The Prisoner's Release and Other Stories (47 page)

“Suit yourself.” She wrinkled her nose. “Try to keep your dreaming under control, though.”

“Yeah, yeah.” I had balled up the dirty sheet and now I threw it at her.

“Ew, Cef!” She batted it away and stalked out.

I grinned, picked it up, and took it down to the laundry, dreaming on the way down that Richy walked behind me playing with my tail.

Dereath found me that afternoon just before dinner. When he appeared after my history lesson, I jumped after him, and he put his paws up with a grin. “Settle down, cub. Just come along this way.” Tail wagging, I followed him up the stairs as eagerly as if Richy waited at the head. And in a way, I suppose I thought he did.

I’d never been in his rooms. My first impression when I walked in was that I was in a high noble’s chamber. I had to turn my head to take in the tapestries on the walls, the finely carved chairs and small tables, the elaborate writing desk, and the bureau next to it. The floor was carpeted too, soft under my paws. I glanced down at the beautiful designs as I walked over to a chair and sat down, sliding my tail between the seat and the back.

I wagged it as I leaned forwards towards the chair he was sitting in. “So how can I get the money?”

He leaned back. “I really hope you’ll be able to help me. You might have heard about a bit of unpleasantness I was involved in a few months ago.” I nodded. “I doubt you've heard what it was about. No? To be brief, I unwisely brought a lover into the palace who turned out to be an agent of a foreign government. I know, I know, but you should have seen him, Cef. He was so slender and beautiful, and he wrote me the most lovely letters while we were apart.”

I closed my eyes and saw Richy. The admonition, “you still should've known better” died on my tongue.

“After he escaped, your father took all the letters he'd written me and locked them up in a chest in his office. I just want to get them back.”

My eyes flew open. “I can't do that.”

“Of course you can. Listen...”

“You don't understand. He always locks that chest when he leaves the office. There's secret things in there that only the King has seen. He keeps the key around his neck and only takes it off at...night.” He was watching me with those black eyes and what he wanted clicked in my head. “Oh, no. I can't. He'd kill me.”

“He doesn't have to know.”

“But he will! That's his job!”

“Listen. You give me the key outside your chambers. I run down, get my letters, run back up, give you the key. It takes five minutes. Ten at most.”

“He'll miss them. He'll know one of us took the key.”

“First of all, he doesn't need them any more. He's just keeping them for records. It might be a year 'til he misses them. By then, he won't know when they were stolen. Trust me.”

I chewed my lip. Dereath was my father’s closest assistant. He knew my father’s habits better than I did. On the other paw… “I can’t steal from him.”

“I’m not asking you to. I’m just asking you to help me get back something that’s mine. Those letters…they’re all I have left, Cef.” His eyes were pleading now. If that seemed uncharacteristic to me, I paid it no mind. “Think if your wolf had written you letters and then gone away or died, and you had nothing left, nothing else to remember him by, and those letters were being locked away for no reason.”

I swallowed. “Well…”

“Just think of the nights you'll have with your darling, while your wife takes care of your noble-born cubs and your happy father lives in the next chambers.” He sighed. “And at least I’ll have my love’s letters to grow old with.”

“You promise I won’t get in trouble?” I was trying to stop from getting hard at the images he was calling to my mind.

“I promise.”

I looked away, down at the carpet. The patterns danced through the fabric, and for a moment I traced them with my eyes, trying to find my answer in them. It wasn't there; it was between my legs, and beating in my chest. “All right.”

He reached across and clasped my paws. “Thank you, Cef. You’ve made me—and you—very happy.”

I nodded, wishing I could take back my words. Only for a moment, though. The next moment I was dreaming about walking into the Jackal’s Staff with my forty gold and walking out with my wolf. If I could keep paying him for the rest of my life, it wouldn’t matter if he really loved me. We could be happy together.

“I don’t need to tell you not to tell anyone else about this, do I?”

“No. What do you think I am?”

“A very generous and lucky cub,” he said.

“Lucky?”

“Of course. Few people meet the love of their life, much less get the chance to spend it with him.” He looked me up and down, and the gleam in his eye didn’t fit with his mood of a moment ago. Maybe he was just happy that I was going to help him.

