Vow of Thieves Read online

  His steps slowed and his brows rose in a question. “You’re on a first-name basis with General Banques now? He must have taken a liking to you, after all. Count yourself lucky.”

  I molded my face into indifference, but my mind reeled. Devereux was Banques? I was fishing, but I hadn’t expected this, not to find my game so far up the chain of command.

  Zane had said it was Devereux who gave him money to hire labor hunters. Devereux Banques. The so-called general was doing the dirty work of stirring up trouble? He was sneaking around back alleys, preying on the citizens of Hell’s Mouth and the Ballenger family months ago. Before he was a mighty general, he was just a lowly back-alley thug with a satchel full of cash.

  And he worked for the king.

  Images flashed behind my eyes, doubts and pieces falling into place—using labor hunters and fires to create unrest and keep the Ballengers scrambling, choosing a settlement site that would antagonize the family, attacking settlers in the dark of night to implicate the Ballengers and bring down the wrath of the Alliance, the assault by Fertig and a well-trained gang that sounded alarmingly similar to these hired mercenaries, and finally, Beaufort looking back over his shoulder expecting someone to come to his rescue. He was waiting for the king—the sly king who feigned innocence at every step, the king who wanted respect and wouldn’t incriminate himself by rescuing a criminal. The king who was a more cunning liar than Beaufort and Banques put together. The cold weight in my stomach turned to ice in my veins.

  We had caught the wrong dragon.

  Montegue stopped walking and looked down at me. His eyes were clear. Knowing.

  It was too late to backtrack, to pretend that I hadn’t figured it out. That would be a lie, and he would know.

  “Leave,” he ordered the guards. He watched them scuttle away, leaving us alone, then turned back to me. His perusal was suffocating.

  “It was you all along,” I said. “It was you conspiring with Beaufort. Not the leagues. No one knew about those papers in Phineas’s room. Not even Beaufort. He thought everything was destroyed by the fire I set.”

  A flame lit Montegue’s eyes. He was proud of this information.

  “But Phineas had a little secret,” I said. “A side deal he shared with you—copies of the plans.”

  “No … not copies,” he answered slowly, his tone cryptic. “And far more than a side deal.” He leaned against the tunnel wall, staring at me, his head angled to the side like he was trying to see inside mine. “Beaufort had offered the continent to me … while Phineas offered me the universe.” He pushed off from the wall and walked toward me, everything about him changing—his shoulders wider, his eyes liquid black, sucking me into their darkness. “You see, the poor man was burdened by being the youngest and lowest ranking of the group—pushed around by the others—but he was also, by far, the most brilliant. A creative mind like his comes along only once every few generations. I recognized that and knew he was eager for a chance to prove himself. I gave him that chance.”

  I stepped back as he approached, but my shoulders met the tunnel wall. “All of this, everything you’ve done, none of it was ever about restoring order,” I said. “Just the opposite. You were the architect behind it all.”

  He stopped in front of me. Too close. “How does that make you feel?” he asked. “Does it impress you?” The light of an overhead torch flickered across his features, and his thick lashes cut a shadow under his eyes.

  Horrified? Sick? But the answer had to be one he wanted to hear. “I can’t help but be impressed, but mostly it makes me feel stupid that I didn’t see it before.”

  It was the right answer. He smiled. “If it were obvious, I wouldn’t be much of an architect, would I?”

  * * *

  Priya’s office was now the king’s. It seemed he had laid claim to some prime space in every place the Ballengers had previously owned. He was like a wolf marking territory—the inn in town, the apartments at the arena, and here at Tor’s Watch, the very serene and ordered office of Priya, the heart of the numerous Ballenger businesses.

  He told me more about the side deal he had struck with Phineas—the one that offered him “the universe.” Phineas had had a theory, but he didn’t want to share it with the others. If it played out, his agreement with the king was that he would no longer be under the thumb of Torback or the others. He would have the freedom to pursue his own studies. “He had an intense curiosity about everything and felt stifled by them. His mind never rested. I promised him that freedom.”

