The Vengekeep Prophecies (3 page)

“For this,” I said slowly, “we start in his bedroom. He'd want to keep it close by at all times.”

“My thoughts exactly,” Da said. “Lead the way.”

We trod carefully up the stairs until we located Jorn's bedroom at the end of another long hall. Inside, we found a huge four-poster bed with thick, silk curtains on all sides, an antique writing desk, and a bureau that nearly reached the ceiling.

“Next?” Da asked, smiling to show his complete faith in me.

My mind raced. There was probably a safe behind the painting on the far wall. But that was most likely for cash. No, what we were looking for would be closer to Jorn....

I knelt at the bedside and thrust my arm between the mattresses, feeling around until my fingers found something cool and hard. I pulled out a long, thin box made of dark wood. Da's eyes lit up.

“That must be it,” he said as we moved to the moonlight near the window.

I went to work on the box's lock and, again, it took several minutes when it should have taken mere seconds. But finally, the lid popped open, revealing a bronze, jewel-encrusted flute within. Jorn had been bragging for months to anyone who'd listen about how he'd purchased the flute that had once belonged to the great musician-sculptor Anara Hamwith. Worth thousands of silvernibs, he boasted. And as my second cousin twice removed, Vellinda Grimjinx, always said, “Boasters reap a harvest of loss.”

In other words, loudmouths deserve to have their pretty flutes stolen.

Da retrieved a cloth hidden under his shirt. From inside, he pulled another flute and held the two up to the scant moonlight. Absolutely identical in every way. Ma's skills as a forger were second to none. This one was especially impressive. She'd made it based solely on sketches in old books. But she'd gotten every detail perfect. It would fool Jorn long enough for us to sell the real flute far from town.

Outside, we heard a distant cry and applause. “That'll be the Unveiling ceremony starting,” Da noted with a sniff. “Which means we have a bit of time.” He tucked the real flute under his shirt while I placed the box—now containing the fake—between the mattresses.

“Might as well see what else we can get away with while we're here,” he said with a wink. “Find yourself a souvenir of your first solo heist. Oh, your ma and Nanni will be so proud. You check around here, I'll nip across to the library for a look-see.”

It was family tradition to take a souvenir from extraspecial heists. Something small and memorable. As it was my first burglary, I wanted something great.

I poked through Jorn's bureau, under his bed, and in his closet, but nothing really grabbed my attention. I was about to give up when I spotted the small, silver stamp on his bedside table, the one he used to seal his letters.

Now
that
was a souvenir. Not the stamp itself but with a few drops of wax, I could make an impression of Jorn's crest from the stamp. Like an autographed memento of my first mark.

I grabbed the candle next to the stamp. While Da insisted on never using light during a burglary, I figured it wouldn't hurt this once, seeing as the entire town was several blocks away at the Festival and I needed the wax.

I pulled a small tinderbox from inside my boot and went to strike the flint. But as I brushed my hands together, the flint and stone flew from my clumsy fingers, shooting a single spark that leaped onto the curtains of Jorn's bed. The very old, antique, and highly flammable curtains.

I fell back as, in a flash, the entire canopy erupted in flame. I froze, watching the fire rise higher and higher until it had ignited the ceiling. Waves of fire roiled down the walls, inching toward me.

“Da!” I called out. And realized my mistake too late.

The bedroom door shimmered with golden light for a moment before slamming shut. I reached out, twisting the knob, but the magical yellstop seal—designed to trigger with any loud noise—held tight. No doubt, every door in the house was now sealed.

“Jaxter!” I heard Da's muffled cry from beyond the door. “I'm trapped in the library.”

By now, black smoke had forced me to my knees as the heat of the approaching wall of fire blistered the paint on the door. Gasping for air, I dug through my pouches for the amberberry pollen and oskaflower honey. Tears filled my eyes as I raced to mix the ingredients that would neutralize the magical lock.
If
it would neutralize something as powerful as a yellstop charm. I'd never tried before.

Once I had a tiny ball of paste, I rubbed it on the lock and prayed. With a yank, I was able to pull the door open and stumble out, just as the flaming ceiling collapsed in the bedroom. Smoke quickly filled the hall as the fire started to burn through the walls. Crawling to the library door, where I could hear Da pounding, I smeared what was left of the paste from the palm of my hand on the door lock and released Da. His eyes widened as he spotted the fire.

“Come on!” he cried, slinging my arm over his shoulder and helping me down the stairs. In the distance, I heard bells. Someone had alerted the fire brigade.

By the time we got downstairs, the fire had spread to the ground floor. We yanked at the front door, but the yellstop charm held it tight.

“Jaxter …” Da began, but I shook my head.

“I used the last of the honey.” Without my blue paste, there was no way to counter the yellstop charm.

Looking around, Da spotted a brass coat rack. We picked it up and started battering at the front door. Once … twice … On the third heave, the door flew off its hinges and we fell out into the street, crawling as fast as we could across the cobblestones, away from the flaming house.

Only to find the entire population of Vengekeep in the street just outside, with Castellan Jorn at the head of the pack, shaking so furiously he couldn't speak. Instead, he pointed a trembling finger at me and Da. Captain Aronas and two of the stateguard stepped forward and pulled us to our feet.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Aronas asked, binding my hands behind my back.

