The Dream Thief (29 page)

T
he castle was huge. Even from a
distance it swallowed the view, commanding the eye with white quartzite towers
and rivers of time-melted crystals that bled down the walls. It seemed to cling
improbably to the side of its mountain, anchored in some way Lia could not
fathom—perhaps by the claws of her dead and buried people: she felt them here
everywhere. But beyond the cheerful coachman —human—who had picked them up,
there were no other figures to be seen. No footmen, no laborers or dairymaids.
The windows of the castle flashed black and empty against their icicled
casements. Woodsmoke poured up from unseen chimneys, streamers pointing the
opposite direction of the wind.

If the
coachman spoke French, or Hungarian, or Romanian, he did not reveal it. He
greeted them with a phrase Lia did not recognize and waved them into the
carriage with big, open gestures, without climbing down from his seat. Zane had
been standing between her and the horses, studying the man. When the coachman
set the brake and made to jump down, the thief lifted a hand, a gesture to
hold, and strolled forward to open the door. He helped Lia inside with a
speaking look.

Beware.
She didn’t need to hear him say
it. Every nerve in her body tingled.

The coach was far more ornate
than the one the gypsy had stolen. It was older too, done up in crimson and
brushed saffron, fringed tassels looped from the seats and satin window
curtains. There were furs and goosefeather pillows strewn across the squabs, and
a small yellow songbird, a real one, in a cage hung from a hook in the ceiling.
The bird gripped its dowel with tiny feet, staring at Lia. The brass cage
rocked with every bump.

Zane had already overturned the
pillows, looking for what, she didn’t know. He’d checked the compartments
beneath the seats—stuffed with more furs—and run his hands along the walls and
cherrywood trim. When he was satisfied there was nothing else to be found, he
sat back and looked at her, frowning.

“No hidden perfidy?” she inquired,
only half mocking.

“Not yet.”

He sat forward and opened a
window, letting in the frigid air. He turned around and worked at the latch to
the birdcage, tugging it open, reaching a hand inside. The bird never moved.

His fingers were lean and strong.
He stroked a finger down the creature’s back and pried it carefully from its
roost. With his cupped hands against the sill, his palms opened like a lotus.
The songbird fluttered out to the sky, a speck of butter yellow diminishing
into the blue.

“Well, that’s certain to get us
off on the right foot,” Lia said.

“An unfortunate accident. The
latch was loose. The window was down.” He lifted the sash to close the glass
once again, shoving at it when it stuck. “It’s not my fault they didn’t bother
to clip her wings.”

“She’s not meant to survive out
there, you know.”

“I know.” He was watching the
sky, or the bird; she couldn’t tell which from where she sat. “But I’d rather
die out there than trapped in here. Wouldn’t you?”

She remembered another bird,
another time, in the dark woods, with her brothers and sisters surrounding her.
She remembered her fear and her determination, and the fragile life she’d ended
in her hands.

Lia bent her head to hide her
face, dragging another fur over her legs. “Considering the past few weeks, I’d
rather not think about it at all.”

“Only a fool fails to contemplate
the possibilities. It’s better to be prepared.”

“Yes. And we’ve been so well
prepared for all this, haven’t we?”

“Pardon me for saying so, but it
seems
one
of us should have been. Why don’t you tell me of your dreams
now, Lia? The bad ones.”

She hesitated.

“Lia,” he said again, dark and
smooth, just like those dreams. “Do you think I don’t know? Do you think I
don’t hear you at night? You skim across the surface of sleep. You say my name.
Betimes you weep. I’d rather you tell me now our future troubles, and spare me
the later.”

She lifted her eyes. “I die an
old woman. I never visit Tuscany.”

“Tuscany.”

“Yes.”

“What would be there?” he asked,
very mild.

“You,” she said.

He stared at her. The tassels
beside him danced and caught the light in their bright satin weave.

“Did I say we should charge a
shilling for your talents? I’m certain we could get at least a full crown.”

He’d spoken of the sun in her
blind dreams. He’d spoken of the sultry Italian heat, and of the
palazzo
they’d
buy as soon as their first child was born.

Zane turned back to the view. “Is
the diamond with the prince?”

“No.” She waited, but he didn’t
ask anything else, so she added, reckless, “Don’t you want to know where it
is?”

It was a long while before he
answered. “As long as I have you, I don’t need to, do I?” He tapped a finger
against a saffron tassel, and watched it as if it held the most valuable
secrets on earth.

No one greeted them at the
portcullis, nor at the ancient iron main doors. No one came forward to tend to
the horses, but the coachman seemed perfectly at ease with the absence of any
help. He guided the carriage along the graveled lane that wound inside the
castle walls, slowing to a halt beside a courtyard of frosted grass and
alabaster fountains dribbled with ice.

Zane stepped out quickly, the
carriage tilting with his weight, and waited almost a full minute before
reaching inside for her hand. She joined him on the gravel, squinting. The
castle, the walls, the fountains and snow: all brilliant, blazing white. She
couldn’t help it; Lia pressed a hand over her eyes, just a moment, to save her
vision.

