The Vengekeep Prophecies (6 page)

“In case you hadn't heard,” Callie said, hands on her hips, “Jaxter's family is destined to save Vengekeep. I don't think
your
name was on that tapestry.”

Maloch sneered at me. “I bet you think that means you and your family can get away with whatever you want. Well, not a chance. I'll personally be watching you.” Then he leaned in until I could smell sour tarok sauce on his breath. “Well, I'll be watching your family. Watching you would be a mistake. They're the thieves. Not you.”

I felt my face flush as I swallowed.

“Tell me,” Maloch said, eyeing me head to toe, “just what the zoc do they need you for?” He glanced down at the pouches hanging from my belt and gave a single laugh. “Oh, that's right. You play with your little plants and roots and saps. Trying to make up for the fact that you're basically an embarrassment to them. Too clumsy to be a thief … so what good are you?”

I actually lunged at him, chin quivering. He took a step back, fists raised for a scrape. But I didn't get very far. Aubrin snagged my belt and stopped me.

Unfazed, Maloch chuckled. “Have a good year, savior.” Then he turned and lumbered away.

I stared down at my boots awkwardly. “Thanks,” I said to Aubrin, then turned to Callie. “Good thing she held me back. I would hate to have gotten blood on his fist with my face.”

Callie shook her head. “He's got to be the rudest garfluk I've ever met.”

“Rude?” I asked. “He'd be so disappointed. That was Maloch at his most charming.”

We talked in the park until sundown. Aubrin and I walked Callie to her house and she made me promise to start her thievery lessons soon. I was less eager to get a promise from her for my tree-climbing lesson.

When Aubrin and I got home, I went straight to my room and shut the door. I took a deep breath to clear my head. The smell of the old books on the shelves that lined my bedroom walls usually comforted me. Not tonight, though. Navigating around the collection of clay pots on the floor, where I grew the twelve essential plants for my pouches, I sank down onto my bed in the corner.

I couldn't stop thinking about Maloch. We used to be best friends. Then, two years ago, his father caught me trying to teach Maloch to pick a lock and forbade us to see each other. After that, whenever I ran into him, Maloch treated me worse and worse. Ma said not to let it get me down, that a true friend would have stuck by me no matter what.

Truth is: it still got me down.

Much of what he'd said had already been on my mind. Aubrin's pickpocketing skills branded her a chip off the Grimjinx block. I hadn't even mastered picking an Armbruster 1 lock. Every year it became clearer: I really wasn't a very good thief.

It was well after midnight before I stopped brooding, slipped into my nightclothes, and crawled into bed. I heard a knock at the door and looked up as my grandmother stepped into my room, lips clenched around a juicy blackdrupe.

“Oya,” she said softly, wiping the excess juice from the corners of her mouth.

“Oya,” I said, trying not to sound as pathetic as I felt.

She pulled up a chair to sit next to me.

“You've been hiding away a long time up here,” she whispered. “Usually means something's on your mind. Care to tell your old nanni about it?”

I didn't know what to say so I just blurted, “Nanni, is the family ashamed of me?”

Nanni leaned forward into the moonlight, and I saw her pale eyebrows furrow. “Now, why would you think that?”

I looked away. “Something Maloch said today.”

“Maloch? Are you two friends again?”

I grunted. “Friends? Hardly.”

Nanni clicked her tongue. “Happens from time to time. The friends you used to rely on change without you knowing it. Same thing happened to your da. He had a friend growing up: Edilman Jaxter. You were named for him, you know.”

I nodded. Ma and Da didn't talk about Edilman Jaxter much, only to remind me every so often that I was named for him.

Nanni shook her head, a warm grin spreading across her face. “They were inseparable. Your da, a skilled burglar; Edilman, a master of disguise. Oh, the cons they pulled in their day. When your ma joined up, the three of them were positively unstoppable.”

“So what happened?”

Nanni's face fell. “People grow apart, Jaxter. It happened to your father and Edilman. It happened to you and Maloch. And maybe it's for the best.”

She took my hand and gently pulled me from my bed. “I think I know what's
really
on your mind. Come here.”

She led me out to the hall and to her bedroom, where a lantern lit the room with fuzzy orange light. She sat me down on her bed, then pulled a thick, leather-bound book from under the mattress. I knew it well, from its frayed, brown edges to the tarnished bronze letters across the front that read
GRIMJINX
. Our family album.

She opened the cover. A haphazard series of lines and finely scrawled names lay across the first two pages: the Grimjinx family tree. There was my great-great-great grandmother Ioni Grimjinx, who masterminded the ransacking of the par-Dwarves' underwater cities. And my too-many-greats-to-mention uncle Vaster Grimjinx, who bilked the town-state of Annora into paying him a fee to rid the town of ghosts … ghosts he created with some simple parlor tricks. The tree went all the way back to the first Grimjinx, Corenus, who created our clan's unfortunate-sounding surname under the theory that a family who sounded cursed would be above suspicion in any theft.

That theory lasted an entire generation. After that, all the Five Provinces knew our family was far from unlucky when it came to thievery.

As the oldest living Grimjinx, Nanni was in charge of protecting this log of our heritage. The remainder of the book's pages were filled with centuries of accounts of my ancestors' greatest cons and heists, all written in a special code known only to our family, so as not to incriminate anyone. Since I was old enough to hold the massive book on my own, I'd spent days poring over those pages, dreaming of the day my own exploits would be cataloged for future Grimjinx thieves to see.

