Thief's covenant

“I couldn't agree more.”

It was a hard voice, guttural, rumbling, a mastiff speaking through a mouthful of gravel and broken glass. Widdershins rolled backward and came instantly to her feet, rapier in hand. It was too dark in the chamber for her to see her opponent, though she was certain there had been no one present a moment before. Who was it? How did he get in?

More importantly, why had Olgun not warned her about him?

And most importantly, how the happy horses had they found her?!

“It's not possible!” she whispered as she braced for an attack, unaware she'd spoken aloud.

“Actually, what I believe you told your companions waiting outside in that filthy little alley was that it wasn't humanly possible,” the voice grated at her. “And in that, you're entirely correct.”

Widdershins lunged, blade aimed unerringly at the horrible sound, and connected with nothing at all.

“Who do you intend to stab with that needle, little girl?” The question came from off to her right. In that horrible voice, Widdershins sensed nothing human, nothing but contempt.

“You, if you've the courage to show yourself!” Fine, so it was mostly bluster, but she needed to see who she faced.

“As you wish.” A shadow moved, a darker blot in the night-cloaked room, and a shape appeared in the sickly moonlight.

“Is this more to your liking?”

Widdershins couldn't speak, could barely even breathe. Nothing save a primal whimper of hopelessness emerged from between her lips.

It was tall, bent low to avoid the ceiling overhead. All four limbs were hideously long and slender, as though some demented sorcerer had taken a normal man and stretched him like taffy to half again his starting height. Its flesh was the decomposing brown of poorly tanned leather, its jagged talons rusted iron, its head a misshapen amalgamation of man and boar. Thin patagia fluttered between its arms and distended rib cage, and a thrashing, serpentine appendage protruded obscenely from between its legs, complete with jagged fangs and forked tongue.

And it smelled, incongruously, hideously, of honey.

But it was neither horror nor fear that had drawn such a primitive, despairing sound from Widdershins. It was recognition.

“Hello, Adrienne,” the hell-spawned beast purred, thoughtfully stroking its twisted chin with claw-tipped fingers. Widdershins felt the space around her grow darker, heavier, as though the creature's very shadow were a palpable presence. “Or would you prefer Widdershins now? I would so hate to offend you, after so many years apart.”

It lunged, its enormous stride taking it across the room in a single step, and Widdershins had nowhere, nowhere at all, to run.

CHAPTER TWELVE

Two years ago:

Adrienne allowed the rhythm of the music, the ebb and flow of the dance, to sweep her through the hall of whirling couples and spinning bodies. The musicians were magnificent, the strings and winds weaving a tapestry of pure emotion. Dresses and gowns of the finest cloths, formal coats with silver buttons-all flashed past as her feet carried her the length of Alexandre Delacroix's massive ballroom. Her every move as graceful as those who were born to this life, Adrienne found herself smiling with a foreign sentiment she only scarcely recognized as contentment.

And if she had more difficulty in finding a dance partner than other women; if she danced alone more often than not; if some of the aristocrats fell back as she drew near, lips curled in a moue of arrogant disdain…well, it was their loss, as Alexandre had told her again and again, in the long nights when their disrespect had sent her sobbing or raging to her chambers. Some of Davillon's nobility had indeed learned to welcome this strange addition with open arms. Those who didn't, didn't matter.

The waltz wound to a close, the minstrels taking a much-deserved break before launching into their next piece, and Adrienne breathlessly worked her way through the milling throng. Her gown was modest, a deep lavender with tight sleeves of rich blue, a gift her mentor had insisted upon giving even though Adrienne could easily afford such things on her own, now. It was just that sort of behavior that kept the rumors of their nonexistent romance alive. For two years she'd lived in Delacroix's manor. Today, she could afford a place of her own as easily as she could the gown.

She loved the old man, true enough-as family, not as the gossips suggested-but this wasn't why she stayed.

Adrienne was afraid-afraid that without Alexandre at her side, her hard-won acceptance in Davillon's upper echelons would blow away like so much dandelion fuzz. She feared that, once she grew only a few years older, custom and propriety would force her to hire servants of her own, to throw her own parties, to play her own politics-all elements of high society she could happily do without.

But most of all, she feared that stepping out that door would bring her old life rushing back. She'd pushed it down, crushed it beneath the weight of stubborn determination, but still it haunted her at night, when such terrors shamble from their dens to torment innocent insomniacs. The sting of hunger and the itch of matted filth were never far from her thoughts. She'd never shaken the notion that this was all some majestic dream or fantasy, and she clung unconsciously to the childish notion that it was Alexandre himself who kept that fate at bay. As long as he remained in her life, the dream would continue.

These, however, were darker thoughts for other nights. Tonight was for music, for dancing, for…

“Watch where you're stepping, damn it!”

Adrienne spun aside just as the trailing end of a heavy banner flopped down where she'd been standing. She glanced up into Claude's angry eyes. He stood atop a ladder, struggling to straighten a hanging that had come loose. The image was the lion's head-not the masked crest of House Delacroix, but the unadorned feline face that was the symbol of Cevora.

But of course it was. Claude would hardly have cared enough to fix any of the other banners, would he?

“Don't you have a psalm to go sing?” Adrienne snapped at him, then spun off into the crowd before the angry retort in his eyes could reach his tongue.

All right, so maybe some dark thoughts are appropriate for tonight.

“Would it be presumptuous of me, Mademoiselle Satti, to say that you are easily the most radiant, most enchanting, and most wonderful sight present in this house tonight?”

And then again…

The young woman teasingly rolled her eyes heavenward, though her smile grew wide. “Presumptuous, Monsieur Lemarche? Not at all. Rather silly, though.”

Darien Lemarche, current patriarch of the Lemarche family, younger brother of the late and lamented Pierre, bowed gallantly and took a seat beside her.

He was very much like his brother, though he lacked, or at least appeared to lack, Pierre's selfish streak. Some eight or nine months after Alexandre took Adrienne in, the Lemarche family had-in an almost perfect echo of Alexandre's own social and economic recovery-reversed their fortunes once again and reentered the aristocracy without a trace of their old patriarch's stigma. Darien had recognized Adrienne by name when they'd first met. If he blamed her in any way for the death of his older brother, or even knew that she'd been involved in Pierre's final scheme, he never showed it, treating her with exquisite courtesy. She, in turn, considered Darien one of the few friends she'd made among the nobility, who were, by and large, more amiable in groups than as individuals.

Tonight, Darien was dressed in a magnificent overcoat of deepest burgundy, atop a pair of white hose and a black ruffled shirt. He'd chosen to forgo a wig, and his dark hair was swept immaculately back. He was, at least