The Treasure Keeper Read online

  “Nothing. My head pains me a little. That’s all.”

  “Are you ill?”

  “No.” She began walking. “It was that place. Didn’t you hear it? All that noise?”

  “What, from the boy in the corner there? He was quiet as a mouse.”

  “From the metal, Rhys.” She shot him a quick look. “All the songs from the metals.”

  He was silent, matching her steps. A woman in a plum-colored shawl and striped skirts marching from the other direction barreled straight through him without hesitation, carrying a basket of eggs over one arm. She didn’t even blink as her face broke through his chest.

  The shadow puffed and dissolved and re-formed. It didn’t seem like he missed a step. Zoe looked again: yes, dark and still perfect, smoke and haze.

  “You didn’t hear it?” she asked softly.

  “Not really. I suppose I did, somewhat. But mostly what I hear …”

  “Yes?”

  “I hear another song. Something constant. Compelling.” Rhys stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and so she did too, facing him, then backing up to stand against the building behind her as more people bustled by.

  She pretended to adjust the ribbon of her hat, using her hand to shield her lips as she spoke.

  “Is it from a stone?”

  “No. I don’t know. It’s not like anything I’ve ever heard before. It changes. It’s—look, I can’t talk about it. I can’t think about it too much. If I think on it, it grows stronger.”

  Zoe hesitated. “Is it … celestial?”

  The shadow paused, then threw back his head and laughed. “Do you mean, are the heavens calling? No. I doubt that very much.”

  The street had cleared for the moment; there was only a caped rider on a cob coming slowly down the way, and he was still a block off. She turned to face Rhys squarely, abandoning her pretense with the hat. She remembered him speaking of music the other night, with the yellow moon and the cloud. How completely he had vanished after, as if he’d never been.

  He gazed back at her from that lean and darkened face.

  “You know, you should consider the possibility—”

  “No.”

  “Rhys—”

  “No,” he said again, louder. The halo of smoke around him seemed to contort, grow more dense. “It’s not like that. It’s not heavenly music. It’s … something more aggressive than that. I don’t feel happy when I hear it. I feel absorbed. As if it wants to devour me. And it is succeeding.”

  The breeze took the loosened ribbons from her hat and tugged at them by her chin, strips of dancing satin. Rhys tipped his head and raised a hand as if to catch one, and the ends fluttered through his closed fingers.

  “What is it now?” she asked. “The song?”

  “It’s a ballad. Slow. Tender. You can’t hear it?” He was watching the ribbons with half-lidded eyes, sounding strangely distant.

  She shook her head.

  His lashes lifted, and his hand fell away. “Good. It’s sentimental rubbish.”

  The rider and cob were nearly upon them; she captured the ribbons and tied them in a firm bow beneath her chin, beginning to walk on.

  The cloak swooped over her. That quickly, she lost the street and Rhys and the trees and sky; she was suspended in the blue, weightless, voiceless, caught with all the sudden bright faces and spirits rushing toward her, eager hands reaching for her—

  Hayden. She saw him. But he wasn’t like the rest, not pale or glowing. He was vivid and alive and smiling at her, saying something she couldn’t hear. His hair was mussed and he hadn’t shaved, and she could see the sun glinting off his whiskers as he ran a hand down his cravat—

  She was released back to the Paris sidewalk. She stumbled at once across a pebble and felt it as Rhys automatically reached for her, his hand pushing against, then sliding through her arm, the cold biting into her so fiercely that she yanked back, gasping.

  “What is it? What’s wrong?” He nearly reached for her again and only just caught himself in time, his hands clenching into fists. “Zee, what happened?”

  But she had whirled about to see the rider on the horse. And the rider on the horse had twisted in his saddle to see her.

  It was a boy. A young man, rather. He was ivory-skinned and black-haired and had eyes of absolute crystalline gray, nearly without color.

  The boy was drákon.

  And she had plucked the image of Hayden from his memory, she was sure of it.