Nowadays, though, it seemed unlikely.

“It can be quite a legacy to live up to,” Nanni said, her arm around my shoulders. “Every Grimjinx had a unique talent that they worked hard to perfect. But no matter how great the heist, the one thing that eluded everyone was the ability to run a scam where magic defenses were involved. You're the first to beat that. Thanks to all those books you read, we can beat almost any magical defense. You've got smarts, Jaxter. The things you learn in books will outshine all of us someday, you mark my words.”

I stared at the family tree and nodded. She walked me back to my room and I had to admit I felt better. Zoc Maloch.

I crawled back into my bed as Nanni laid a finger aside her nose. “In fact, we'll be needing you up bright and early in the morning. Plans are afoot....”

I brightened. “The Lek vaults?”

She pursed her lips. “Not quite. That needs a mite more planning. Let's just say that we'll be in a better position to raid the vaults after tomorrow. You in?”

She touched her temple and I did the same. “Always.”

Nanni returned to her room as I nestled into bed. I was moments away from falling asleep when I suddenly realized: she hadn't really answered my question, whether or not the family was ashamed of me. She'd danced around it. I stayed awake the rest of the night, wondering exactly what that meant.

“Think twice about the con, not the mark.”

—
Ancient par-Goblin proverb

E
very weekend, Brassbell Promenade came to life with the town-state's biggest outdoor market. Crowds of people moved from cart to booth to get the freshest produce and best bargains. The Promenade got its name from the ancient wooden water tower located in its center. Years ago, on the hottest summer days, the Castellan would order the stateguard to climb the tower and pull the release chain. Water would come pouring out from the side of the massive wooden drum at the top of the tower and down a metal slide, showering the Promenade. The stateguard then rang the brass bell on the drum's underbelly to alert the nearby children, who would run screaming across the cobblestones to play in the downpour. Nowadays, the tower was too unstable to be climbed.

Every weekend, Nanni and Aubrin came to the Promenade to sell breadbowls filled with singemeat stew to the marketgoers. Despite our family's reputation, they never failed to bring in customers. Some people bought stew to encourage us to earn an honest living. Others most likely decided that if a Grimjinx was going to take their money, they might as well get Nanni's famous singemeat stew in exchange. At the end of each day, Nanni and Aubrin brought home a few bronzemerks … and tons of information on Lek, whose butcher shop was conveniently located across the Promenade from Nanni's stand.

As usual, Nanni and Aubrin arrived at the crack of dawn with the other merchants to set up shop. By midday, the market bustled with activity. It was around this time that I arrived, backpack over my shoulder, making my way through the thick crowd until I reached the base of the water tower. I leaned against one of the tower's three legs. It gave a shudder and a creak. I grimaced, hoping that my own clumsiness didn't bring the whole thing down on top of me in the middle of the operation.

From my vantage point, I could glance left and see Nanni and Aubrin, doling out their stew with smiles and humble thanks. Not far from them, I spotted Maloch and one of the stateguards, who'd no doubt been assigned to keep a discreet eye on Nanni and make sure she wasn't bilking anyone. They were doing a lousy job of being discreet.

Shaking my head, I turned to the right, where I had a perfect view of Lek's butcher shop. Lek stood behind his counter, chopping away at a side of meat with an enormous knife. His workers scrambled, filling orders from the customers who choked the entry way.

Moments later, I saw Da appear on the corner of Lek's shop. He looked over a featherless gekbeak, as if trying to decide if it had enough meat for dinner. He sent only a scant glance my way, touching his temple to signal me that he was in place.

Over at the singemeat stew table, sales had slowed. Nanni stoked the fire beneath her kettle as Aubrin added a tub full of vegetables to the bubbling stew. I waited until Nanni looked directly at me and I touched my temple. Nanni touched hers in return and I saw her say something to Aubrin. My sister casually reached over and threw the small satchel of winkroot I'd given her onto the fire.

After a moment, I heard a low pop and suddenly great columns of thick, black smoke began to billow out from under the kettle. Nanni stepped back, her eyes widening.

“Whoo!” she screamed, like a demented gekbeak. “Whoo!” She flailed her arms and ran in place, her panicked cries drawing curious stares. Soon, everyone was noticing. The smoke had grown so heavy that it consumed Nanni's tiny stand.

Heads turned. The din of conversation became alarmed shouts. One man came at Nanni from behind, either to calm her or get her away from the encroaching smoke. But Nanni stood her ground and became more frenzied.

The merchants near Nanni came over with buckets of water, waving at the smoke to determine just where the fire was. It grew harder and harder to see Nanni or anyone on that side of the Promenade. As more people gathered, I caught a flash of red hair and knew Aubrin was weaving her way through the crowds, helping herself to whatever wasn't firmly attached.

The customers at the butcher shop had cleared out, turning their attention to the scene Nanni was making. Da feigned interest but he was really watching Lek, who'd stopped chopping meat to gawk at the fuss with an intense stare. As Lek stepped away from his shop to join the onlookers, Da made his move, disappearing behind Lek's counter.

Over the years, everyone in the family had taken turns spying on Lek. We could fill books about his every habit, every quirk. We knew he ate sanguibeast steak the first of every month. We knew his favorite color was yellow. And we knew he kept the key to his vault on a ring behind the meat counter.

Honestly, if someone that wealthy was going to make it so easy for us, he was practically begging to be robbed.