The Dream Thief Read Online Free PDF Page A

and shake.

CHAPTER TWO

    September 1773
    Five
Years Later
    B efore his eleventh year on this
miserable planet, the street urchin known simply as Zane would have scoffed at
anything that even hinted of the supernatural. He was a being of bones and
flesh; so was everyone else. It was what made them so vulnerable. It was what
had left him flat on the cobbles in a welling pool of his own blood one cold,
cold winter evening, a knife wound to his ribs and the world pulsing blue and
gray and snow, his back warm, his face numb.
    By all rights, he should be dead.
He’d known plenty who’d died from less, and good riddance.
    But then, that night, Rue had
found him. And the urchin had lived after all.
    He’d never had a family, not that
he remembered. For a precious few years, he’d had only her.
    She sat comfortably on the
settee, the sunlight from the tall windows behind her picking out the silver in
her chestnut hair, her hands slim and steady as she poured tea into the
paper-thin china cups that they used, for some reason, here in the deep
countryside. She looked relaxed and perfectly at home in the magnificence of
the room, at one with the delicate furnishings and velvet draperies, the
crystal chandelier silently sparkling just over their heads. She did not look
at all like what he knew her to be.
    “Sit down,” the marchioness said,
without glancing up from her pouring. “You’re making me jittery. You pace like
a cat.”
    “As if you would know.”
    “ Touché. Sit.”
    But he didn’t. He went to the
windows instead, gazing out at the view that rolled and spun autumn forest and
hills as far as he could see. Empty forest. Empty hills.
    Darkfrith
had no wild animals. It was perhaps the detail that bothered him most about
this lush and cloudy shire. There were no hidden burrows in the woods, no small
lives struggling for survival, celebrating the dusk or the dawn with mating or
tussles. There were insects, and a scattering of birds. Once he had spotted a
lone gray mouse skittering nervously along the edge of the stables. But in all
the years he had been visiting the Marchioness of Langford and her husband,
Zane had seen naught beyond those few pitiful creatures.
    Little wonder. Even the smallest
of beings surely sensed what dwelled in this place.
    So Darkfrith was shining and
barren. It was occupied purely by a people who moved without brushing the air,
who watched him from shadows with gleaming eyes, who smiled with sharp teeth
and bowed in false acquiescence. He felt the creeping chill of their looks
every moment, every second he stayed in this place.
    If it weren’t for Rue—and what
she offered—he would never come.
    “Lemon?” she asked, into the
silence.
    “No.”
    There was a flock of sheep
speckling a nearby hill, an effective decoy for anyone truly curious about the
affairs of the farms or fields. A pair of young boys were loping toward them,
slowly but steadily; the sheep bunched, then scattered like minnows into the
trees.
    “Sugar?”
    “No.”
    “Acquire
anything of interest lately?”
    He
smiled to the glass. “Nothing to interest you, my lady. A few baubles here and
there.”
    “From
anyone I might know?”
    “You might,” he said, and left it
at that.
    “I heard a rumor the other day,”
the marchioness continued, serene. “It seems the Earl of Bannon is preparing to
sell his collection of Trojan gold. Do you know the one I mean? Coins, diadems,
I believe even a sword said to belong to Hector, as it were. The entire set
should fetch a tidy sum.”
    “Have you an interest in Trojan
coins, my lady?”
    “I have no interest in anything
beyond my family and my simple, humble life here, as you know,” she answered
smoothly. “I understand that the earl, however, plans to use the monies to
purchase a mare. A very fine one. I believe he intends to breed her.”
    Zane cocked his head.
    “He beats his horses,” she said,
casual. “I’ve seen it. Beats them raw. His maidservants too,” she