  She lifted her skirts and stepped straight out into the street, forgetting Rhys, forgetting the horse, which rolled its eyes at her and reared, backing away across the cobblestones in a great clatter of iron-shod hooves. The young drákon struggled with the reins; his hat tumbled to the ground and was trampled and still the cob wouldn’t calm. Zoe stopped walking. She stood still in the street as faces began to appear in shop windows, and the horse let out a squealing protest when the boy tried to wheel it about.

  He gave up, apparently. With the grace of an acrobat, he flipped his right leg over the saddle and dismounted, still holding the reins, moving swiftly to stand in front of the beast, both hands lifted to its face, his voice a soft cadence of sound.

  She watched him, waiting. Shadow Rhys had appeared at her side, also watching. The Others at the windows, and on the sidewalks, moving like ants up and down the street.

  “He’s one of us,” Rhys said. She felt his tension, the quiver of agitation ripping through him.

  “I know.”

  The horse was settling, and the young man was running a hand down its neck. He dared a glance over his shoulder at Zoe again, and Rhys began, very quickly, to speak. “Do you remember hearing back in the shire about the sanf inimicus, about how they would sometimes use drákon of diluted blood to help in their hunt, dragons they’d either kidnapped or coerced? This can’t be a coincidence. I don’t know who the hell this is, but you’ve got to get out of here. Now.”

  “His blood is not diluted,” she muttered. She felt the animal in this boy as strongly as any of the strongest of the shire. As strong as Rhys himself, back in life: waves of power, tightly leashed.

  “Fine! It’s not! But he could still be one of them!”

  A carriage rattled around a curb, hurling right toward her. She began a clipped walk toward the gray-eyed drákon, who had shifted with his mount to the side of the road. “I saw Hayden through him. I saw a memory of Hayden in his mind.”

  “Zoe—don’t be stupid, I know you’re not this stupid—”

  “I’m not stupid at all,” she said out loud, and went up to the boy.

  The cob jerked its head but the drákon didn’t loosen the reins, and it stopped after that. She stood with her arms folded to her chest to better contain her scent, and regarded the dragon-boy.

  He was, of course, quite handsome, rawboned and thin in that way that the youngsters of the tribe sometimes were before finishing their final spurt of growth. He was dressed simply but well, in black buckskin and garnet velvet, a bandanna of crisp bleached linen tied about his neck. His hair had been pulled back with a leather tie, but perhaps the ride had loosened it; strands of ebony brightened and faded beneath the shifting autumn clouds.

  She saw him reach for his hat, realize it was back in the street, and then grant her a formal bow anyway, one leg outstretched.

  “Who are you?” she demanded in French.

  “Sandu, Noble One, your servant,” he replied, courteous, rising from his bow. “You must be English. Are you from the shire?”

  Zoe took a step toward him, nearly as tall, certainly more deadly, at least in these slow-ticking seconds. She felt the fury of a tempest whirling through her; she felt she could destroy him with a single focused thought. From the corner of her eye, the shadow loomed larger and larger, a rising darkness just at her hand.

  “I’m going to ask you a question, Sandu. Consider your answer to me with extreme care. What have you done with the yellow-haired drákon who came to Paris last May? The one with th
e whiskers and the cravat.” Her voice began to shake. “What have you done with Hayden James?”

  The boy raised pointed brows. “Done with him? Why, nothing, mademoiselle. I left him back at the maison, not an hour past. He said he had a letter to write.”

  And just then the sun came out, a beam of luminous light that splashed all across them, and lit his hair to midnight blue and the pale crystal of his eyes to summer gold.

  He smiled at her, and it was breathtaking.

  * * *

  The maison was modest by Sandu’s standards. He hailed from a castle, after all, the finest castle upon earth, and there would never be a human structure to compare to it.

  But the Parisian house they had rented was located in a safely residential section of the city, which he knew was important. Artisans and merchants and the better sort of tradesmen had bought their homes here, solid and skinny tall brick homes with shared stables and narrow long yards, one after another after another, street after street. The same families walking about. The same screeching children playing in the lanes. The same public fountains with women gathered about them, filling pails, gossip. The same wine shops and taverns and fruit markets. Nothing in this part of St. Antoine stood out in any way, which was good.