  “Except that Beaufort murdered him to keep him from talking.”

  He shrugged. “Phineas’s mind was strong, but his courage weak.”

  I didn’t tell him that as Phineas lay dying, he pleaded with me to destroy his papers. “Before Phineas died, he said the tembris told them. What did he mean?”

  His eyes brightened. “Haven’t you ever wondered about the tembris? Trees that reach to the heavens, taller than any others on the continent? Phineas wondered. I did too, from the first time I saw them. They’re unnatural. Not of this earth. They look like something fashioned for the gods. And the way they grow in that neat circular fashion, almost as if something had marked where they should grow. Perhaps where a fiery star had exploded into the earth?”

  He went to the window that looked out on the Ballenger gardens. “And what about the racaa? Did you know they’re identical to sparrow hawks except for their size?” He turned to face me. “Phineas knew that. And then there’s the matter of the eight-foot giants who roam the continent. Men and women twice the girth and two heads taller than everyone else. But it’s not just about size. It’s about passion too. We’ve all heard stories about the devastation, the raging of seas that refused to calm, the shaking of the ground that swallowed cities whole, the fury of the mountains that bellowed smoke all the way to the sun. Passion that reached all the way into the belly of the earth.”

  He reached into his vest and pulled out a tiny vial. He removed the stopper and tapped a small amount of its brightly glittering contents into his palm, then blew on it as he swept his hand through the air in a circular motion. Instead of the sparkling dust falling to the ground, something else happened. The crystals swirled, and his small puff of air became more—a strong wind that whirled about the room. Papers ruffled and fell to the floor. Wisps of my hair lifted from my shoulders, fingers of warm air circled my arms, then swept across my lips, suddenly hot and stinging. Montegue held his palm out, and the crystals returned and condensed just above it, following the circular movement of his hand. The wind ceased and the crystals sprinkled back into his palm in a tiny pile as if he had spoken a command to them. He carefully tipped his palm and returned the crystals to the vial.

  I felt like a child watching a clever sideshow, trying to find the hidden strings. What had just happened? This was not simple sleight of hand.

  “What is that?” I asked.

  He smiled and looked at a shimmering fleck of crystal still in his palm, then licked his fingertip and dabbed the tiny grain to pick it up. He stared at it, mesmerized. “The magic of the stars,” he answered. “Desire. An element thrown to earth by the gods themselves that can reach into everything that exists and understand its need—what drives it. It imprints on whatever it touches. Grow, eat, burn, hunt, explode, conquer. Its entire purpose is to make things more than what they were, like a fish buried in a cornfield to make plants grow taller and stronger. What farmer doesn’t want that? The magic of the stars can make anything bigger, better, and more powerful.”

  “That’s what’s in the munitions?”

  He nodded. “That’s what opened the door. The star element is released with heat and fire. You can see what it does to just a small amount of the black powder. But Phineas managed to distill the element to its purest, most powerful form—making it possible to unleash the magic of the stars for everything. Everything and everyone is driven by something. This drives it more. Imagine the possibilities. Creating unstoppable armies, cont
rolling wind, rain, fire, crops, the seasons. Maybe even day and night. The possibilities are limitless.”

  Fire. I recalled a strangely scorched hillside on our way here. The edge of the forest was burned in an unusually straight line, as if it had been controlled.

  “We already experimented on a few soldiers. The results were astonishing. If only we had more.”

  My mind immediately sprang to Fertig’s iron grip, and his soulless eyes that had terrified me as he tried to choke me to death. He was driven by a crazed desire. Was he one of the “astonishing” soldiers? Sickly dread slithered through me like some dark poisonous creature. No Neck, Divot Head, Scar Eye. Their hands were like Fertig’s—and their eyes—as if something had crawled inside of them that wasn’t quite human—or maybe it had just made the inhuman part of them greater.

  “This,” Montegue said, patting his vest where he had returned the vial to an inner pocket, “is all I have left. So you can see why those papers are so important. I will have them.”

  At any cost. He didn’t need to say the words. They were clear in his tone.