The horses began to snort. Zane
pulled her closer by the waist, so close he crushed her skirts, and drew her
away from the wheels. The coachman gave them another cheery grin before
gibbering something; he touched a hand to his head and snapped the reins. The
carriage jolted away, following the lane around the inner turn of the wall.

They stood alone before the great
castle, listening to the wind howl. And Lia, turning her head, listened to more
than that: she listened to the stone walls and the dirt and to
Draumr,
a
songbird trapped beneath her feet.

“Welcome home, little dragon,”
Zane murmured.

Before she could respond, the
iron doors began to grind open, magnificently slow, and between them something
bolted from the dark to the light—a pair of dogs, huge ghostly shadows, swift
and silent, leaping straight at her.

She had
no time to move. She had no time even to flinch. She saw teeth and tongues and
very black eyes—and then Zane had shoved in front of her, raising up both arms.

He
caught both of them. She couldn’t see how he’d done it, only that he had and
that the dogs were pinned against him, struggling. He dropped to a knee. His
hands were fisted into their necks, buried in white fur. The dogs squirmed and
whimpered in his grip, their heads twisting. One of them managed to lick his
cheek.

She almost squeaked a breath, and
it felt like fire. She caught herself in time, her lips pressed tight, her
hands over her heart, and looked wildly at the stranger standing in the gloom
beside the doors of the keep.

“My guardians,” he called in
French, and clapped his hands. “Forgive them. They’re brutes.”

Zane opened his arms and the dogs
bounded away across the courtyard, returning to the other man.

He was
drákon
. She
realized it past her pounding heart; a part of her must have been preparing for
this from the moment she’d heard the legend of her kind. She felt him before he
even stepped fully into the light, a peculiar, subtle current that pushed like
a bubble around him, that encompassed the doors and dogs, and the shadows
engulfing them. And then he breached the shade from the portal, and the
sunlight illumed him in blazing color.

He wore a robe of gold foil and
dark teal velvet that spread behind him like open wings, revealing beneath a
ruffled shirt and black breeches. His hair was extremely dark—under the sun it
lit to nearly indigo, long enough to brush his cheekbones and shoulders. His
features were aquiline, his eyes a deep sapphire blue. He was close to Zane’s
age, Lia guessed, or a little younger, smiling now as he came toward them, his
arms lifted, his fingers bejeweled.

He was very, very comely.

And he was not alone. He was
flanked by Others, arranged in a human V behind him like geese following their
Alpha. And this man, this prince—was definitely Alpha.

“Welcome!” His voice was rich.
“Welcome, friends! Excuse my presumption in bringing you here. You were spotted
down the mountain, walking alone along the road. I assumed the worst, of
course— few venture this high, and no one without transport. Was I mistaken?
Have I intruded?”

After releasing the dogs, Zane
had not moved except to stand and brush at his coat, remaining half in front of
her. But at the end of the other man’s speech he shaped a bow, his back
straight, his extended arm and leg flexed and graceful. The rope of his braid
slid long over one shoulder.

“We are in your debt,” the thief
said. “You have spared us some trouble, kind sir. My wife and I”— he glanced
back at Lia; she sank into a swift curtsy—“encountered a small misfortune. A
minor inconvenience. I beg your pardon for our ill-timed arrival.”

“Nonsense.” The prince walked up
with his entourage intact. “Was it your Roma who absconded with a fully fitted
coach?” Zane drew breath and the man smiled again, rakish. “We have your horses
in our stables, and the bandit in a root cellar. We are a simple people,
perhaps, but not fools. No one believed for an instant the fellow was an
Englishman on Tour.”

One of the dogs ventured a stiff
step past his master’s robe, staring at Lia. Zane very casually took her hand.

The
drákon
prince noticed. For the first time, he lifted his gaze directly to hers.
“Please.” His curved fingers touched his forehead, an elegant echo of the
coachman’s tribute. “Gentle one. Come inside my home.”

The castle was a mirage. It had
to be. She was overwhelmed from her first step beyond the doors, slammed with
voices, with music, Zane and the prince murmuring sentences, the dogs ahead and
the people behind them rustling with taffeta and fustian, their footsteps
echoing, the very walls of this place soaring in song.

It was a fortress without but a
manor house within. There was nothing rustic here, nothing archaic. The entire
place was as modern and refined as the most lavish Mayfair mansion, with
Chinese silk and plastered walls and frescoed ceilings, and chandeliers hanging
in ice-crystal palaces over their heads. The floors were piled with Turkish
rugs; fires warmed every chamber they passed; clocks ticked; dust settled over
harpsichords and chinoiserie vases and marble bowls filled with walnuts and
figs. The halls were painted sky-blue, or summer pink, or warm, clean ivory…but
some of the corridors they traversed had no plaster. Some of the corridors had
only the castle’s bare base. Between the quartzite blocks shone cool, colorless
lumps, unpolished and uncut, smaller stones set within the mortar.