Cloak Games: Thief Trap Read Online Free PDF Page B

wasn’t technically a slave, and I did not spend my days scrubbing an Elven lord’s floor or warming the bed of an Elven lord perverted enough to like human women. 
    For that matter, we were both still alive. 
    I had driven past the spell-haunted ruins of Chicago and Baltimore enough times to know what happened to those who provoked the High Queen. Which in turn made me angry when I thought of God again. If He was supposed to be good, why did things like that happen?
    The Marneys came home while I stood brooding next to my motorcycle. 
    So much for the uncanny senses of a master thief. 
    Dr. James Marney drove an old Duluth Car Company sedan with a few dents in the side. It was an unfortunate shade of brown, but James was too frugal to buy a car with a better color. Given that his frugality helped him keep a roof over Russell’s head, I couldn’t complain. The car rolled up to the garage, and I followed it. The doors swung open, and James got out, hobbling a bit until he could get his cane out. He was a tall, bony man with a graying crew-cut and a lined face. His wife Lucy came out of the passenger side, still athletic and trim despite her age. The back door of the car opened…
    “Nadia!” 
    Russell flew across the driveway and caught me in a hug. 
    It had only been five weeks since I had seen him last, but I swear he had grown six inches since then. He was only fourteen, but he was already taller than I was, which simply did not seem fair. Our father had been tall, I remembered that much about him. By the time Russell finished growing, I would have to crane my neck to look up at him. 
    He was thinner than he should have been at his age, his face gaunt and angular. His hair and eyebrows were a ghostly shade of white, a side effect of the frostfever that boiled in his veins. Morvilind’s magic had contained the disease, keeping it from killing him or spreading to anyone else, but the illness still exacted a physical cost on him. 
    At least that meant he couldn’t be conscripted into the High Queen’s armies the way that Dr. Marney had been, the way my father’s magical ability had taken him into the Wizards’ Legion. 
    I kept all those musings from my expression. I didn’t get to see Russell as often as I liked, so I tried to keep these visits positive. I wanted him to have a good life, a happy life. 
    A life that wasn’t anything at all like the way mine would likely end.
    So I slipped out of his hug and grinned up at him.
    “You,” I said, “have gotten taller.” I tapped his chin. “And you’re going to have to start shaving soon.” 
    Russell grimaced at that. “I have, once. I didn’t like it. It felt like peeling my face.” 
    “You get used to it, son,” said James, limping over. He could walk, but his right leg remained rigid, and most of his weight went upon his cane. Years ago, while serving in Morvilind’s men-at-arms in the Shadowlands, James had taken an orcish axe to the leg. He hadn’t lost the leg, and he hadn’t died of infection or gangrene, but his dancing days were done. After taking his pension, James went into civilian medical practice and married one of the nurses. Lucy couldn’t have children for some reason or another, and so they adopted.
    Specifically, they adopted Russell. Lord Morvilind, in his great concern for the veterans who had served as his men-at-arms, had arranged for James and Lucy to adopt a poor orphan boy from the kindness of his generous heart…
    “Nadia?” said Russell.
    Some of my sour thoughts must have reflected on my face. 
    “Stiff back,” I said. “Too long on the bike.” 
    “Those things will kill you,” said Lucy. From another woman, the remark might have been condescending. From her, the concern was genuine. She had been a nurse for a long time. 
    “I always ride carefully,” I lied. Honestly, I sometimes thought a motorcycle crash might be a better fate than what awaited me if I kept doing Morvilind’s work. But if that