  Phineas offered me the universe. Was Montegue mad? Did he really believe he could control the universe?

  He walked over to me, the stray grain of stardust shining on his fingertip like a tiny, perfect diamond. He held it close to my lips, studying me, and I feared he might try to put it in my mouth.

  “Do you want to see what it’s like?” he whispered.

  I didn’t respond, but he smiled as if he could hear the wild rush of blood pounding through me.

  “No,” he said, retracting his offer. “Every grain is precious, and I don’t know what your true desire is. Yet.”

  True desire? What was he talking about?

  And then he licked the grain of dust from his fingertip.

  I wasn’t exactly sure what happened next, but the light in the room seemed to change as if it all came from him. The hunger in his eyes ignited like a wildfire, and in one step, he had pinned me against the wall. His hand slipped around my waist, and his face pressed close to mine. “I wanted to kill you,” he whispered against my cheek.

  His breaths were heavy, instantly hot, like a furnace had raged inside of him all along just waiting to be let loose. Kill me or kiss me? Now I knew. Kill.

  “The minute you were captured, I wanted to kill you, more than I had wanted to kill any Ballenger.” He lifted my chin so I had to look in his eyes. A frightening brilliance gleamed in them. “You have no idea the problems your meddling caused me. I risked everything for this moment. I have years invested and everything I own—and in one thoughtless act, you burned up everything I’ve worked for.”

  His arm tightened around me, pulling me closer. A quick jerk could snap my back. Heat radiated from his skin.

  “Not everything,” I reminded him. “The missing papers are somewhere. And you want me to find them.”

  His grip eased, the fire retreating. “Yes,” he said slowly. “The papers.” His true desire. He released me and stepped away. “Banques convinced me you might be useful. And I am a forgiving and fair man. You know that, right?”

  I nodded, feeling like I was trying to outrun an angry bear and with every step it was gaining ground.

  He smiled. “Good.” He reached out and ran a knuckle along my jaw. “Besides, you were only an underling following orders. And now you follow mine.”

  * * *

  Garvin had told him I’d once been a thief. A good one. Which probably explained why the queen had sent me to retrieve Beaufort. Montegue said they had combed the entire estate, including several floors of archives in Raehouse, still certain the documents had to be somewhere. The attack on Tor’s Watch had been a surprise—no more than a moment’s notice as tarps were thrown free from wagons at the front gates and weapons were fired. But it was their first time shooting the oversized launchers, and their aim was off. Instead of taking down the wall, it took down the center tower of the main house. Screaming could be heard from within. Ballengers and employees alike were running for their lives.

  I tried to block the thought, to feel nothing as he described it to me, but screams I hadn’t even heard carved holes through me. I imagined the panic. Vairlyn shouting orders, trying to rush everyone to safety. Searching for her children. Samuel. Was that how he died?

  “Are you listening to me?” Montegue asked sharply.

  “Of course,” I answered, shoving the growing fear far away. Montegue wasn’t an inexperienced monarch being led along by a power-hungry general. He was a cold-blooded plotter—the architect. He didn’t stumble upon an opportunity—he created it. How long had he been planning this? It made me think of the Komizar, who had built his army for years to create an unstoppable force. He’d also had an insatiable desire for more. Just how much more did this king want?

  Montegue went on, telling me it wasn’t likely that the Ballengers had time to gather anything before they fled, much less a thick stack of parchments, and yet the coveted documents appeared to have vanished.

  I wrinkled my brow, trying to appear appropriately perplexed. I worked for him now, and I wasn’t as far in the inner circle as I thought. In fact I was still scrambling on the edge, trying to keep one foot in.

  “Find them,” he said. It wasn’t a request. It was an order from king to thief. What if I did find them? What would I do?

  Destroy them. I heard the urgency in Phineas’s last words again. The fear. The regret. Great gods, what had he done? The magic of the stars. What did that even mean?

  Imagine the possibilities.

  I was sure the king and Banques already had.

