The Winter Thief

36

Vera woke shivering so hard she thought her bones would break. She was curled up in a coil of netting under a tarpaulin that had kept out the wind but not the cold. The movement of the boat and the sound of water slapping against the sides had awakened her. Pangs of hunger and thirst made her sit up and cautiously peek out from under the canvas. It was still dark, but a silver sheen meant dawn wasn’t far away. The walls of Yildiz Palace gleamed on the hill above her, enclosing the woods through which she had run. Below the wall, small cottages tumbled to the shore along wooded lanes. Was Sosi hiding in one of those cottages? She hadn’t had a chance to ask her about Gabriel.

Her throat ached for water. She pushed the tarp aside and stumbled out. She had to get off the boat before anyone saw her. To her dismay, she saw that the boat was no longer docked. They were in the middle of the Bosphorus. She looked up into the startled eyes of a young fisherman.