“Hey, Cef,” he said as I got up.

“What?”

“I'll give you five more gold to let me mount you right now.”

I searched his eyes, trying to figure out if he was kidding. “Five gold right now?” In the back of my mind, I was thinking I could see Richy tonight.

“No. When the job’s done.”

“Why not now?”

He grinned, stepping closer. “Because I don’t want you running out there tonight. I want you to be focused. With five gold in your pocket, you might get cold paws and back out on me.”

“I won’t.” Already, though, I was losing any inclination I had had to accept his offer.

“Besides, wouldn’t it be sweet if the next time you saw him, the next time you held him, he was yours?”

I thought about that, and I had to admit, he had a point. “Then no.”

He chuckled. “Never hurts to ask.”

“When do I have to do this?”

“Probably tomorrow night. Maybe the night after. I’ll wear a white shirt to dinner on the night I want you to do it.”

“Okay. What time that night?”

“Whenever you can safely do it. I’ll be watching your chambers. Just walk outside with the key. I’ll come find you.”

“All right. Anything else?”

He shook his head. “Thanks again, Cef. I really do appreciate this.”

“You’re welcome,” I said, but something in his smile made me uneasy, and I got out of there before I could have any more second thoughts.

Outside the opulence of his rooms, walking through the spare stone walls of the corridor felt like waking from a dream. I am making my dream into reality, I told myself firmly, but I couldn’t stop misgivings from gnawing at my stomach all the way back to my chambers.

At dinner, I avoided my father’s eye, because every time I looked at him I felt I was betraying him. When dinner was over, he stopped me with a heavy paw on my shoulder, and I thought he was going to hear the loud, fast beating of my heart.

“Cef, I have been talking to the Darishu family.”

“That’s Jelila, right?”

He looked about to lecture me on remembering names, but just nodded. “They regard you as an excellent prospect. They have a good dowry for her as she’s their only daughter, and they come from a good line. Morrif of Darishu is Lord Rhychel’s cousin…”

I rolled my eyes. “I
know
.”

“…and he holds fifty acres in Rhychel. It would be a good match.”

I found I was able to look him in the eye without feeling so much guilt. “So?”

“So. Jelila will be in heat in two months. That’s a little early, but if they don’t insist on throwing her a cotillion, we could finalize the arrangements by then.”

“Two months?”

“
If
they don’t want a cotillion. Morrif doesn’t care, but Sharia wants her to have one. If they do throw one, then you’ll have to wait for her next heat.”

I folded my arms. “What if I don’t like her?”

He looked genuinely puzzled. “Why wouldn’t you like her? She’s a nice bitch. You’ll love your cubs, and you’ll be living with us.”

“Don’t you want me to be happy?”

“What is all this about?”

“Nothing.” I slumped back against the wall. “Nothing. Just tell me what I have to do.”

“Cef…” He stepped closer to me, pine and strong male wolf, the scents I’d known all my life and associated with comfort, safety, and security. “We don’t have the privilege of freedom. I’ve worked hard to get to where we are. I want you and my grand-cubs to have all the things we didn’t have…”

“Please don’t tell me about your brothers starving to death again.”

He recoiled. I relished the hurt in his eyes, and hated myself for it. “All right. But this is a good match for you.”

“No. It’s a good match for you. You don’t know anything about me.”

“One day, Cef, you’ll look back and realize that this is the right thing.” He released my shoulder and his tone grew sharper. “Until that day, you’ll do as I tell you. And that includes a formal dinner the day after tomorrow, and whatever else is expected of you.”

I composed and swallowed a bitter retort, and just nodded. He studied me for a heartbeat and then walked away.

7: The Key

I’d lain in bed for what I thought must have been hours. I hadn’t heard a sound in at least twenty minutes, other than Kira’s steady breathing on the other side of the room. The last voice I’d heard had been Rashi wishing Dad good night. Slowly, I crept out of bed, as quietly as I could.

