Cloak Games: Thief Trap Read Online Free PDF

contemplate that deeply…and I believe inspiration shall simply leap into your mind.” He turned from me, facing his monitors once again. “You may go. Rusk shall see you out. Return here once you have the tablet.”
    I stared at his back for a moment, shaking with anger. 
    “My lord,” I ground out. He would punish me if I didn’t say it.
    Morvilind waved a hand in dismissal, and I strode out of the library. Rusk waited to escort me from the mansion, but I blew past him, stalked past the ancient statues and the Elven hieroglyphics, and out the door and back to my bike. I tugged on my helmet and threw on my jacket, pausing to check my bike’s handlebars. 
    The pause was also to make my hands stop shaking.
    Three weeks. Three weeks to figure out how to steal something from one of the most heavily guarded buildings in Milwaukee. 
    I took deep breaths, focusing something other than the anger and the fear. The magical lessons and the unarmed combat training I had received had one other benefit. They allowed me to focus my mind quickly, to calm myself and come up with a plan. 
    So, a plan. 
    One thing to do first. 
    I reached into my coat pocket, drew out a cheap phone, and sent a text message. I dropped the phone back into my pocket, bit my lip for a moment, and nodded to myself. 
    I started up my motorcycle and left Morvilind’s mansion behind, heading south. Tomorrow, I would come up with a plan. Tonight, I would see the reason I was doing all of this.
    Tonight, I was going to go see my baby brother.

Chapter 2: Family
     
    The air smelled of barbecue as I turned the corner from 76th Street to Wisconsin Avenue. I rode past row after row of little two-story, three bedroom houses with fenced yards and narrow driveways. Many of the men-at-arms of the Duke of Milwaukee and his vassals settled here after they received their retirement pay, so I saw a lot of stern-looking middle-aged guys wearing T-shirts adorned with the Elven hieroglyphics of the lords they had served. I saw veterans with shirts bearing the hieroglyphs of Duke Tamirlas of Milwaukee, or the Barons of Wauwatosa and Brookfield and Brown Deer, the Knights of Granville and the Third Ward. 
    Many of the veterans were missing fingers or arms or legs. I saw a lot of wheelchairs and crutches, and many more women than men. Many men came back wounded from the wars in the Shadowlands, but many men never came back at all. 
    At least I would never have to worry about that for Russell. 
    I came to a nice little house on a tree-shaded street. It had a small front yard with a well-tended garden, and a flagpole over the front door flew the colors of the High Queen, the United States, and the House of Morvilind. A little wooden mailbox (hand-crafted, of course) said MARNEYS on the side. I rolled my bike to the curb, put down the kickstand, and hopped off. The garage door was closed, the curtains drawn. I wondered where Dr. Marney and his wife had gone. I pulled my main phone out and glanced at the time. 
    12:42 PM on a Sunday. Then I felt like an idiot. 
    They had gone to church.
    I wasn’t sure how I felt about the Marneys taking Russell to church with them. I wanted Russell to grow up knowing right from wrong. Which was odd, coming from a professional thief, but I wanted Russell to have a good life, a normal life, a happy life.
    Which meant a life away from Elves and their politics…and away from people like me. 
    But I disliked the idea of church. More to the point, I disliked the idea of God. It wasn’t that I didn’t believe in God, more that I thought Him incompetent, or maybe a fraud. Like, God was supposed to be good, so why had my parents died? Why was Russell afflicted with frostfever? Why was I forced to undertake dangerous and illegal tasks for Morvilind? 
    The worst part was that Russell and I had it comparatively good. Or better than a lot of people. Russell wasn’t fighting the Archons and God knows what other horrors in the Shadowlands. I