The Thief (24 page)

“
I’m here!” I said, an
octave too high, turning towards her voice. She came around the
corner, a look of puzzlement on her face.

“
My ears aren’t working
again,” she said, worriedly. “Not since I got here. This building
is wrong.”

I turned back around, sure Kei would react,
but he wasn’t there. I spun, looking for him, but there was no
trace of him.

“
What are you looking for?”
Camille asked, next to me.

“
It was Kei, he was
just...”

Immediately she was on alert. “What?
Where?”

I reached a hand down the
front of my shirt. The metal item had caught in my bra. I pulled it
out and found that it was a key.
B4
was etched into the top.

Camille was looking at me curiously.
“Jul...”

I flushed. “He dropped it down my collar and
vanished! What do you want me to say?”

She shook her head. “Not him. Please, not
him.”

“
Oh, god, no!” I exclaimed,
realizing her meaning. “I mean, I thought...but that
was...”

She sighed and took the key from me,
inspecting it. “So what is this?”

“
A key to one of the
classrooms down here, maybe?” I said, glad for the change of
subject.

“
B-4,” she pointed to the
room next to Ms. Miller’s chemistry lab. “Empty, I
thought?”

“
I’ve never seen anyone go
in there,” I admitted.

She fitted the key into the lock and
twisted; the door popped open.

There were several tables scattered
throughout the room, all with wide apparatus pinning down old,
flaking pieces of parchment. More were tacked to the walls, like
pale ghosts hovering. But despite the care with which each piece of
paper was fastened, every single one was blank.

The table at the center of the room held a
series of beakers, flasks, and bottles in a range of colors.
Hastily scribbled annotations on sticky notes and lined paper were
strewn near. I perused them while Camille stared up at the empty
parchment.

“
These formulas,” I said,
looking closely at the bottles. “They remind me of our science
experiment.”

“
Invisible ink?” she
said.

“
Someone wants to know
what’s on this paper,” I said.

“
Umino.”

“
And Ms. Miller, I think.”
The swooping handwriting on the notes was familiar. “There’s so
many of these pages. Where did they come from?”

Camille shrugged, and sniffed the paper. She
shook her head. “My nose, my ears, still aren’t working right.
Here, they never do. I hate this school.”

I peered closely at one of the pieces of
parchment tacked to the wall. It was yellowed, with frayed edges.
The unmistakable feeling of something hidden flowed through me as I
looked at it. My mother’s journal all over again.

The rainy day in the orchard flashed into my
mind. My hand on the tree trunk and wishing for home.

Barely knowing what I was doing, I pressed
my hand against the parchment.

Show me.

Lines furled away from my touch. I sprang
back, but they continued to crawl across the page, some jagged,
some curling. Slowly an image took shape - a portrait, composed of
flowing black brushstrokes, except for the eyes. They had been
painted in a vivid emerald green. It was a man with long, straight
hair, and a handsome face twisted in a wicked grin.

“
Uwaa
,” Camille murmured. “
Nanda
- what did you do?”

“
Apparently all you have to
do is ask,” I said. Hand shaking, I pressed my fingers to the next
one. “Show me,” I told it. Same as before, lines drew out from my
touch, the faintest shadow dissipating as I took my hand
away.

Excited, Camille pressed her hand to the
next one. “Show me!”

Nothing happened.

“
You have to concentrate,” I
told her.

“
I did,” she said. She
looked at me curiously. “Maybe it’s just you?”

I looked back at the second parchment, black
ink settling into the shape of a castle with twisting turrets and
furling banners.

Just me?

Camille looked at me incredulously. “You are
a monster,” she said.

I stared at her, my eyes wide, hands
twisting at my hair over my shoulder, but she was smiling, a wide
grin that lit her whole face, green-gold eyes sparkling. “Me, too,”
she said. “Me too.”

She said it like it wasn’t a curse. Like we
were special. Me, special?

“
What can you do?” I
asked.

