbles around him spoke of many such meals, and she stopped at the edge of the walkway, putting her hands on her hips with a mock glare. “Are you eating them out of house and home?”

“Nice to see you, too,” Gin mumbled between chews. He licked his chops and rolled to his feet. Miranda winced when she saw the long, still-healing gash that ran across his shoulders, interrupting the flow of his undulating patterns.

“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he growled when he saw her expression. “I’m not made of paper, you know.”

Miranda walked over and reached up to scratch behind his ear. “I’m glad to see you doing so well.”

“So am I,” Gin said, but he leaned into her scratching. “So, where now?”

“Home,” Miranda said. “I have to let Master Banage know what happened, especially now that the League’s involved. I think our Eli hunt is going to get a bit more hairy from here on.”

“If Banage lets us keep going,” the hound said. “League nonsense aside, Eli still got away with the increased bounty and more than eight thousand in loose gold. Banage isn’t going to be happy about that part, and he’s not the forgiving type.”

“Let’s cross that bridge when we reach it,” Miranda said, giving him a final pat. “Finish your pig, we’re leaving as soon as I find where they put the rest of my things.”

They left that afternoon, after Miranda said good-bye to Marion and paid her respects to the king. Henrith was in a bit of a panic when she found him, for the league members had left just a few minutes before, vanishing as mysteriously as they had appeared.

“It really is too much,” he said, slumping down in his chair. “First we have no wizards, then we have too many, and now none again.”

“It doesn’t always have to be that way,” Miranda said, sipping the tea he had insisted she try before leaving. They were sitting in the rose garden behind the main castle, just below the throne room’s windows. It, like the rest of the palace, had been repaired, but here and there the plants were bent at odd angles where the falling stones and overflowing water had crushed them. Deep inside her, Mellinor shifted uncomfortably at that thought. Miranda sent a warm reassurance before setting her cup down and meeting Henrith’s dejected gaze. “The Spirit Court would be delighted to send a representative. We might not be as flashy as the League, but no country was ever worse off for having a Spiritualist.”

“I think I may take you up on that offer,” the king said thoughtfully. “After all, of all the wizards who’ve tromped through my kingdom over the past week or so, you’re the only one who did right by us, and we won’t forget that.”

“Your Majesty flatters me,” Miranda said and smiled. “Perhaps I can do you another good turn. I’m going home to Zarin to give my report to the Rector Spiritualis. Master Banage is a powerful man, and he might be able to convince the Council of Thrones to throw out Mellinor’s part of Eli’s bounty. I think coercion of a monarch counts as extenuating circumstances enough to justify a slight bending of the rules.”

The king set down his teacup. “I appreciate the offer, but it won’t be necessary. After all this ruckus, I think thirty-five thousand is the least we can do to reward the person crazy enough to catch Eli Monpress.” He smiled broadly. “I hope, lady, that it will be you.”

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment,” Miranda said, laughing. “But I shall do my best, all the same.”

In the end, he gave her three bags of the tea to take with her. She bundled them into her pack, along with the generous store of sandwiches, fruits, nuts, and bread from the palace kitchens, and secured the lot across Gin’s lower back. Then she climbed into her spot right behind the ghosthound’s ears and let him put on all the show he liked as they bounded over the gates and out of the town. Once on the road, she was careful not to comment when he set a slower pace, and if she made them take more breaks than they usually did, Gin didn’t mention it. So, in this casual way, they crossed the borders of Mellinor and followed the trade roads north and a little east toward Zarin, the wizard city at the heart of the world.

Far to the west, on the other side of Mellinor, Eli was having a harder time of things.

“I give up,” he said, turning his back on the deep, fast river he had spent the better part of an hour trying to convince to pull back its waters long enough for them to cross.

“Why don’t you just give it an order?” Josef said from his perch on the enormous bag of gold. “Worked well enough on the big lake spirit back there, why not a river?”

“It was a sea spirit,” Eli growled. “And that was totally different.” He turned his scowl toward Nico, who was sitting on the ground beside Josef drawing patterns in the sand with a split twig.

“This is all your fault, you know,” he said, pointing at her. “If you hadn’t been so careless and ripped your coat to shreds, the river would have no idea what you are, and we would have been safely across thirty minutes ago. Now it thinks we’re part of some vast, demonic conspiracy and is looking for a way to drown us.”

As if to prove his point, the river chose that moment to splash several rocks onto the shore, which landed in the sand inches from Nico’s bare knees. Eli shook his head and glanced forlornly upriver. “Nothing for it, we’ll have to find a bridge and cross like normal people. Fortunately, I think there’s one in our direction.”

“Our direction?” Josef scratched his chest where the bandages poked above his shirt. “Where are we going, anyway?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Eli said. “We can’t get anything done with Nico in that condition. We’re going to get her a new coat.”

“A new coat?” Josef cocked an eyebrow at the wizard. “Is that all?”

“Yes,” Eli said, starting up the sandy bank. “So make sure you don’t lose any of that gold. If we’re lucky, we’ll have just enough to pay for it.”

“We’ve got enough gold to purchase a fully stocked villa and the noble title to go with it!” Josef said, kicking the bag with his boot heel. “What kind of coat are we buying?”

But Eli was already a good distance ahead, digging through the maps in his shoulder bag and muttering to himself. Josef rolled his eyes and stood up. With a grunt, he heaved the bag of gold onto his back and balanced it on the flat of his sword while he tied it in place. Then, with the Heart of War secured over one shoulder, and the bag of gold tied across the other, he tromped down the bank after the thief. Tossing down her twig, Nico stood and followed, fitting her small, bare feet into the swordsman’s large tracks. Every few minutes, the river would send a new volley of rocks at her, which she dodged easily, never taking her eyes off Josef’s back. She stayed less than a step behind him the whole way, one thin hand clutching the tattered remains of her coat and the other stretched out in front, her long fingers resting on the cutting edge of the Heart of War’s blade.