  He had memorized the way there and back to their own place, of course. He knew a score of different routes for it, and varied them day by day, just in case.

  Today he took one of the longer routes, although he could not say exactly why. Perhaps it had to do with the drákon woman walking silently beside him.

  She was spectacular. Zoe, she’d said her name was, her accent giving the syllables that frank English twist he was gradually becoming used to. Zo-eey Lane. And because Sandu recognized that name, because there could really be no question that she was at least what she said she was, he was taking her home.

  The long way. Down the back streets. The mare clip-clopped at his other side; he would not ride while a lady was forced to walk. Although the mare had proved her patience with him until today, it was clear she would not abide this particular lady to ride.

  So they walked. And it was slow. And yes, Zoe Lane was dazzling to look upon. It was no terrible inconvenience to be forced to spend more time surreptitiously studying her. Sandu would guess he was a good ten years younger than she, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t let loose his imagination to some slight degree. She had, after all, all that amazing silvery-white hair, more or less half-coiled and half-loose down her back, just as the Frenchwomen styled it. It was the kind of hair he imagined he could slip his fingers through, and it would feel like—like ermine. He was certain of it. And she had those lips—lips so full and rosy soft, like she’d just been kissed, like she was made to be kissed. She probably tasted like something wonderful too. Apples, or sweet cider, or lilacs.

  She glanced aside and caught him staring. Sandu faced forward again quickly, pulling the mare along, feeling his cheeks begin to color.

  From somewhere behind him, he could have sworn he heard a huff, like someone releasing a breath too close to his neck.

  And that brought him abruptly back to the real reason he was guiding them so slowly back to the maison: he could not quite rid himself of the feeling that they were being followed.

  He’d checked and checked, and never saw the same face twice behind them for more than a few streets in a row. If they were being followed, it was by someone better at tracking than he, and that really wasn’t possible.

  Still. He wished the skin between his shoulder blades would cease to crawl.

  Finally they reached the painted brick house. He took her around the back way so he could stable the horse—Zoe Lane lingered at a distance, which he thought was a good idea—then led her step by serpentine step to the stairs of the rear entrance, not bothering to point out the hidden wires they’d strung around the perimeter of the garden, the bells that would ring when tripped, the diamonds buried in the sod that would cry out with the pressure of a foot. The red jasper they’d wedged into the wood of the doorjambs and windowsills that would rumble and hum should anyone pass through.

  She was a dragon. She would smell the wires and the bells. She would hear the soft murmurs of the diamonds, the resonance of the jasper anyway.

  Sandu found his key, unlocked the back door, and like the gentleman he was, allowed her to enter first.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The house was wreathed in the aftermath of his cologne.

  She noticed it right off, that essence of sandalwood Hayden preferred, understated but always a trifle sharp for her taste—right now the most amazing perfume in the world.

  She stood in a small back room, with cocked hats on pegs and wooden clogs lined up neatly beside the door. A redingote à la lévite hung in heavy folds from a coat stand in the corner—she knew it, every bit of it. She’d seen that coat countless times, the enameled steel buttons and wide, fashionable lapels, the slate-blue oilskin she herself had picked out because it looked so good with his hair. It was the riding coat she herself had made for him, for this journey, hours and hours of stitching by lamplight, all for the reward of his smile and a kiss.

  Zoe stroked her fingers over the fabric as she walked by, taking in everything around her. Wainscoted walls painted eggshell white, chipped edges. Pale apricot plastered ceiling. The long planks of the hallway ahead of her, showing a corridor unlit, and doors open to cast rectangles of daylight all along the southern side. A runner of royal blue and rust and cream, stretching all the way to the front door.