  I spent the next two hours searching every corner of Cave’s End, running my fingers along bookcases and desks, looking for hidden doors and secret nooks. I managed to find a few panels that led to hidden empty spaces. That was all. Divot Head served as my escort, and his dull lifeless eyes watched every move I made. It was obvious that all the rooms had already been searched. Bedding in the chambers was stripped and strewn. Wardrobe doors left open and emptied of contents—most of it littering the floors. The king’s logic was sound. I knew if the family was racing to get people into the vault, there was no time to gather food, much less Phineas’s papers. Gunner probably didn’t even know for sure that they were of any value. The king had said Phineas wrote them in the language of the Ancients from which he had procured most of his knowledge of the elements, and it was a language only known to a few. He had promised to transcribe them and send them to the king soon, but then I had intervened.

  We came to one room that was neat and orderly. “The lieutenant’s quarters,” Divot Head explained. “He has duties here and at the arena.”

  “Do I search?”

  Divot Head shrugged. “Already searched.”

  I did a cursory search anyway. The only unusual thing I found was a woman’s chemise under the bed. Apparently this lieutenant had done some entertaining here. Other than that, the room was sparse. Whoever this lieutenant was, he wasn’t settling in for a long stay. I couldn’t blame him. The overwhelming gloom of abandonment hung in the air like a heavy cloud ready to burst with despair. Who could live among this desolation for any length of time?

  We finally returned to Raehouse empty-handed. By then the king was gone, along with the children, to the arena. Banques stood over a table with Paxton and Truko, studying maps and ledgers and discussing goods that would bring the arena more profit. Why did they need money so badly? They controlled everything now. What else could they want?

  When Banques’s tone turned sharp, I noticed Truko’s fist curl behind his back. He was used to being the one giving orders, not taking them. We were all learning new tricks. Jump? Certainly. How high, Your Majesty?

  “Nothing to report from the search,” Divot Head announced succinctly, then left.

  They all turned away from the table to look at me, and Banques sighed. “I hope I didn’t make a terrible mistake convincing the king you might be of some worth.”

  Te
rrible mistake. The words. His voice. It whittled through my bones. Devereux Banques.

  “Who are you?” I asked. “Who are you really?”

  He smiled, reached for a map, and began rolling it up. “I knew it was only a matter of time before you made the connection. But now that you’re on our side, it doesn’t really matter anymore. You’re not that much different than me, I suppose, switching sides.”

  Goose bumps rose on my arms. “Who are you?” I repeated.

  He slipped the map into a leather cylinder and set it with a stack of others. “I’m afraid that, thanks to my treasonous older brother, I had to abandon one of my names six years ago. After he sullied it, all that name did was close doors for me.” He grabbed another map and began rolling it. “I was once a rising star in the Morrighan military. Did you know?”

  “No,” I answered quietly.

  “I was headed for great things and a distinguished career, but that ended when my brother betrayed the king. No one trusted me after that. I was a pariah, and my future was destroyed. I was practically run out of Morrighan. Luckily, the new young King of Eislandia took me on as his kingdom magistrate.”

  I stared at him as he spoke, his image transforming. I saw him with more weight, more height, more years. Lines around his eyes. I saw his coal-black hair lighten to white. But the voice was the same. Brother.

  “Devereux Banques Illarion,” he confessed. “But I actually prefer the name Banques. My mother’s ancestral line was much stronger. Regardless, it all worked out in the end. Now I’m leading a far more powerful army than I ever would have commanded in Morrighan. Wait until they see who I’ve become.” He smiled, the thought warming him as if he had already imagined the revelation many times.

  He told me that his brother had come to him two years ago, still on the run and in search of refuge and funds—along with an interesting proposition. Unfortunately, the king had no funds to offer—but he knew who did—the Ballengers—and the timing was perfect. It couldn’t have worked out better. With a well-rehearsed story, it didn’t take long to get Beaufort and his crew entrenched in the Ballengers’ good graces. A slate of well-timed attacks on trading caravans also helped motivate the Ballengers into action so they wouldn’t drag their feet.