“Um …” I said sheepishly,
“Enk vessara, enk talmin?”

“A stranger is just a mark you haven't bilked yet.”

—
Ancient par-Goblin proverb

D
a and I spent the night in the Grimjinx summer home. Known to most as the Vengekeep gaol.

Everyone in the family had spent at least a little time there for various accusations. Usually only for as long as it took for the stateguard to realize they didn't have enough evidence to make charges stick. But, covered in ash and soot and seen leaving the Castellan's burning house by hundreds of witnesses … well, it seemed like the Grimjinx knack for avoiding prosecution was over.

And it was all my fault.

“I'm sorry, Da,” I finally said. We'd been sitting for hours, Da quietly contemplating the ceiling and me feeling horrible the entire time.

Da waved it away. “It's my fault, Jaxter. I picked the target. I thought if we robbed anyone less than the Castellan, you'd think I didn't have total confidence in your abilities.”

“I bet you didn't burn down the first house you burgled.”

“True, but I never would have been able to beat a magical lock. We all have our talents, Jaxter. And that's yours. Don't you forget it.”

It was my unique contribution to our heists. Da could sneak into a house, steal a painting, and be out in five minutes flat. Ma's forgery of that painting could fool people for years. Aubrin's sleight of hand skills were the best in the family. Me, my clumsiness prevented me from perfecting the skills that made the Grimjinx clan infamous. Kept me from being a true thief.

All that changed a year ago when Nanni moved in with us and gave me
The Kolohendriseenax Formulary
. It detailed twelve magic-resistant herbs and plants deemed “the essentials of nature” and how they could be used to negate low-level magic. From there, I read more and more books, each adding to my knowledge of how to beat magic through natural means. Da called it “invaluable backup support” when we did our cons. It came in handy from time to time.

A loud clang and squeak, and the steel door leading into the gaol swung open. Captain Aronas, looking happier than I'd ever seen, sauntered into the room.

“Burglary!” he said, brandishing the flute they'd found on Da when searching us. “Willful destruction of property! Arson! The best list of charges I've ever seen filed against the Grimjinxes. This time, you can't weasel your way out.”

Da didn't approve. “Willful destruction
and
arson? Seems a bit redundant, don't you think? And not at all original.”

Aronas leaned against the bars that separated us and shook his head. “Make all the jokes you want, Grimjinx. As we speak, Castellan Jorn is in his office, drawing up the papers of exile. When he's done, you and your little band of thieves will have an hour to pack up and remove yourselves from Vengekeep. If any Grimjinx dares enter this valley again after today, you'll spend the rest of your life in Umbramore Tower.”

“Exiled?” I asked, excitement coloring my voice. “You hear that, Da? We finally get to take that tour of the Five Provinces you always promised the family.”

We linked arms and did a celebratory dance as Aronas fumed, but inside, my stomach fell. I'd gotten the family exiled. With the Grimjinx reputation, the chances of finding another town-state that would let us set up roost were slim at best.

Our celebration stopped as Aronas's lieutenant, a tall, wingless Aviard with a gray feather beard and talons for fingers, entered with a grave look in his yellow eyes. Da tugged lightly on his left ear—a family signal to pay attention—and stared knowingly as the Aviard whispered to the Captain.

“What?” Aronas spat in disbelief.

“Something the matter?” Da asked in a voice so innocent no one was buying it.

Aronas opened our cell with the key at his belt and stepped aside. “By order of the town-state council, you're summoned to the Viewing Room.”

“A summons?” Da said, as he stepped out of the cell. “Well, now, that's a far cry from an order of exile, wouldn't you say, Captain?”

We followed as Aronas, grumbling all the way, escorted us out of the gaol and into the streets of Vengekeep. I half expected to be pelted with rotten vegetables, or at least receive murderous glares. But as we walked through town, the looks we got were … odd. Not angry like last night, when my accidental fire brought the Festival to an unwelcome end. Now they looked at us pensively, like they were trying to figure us out. It was creepy.

Nearly five centuries old, the town-state hall was the oldest building in Vengekeep. Most days, it was packed with stern-looking officials, who did boring things like make laws and, even worse, enforce them. As we turned the corner to find the hall looming ahead, I felt a lump in my throat to see workers clearing away the pile of ash and scorched debris nearby, all that remained of the Castellan's house.

Once inside the hall, Aronas led us down a long, pillared corridor to the Viewing Room, one of the most sacred locations in the town-state. It was fairly small, with walls of speckled green marble and a thick glass skylight that provided the room's only natural light.

To one side, I saw a group of three women and a man, dressed in the blue-and-green robes that marked them as town-state council scholars. They spoke in hushed tones to one another and stopped dead when we entered. Da and I were ushered to the center of the room, but before we could ask what was happening, we heard a clamor from down the hall.

“Watch your hands!” The unmistakable shrill of my grandmother's voice echoed across the room. A moment later, the rest of our family—Ma, Nanni, and Aubrin—was escorted in by two stateguards.

Nanni was slapping at one guard's hands. “I'm seventy years old! Don't you know I'm fragile?” To demonstrate, she swung her arm up and struck the guard's helmet.

Ma swept into the room and, like Da, didn't seem nearly as perplexed as I was at this new development. She went straight to the scholars.

“Hello,” she sang brightly. “Allia Grimjinx. I believe you know my husband, Ona.”