I tried to keep my toes up, but my claws still clicked lightly on the stone floor. Ears perked for any sound, I eased the door of our room open. The chamber was still. I padded to the door of my parents’ room. Only their breathing sounded inside. I put a paw on the handle, then hesitated. What if they weren’t quite asleep? I waited, put my paw on the handle again, waited, and stood there with my paw on the handle for probably ten minutes, heart beating faster and faster, until finally I convinced myself to push the handle down.

It clicked, as loud to my perked ears as if I’d slammed it. I held my breath and waited. My father grunted, but no other sound came from the room. Slowly, I pushed the door open.

My heart was still racing. I discovered that if I looked at my parents, I felt a wave of paralyzing guilt. I stepped quietly into the room and fixed my eyes on the small nightstand where my father kept his purse, and where I knew I would find the key.

The problem was, there were three keys on the stand.

Two were linked together with a leather thong. In the dim light, it took me a moment to recognize the key to our chamber door, which was usually only locked at night. I had a key just like it. So the smaller one, the one not attached to the others, must be the chest key. I picked it up, careful to hold it gently so my scent wouldn’t get onto it. I should have brought a handkerchief, I realized belatedly.

Too late now; I’d touched it already. I carried it gingerly out into the main room and eased the door shut, but not all the way. I was terrified of hearing that click again.

If I’d thought that was bad, the sound as I slammed into our door, forgetting it was locked, was a hundred times worse. If I’d knocked a stone loose from the ceiling, it couldn’t have made more noise. I froze, waiting for someone to come out and ask me what I was doing.

Canis was watching over me that night—or perhaps he wasn’t. In either case, nobody woke up. I panted to relieve some tension, and unlocked the door as quietly as I could manage, then slipped out into the hall.

Away from the familiar scent of my family chambers, the danger of what I was doing was less palpable. I set the key on the floor carefully, not wanting to hold it any longer than I had to. I looked from it up and down the corridor, pacing as my relaxation slid back into worry. Where was Dereath? Wasn’t he supposed to be watching? Why was it taking so long?

I was close to picking up the key and going back inside when a rabbit came strolling down the corridor, as though it wasn’t the middle of the night. His plain tunic marked him as a servant of some sort. I didn’t recognize him, and his scent was so faint it didn’t register until he was very close. I slid one of my feet over the key to hide it, trying to be casual.

“Dereath sent me for the key,” he said softly when he was within sniffing distance.

My ears folded back. “What key?”

He pointed to my foot.

“Where’s Dereath?”

He shrugged. “I’m supposed to take the key.”

“To him? He was supposed to come and get it.” I was starting to panic.

“Plans change.”

“How do you know about this, anyway?”

“He sent me to get the key.”

I shook my head. He looked up at me without any expression I could discern, and for some reason I found myself thinking of Richy. If I took the key and went back inside, I wouldn’t get the forty gold. Dereath might be upset and drop the whole scheme. I considered the rabbit. How could he have known about the key unless Dereath had sent him? Slowly, I moved my foot.

“That’s a good cub,” he said, bending to pick it up. “I’ll be right back.”

He moved back into the shadows. I thought it was creepy the way he moved, without scent or sound. To distract myself, I leaned against the wall and closed my eyes, and imagined Richy next to me. It had been over a week since I’d seen him, but I could smell him and see him clearly, and thinking about him still relaxed me and brought a smile to my muzzle.

I was still alert to every sound and noise, and twice I was sure my father was just about to come through the door and ask me what was going on. I kept my eyes closed and thought about Richy, and when I opened them again, the rabbit was standing there, smirking at me.

“Here,” he said, and dropped the key in front of me.

My fur stood on end. I grabbed at it and barely stopped it from slipping through my paws to the hard stone floor. “Hey!” I hissed, but the rabbit was already halfway down the corridor, and in another moment he was gone.

I crouched there, and slowly stood. Opened the door slowly, slipped through into the quiet, safe chambers, closed the door behind me. Took a breath. Pressed slowly on the door to my parents’ room and slid inside. Both of them were still sleeping, breathing rhythmically, unaware of my presence. I set the key softly on the nightstand and slid out.

That easily, it was over. My feet hurt from trying not to let my claws click on the floor. Inside my room, I closed the door and sank down on my bed, letting my toes relax.