“
Hear better, smell better -
usually. And I break stuff,” she laughed. “Like you.”

“
I haven’t broken anything!”
I protested.

Camille pointed to the portrait leering down
at us. “You broke this. The spell.”

I stared up at it in wonder. That’s what I
was doing? Breaking spells?

I put my hand over one of
the scrolls pinned on a table, trying to see if I could sense what
was hiding the image. I felt a faint resistance in my mind, like a
fine mesh over the whole parchment. I imagined peeling it away,
this time slowly.
Show me.

The scroll almost seemed to waver like a
mirage, hazed over with a misty sheen. When I touched my fingers to
the paper, the mist dissipated to nothing. The lines of the image
beneath bled out from my touch, stretching into the shape of a high
waterfall.

I stepped back, breathing heavily. “You’re
right!” I gasped.

“
Awesome,” Camille stated,
looking eminently impressed.

Show me. Show me. Show
me.
I touched each piece in turn, laughing,
watching images bloom to life under my hand. Before I knew it, I’d
dispelled every image in the room. I looked around at my
handiwork.

Most of the paintings were landscapes or
buildings - ancient-looking places. Forests, rivers, thatched-roof
villages, castles. Some were objects - a jewelry box, a crown, a
mirror similar to the one in the orchard, but with different
scrollwork. A silver fox, staring back with intelligent eyes. But
the portraits were the most curious of all.

Camille was staring
transfixed at one in particular. I came up next to her and saw why
- the face scrawled on the parchment was unmistakably Gabriel. The
expression was all wrong - serious and foreboding, reminiscent
almost of Rhys in one of his moods - but the features pegged him as
her guardian, right down to the odd puckered scars peeking around
his collar. At the bottom of the page was an icy blue symbol, like
a sideways 8, and the name
Gohei
Katsura
.

“
Is that his real name, do
you think?” I asked softly.

She was silent a moment. “What is that?” she
asked, pointing to the symbol instead.

“
I think it’s the symbol for
infinity,” I said, and at her faint look of confusion, added, “you
know, something that goes on forever.”

“
I saw that,” she said,
spinning away to a different corner of the room. “Here,” she said,
pointing to another portrait, “and there,” indicating the one I’d
touched first. I looked back up at the green-eyed man, unsettled by
his grin. The inscription read
Hemlock
, and nothing else but the
infinity symbol in the same emerald color as his eyes. I moved
toward Camille and the other portrait. This was of a woman, and
though she wasn’t necessarily the most beautiful, there was a sort
of magnetic pull to her expression, one of captivating total
self-assurance.
Meredith the
Ender
, it read, with the infinity painted
in blood red.

Camille murmured something.

“
What was that?” I
asked.

“
Three immortals,” she
repeated, looking up at the woman with an odd reluctance. “Once
upon a time, chosen by gods. Pawns in a war. Bets on the winner.”
She shook her head. “A story Gabriel told me.”

“
Who won?” I
asked.

“‘
Ask me later,’ he said.”
She looked at his portrait, expression unreadable.

The painting pinned up next
to it caught my eye.
The Tailor’s
Sword
was scrawled across the
bottom.

“
Camille,” I tugged on her
sleeve, pointing at it. “You think this is what that guy
wanted?”

It was a very plain-looking sword, in an
ancient style. There was nothing distinct about the handle, or the
hilt; nothing remarkable except perhaps its total lack of
individuality.

“
I don’t see what the big
deal is,” I said. “It doesn’t even look cool.”

Camille shrugged, rubbing
her bracer with her right hand as if she could scratch the skin
beneath. “Doesn’t have to, if it’s magic,” she said. She looked
across the room. “
Oi
, one more.”

I followed her gaze, seeing one blank
parchment. “I thought I got them all,” I said, approaching it. I
pressed my hand to it. “Show me.”

Nothing happened. “Maybe it’s really just
blank,” I said.

“
Yeah right,” Camille said.
“Just being an ass. Show it who’s boss.”