  She entered the hall. The dragon-boy remained behind her, his steps slowed to match her own. It was narrow enough so that he could not pass her without either crowding her to a wall or darting around her at the next open doorway; perhaps that mattered to him. In any case, he did not pass.

  The ghost of Rhys had no such qualms. He floated beside her, then ahead, bristling with danger.

  “… can’t believe you’re just blindly walking into this,” he was saying, a shadow so dark and thick now he became almost black. Smoke coiled all the way up to the ceiling. “Anything could be lurking here, Zoe. Any manner of men. They could be using him, using what you know of him to mask their presence—”

  “No,” she murmured. “It’s not a mask.”

  The dragon-boy bobbed closer to her heels. “Pardon, mademoiselle?”

  “Nothing.”

  She didn’t need to say more. She did not need to explain. Because she’d reached the front parlor, the place where Hayden’s scent lingered strongest, and there he was.

  There he was.

  He’d swiveled in his chair to face the door, a quill still gripped between his fingers, his eyes wide, his brows lifted. His wig was powdered and tied. His banyan was forest green. There was a davenport behind him of burr walnut, and a window draped in celery-pale brocade, and a small oil portrait of a man in a turban hung upon the wall.

  She watched Hayden’s jaw grow slack. She felt as dazed and sluggish as he seemed to be, as if she’d suddenly fallen down a hidden slope and plunged into a dream: a fairy-tale dream, and here was the prince she’d set out to find so long ago, the prince she’d vanquished dragons for, and mortal enemies, merely conjured from thin air. She stood unmoving at the entrance to the parlor, unable to quite slide her foot over the threshold.

  “Well, hell,” said Rhys succinctly, smoking at her side.

  He spared himself their reunion. With Zoe’s first rushing step toward her fiancé, the music in Rhys had swelled, and he’d deliberately drifted away. He almost returned to the assembly hall, or even his gray familiar street, but instead he figured he’d investigate this innocuous place that housed two of his kind, plus her.

  Just in case.

  Most of it was properly gloomy. Curtains and shutters blocked the sun from nearly the entire upper story, and all but two of the bedchambers were stuffed with furniture draped in musty sheets. The front two chambers, the ones closest to the main stairs, were the ones in use.

  One was
relentlessly tidy, with clothes and personal items laid out as precisely as if a valet had stood watch with a checklist. Brushes and combs and a jar of French powder, all aligned. A jeweled snuffbox exactly three fingers in either direction from the corner of the dresser. Even the pillows on the bed were fluffed tight.

  The other chamber was practically in shambles, with books and scarves and shoes littering the floor, a cloth-of-gold waistcoat tossed askew across the top of a chair. Dabs of wax from the candle on the commode spotted the surface so profusely it looked like a miniature snowdrift against the wood.

  It was no great task to surmise which room belonged to whom. Hayden James was so saintly-clean Rhys wondered if the man ever even needed to bathe. Dirt probably bounced right off his gilded damned skin.

  He swiped a hand at the perfectly tucked quilt upon the bed, accomplishing nothing, and drifted on.

  Dressing closets off each chamber, with basins and kits for shaving placed upon stands. Square-toed shoes and stockings, and coats hung from rods. A pair of offices down the hall, apparently unused. A single water closet. Two separate sets of stairs, the one in front and the servants’ skinny, crooked flight in back. He trailed along them both, from the garret to the kitchen in the basement, with chopping knives and bread drying stale upon a block, and a small pot of herbs set to grab what sun it could up high in the solitary window. A kettle of something steamy bubbled from a hook in the fireplace. It was viscous and dark; Rhys could not smell it. Not without Zee nearby.

  Two rooms made up. Two drákon dwelling here. If there were sanf inimicus anywhere in this house, they were more indiscernible than he.

  The voices from the front parlor drew him back upstairs, one masculine, one feminine, and he found himself following the sound of her like a compass needle returning again and again to true north.

  Surely they were done kissing by now. He could easily—all too easily—envision Zoe in a fervent, lingering embrace, but stiff-as-wood James probably didn’t even know how to use his tongue.