Brows knitted in concentration, I focused on
the rough paper under my fingers, trying to pull the image out of
it, looking for the web of what it hid behind. An outline ghosted
into my mind, sketchy and colorless, of a woman in a flowing,
low-cut gown studded with gemstones, long hair cascading in looping
curls down her shoulders and back. A delicate, heart-shaped face
with curling lashes, looking shyly over her shoulder, partially
hidden by a lacy parasol. She was almost familiar, but I needed to
peel back the spell to see her more clearly. The resistance was as
tightly woven as silk, and my hand on the parchment made a fist, as
if I could rip it away. Sharp pains spiked up my arm. I cried out,
sinking to my knees.

“
Jul!” Camille
exclaimed.

I looked at my trembling arm. Black,
vein-like marks pulsed, until the pain subsided and they vanished.
“Holy crap,” I breathed.

“
Holy crap,” she echoed.
“Are you alright?”

“
I think so,” I said,
accepting her proffered hand, standing shakily. The parchment was
still blank of the woman I’d caught a glimpse of, but at the bottom
in the same titling scrawl as the other paintings, was one
word.

Harbinger.

“
What’s that?” Camille
asked.

I shook my head. I was so far out of my
league.

The latch behind us clicked and we
turned.

“
You idiots,” came Tailor’s
horrified voice from the doorway. “What have you done?”

Mac

Who left the door to the roof open? Don’t
they know catbats can escape the building that way?

The little monster cringes to a halt at the
top of the stairs, apparently stunned by the sudden sunlight.
Sensitive eyes, eh? Finally, something to my advantage. I bound up
the stairs and grab for the scruff of its neck.

“
Gotcha!” I exclaim, too
soon. It skitters beyond my reaching fingers, squinting blearily at
the ground. In the sun, its fur no longer looks like an extension
of shadow - it’s a dingy dark grey, matted with leaves and dirt.
Its eyes are as big around as golf balls, with eerie yellow irises.
The long, flicking tail is tufted like a kangaroo rat. Leathery
scales grow from its joints and its jaw. Its wide, catlike ears
flatten as it looks back at me. It opens its mouth and hisses, jaw
unhinging like a snake to show an extra-wide mouth filled with
deceptively long, needlelike teeth.

I rock back slightly.
What the hell is this thing?
I wonder, but I’m not going to be deterred. I have to prove my
innocence, especially after the mess I just caused.

“
Can it, catbatsnakemonkey,”
I tell the creature. “You’re coming with me.” I advance cautiously,
wary of its teeth.

It backs up, disoriented, weaving. I’m not
going to let it get back into the door behind me.

“
You’re going to help me
prove to the principal that I’m not insane.” I hold out my jacket,
inching closer. “So I’m gonna wrap you up in this, and you’re not
going to give me rabies. Deal?”

It dives at me with a screech. I catch it,
trying to keep it away from my face. I stumble back and trip over
an exposed pipe, and fall off the roof. My jacket flutters away and
I yell, still clutching the creature. In an instant, my face will
be splattered across the dumpster -

But it doesn’t happen.

A weird feeling goes through me, like my
entire nervous system is rotating a quarter of an inch.

And then I land in a big pile of mud, in
near darkness. I cough, tasting the clay in my mouth. The catbat
has wriggled out of my hands and leaps for a dark spot on the
floor. It’s about to vanish through it. I grab its tail.

“
Oh no you - ”

My nerves twist again, and I fall forward,
landing on tile floor.

“
- don’t,” I grunt. Free of
me at last, the creature sprints down the hall.

The hall?

I’m back at school - inside, no less. I’m
covered in red clay mud, and my shoulders hurt from the impact with
the floor. I push up on my hands, looking behind me. The lockers?
Had I just hitchhiked with a...a...I barely believe my own
conclusion.

A...teleporter?

The creature had pulled me through the
dumpster, then whatever was in that cave, and then finally dumped
me back out through the lockers.