The Treasure Keeper

The Order of the Noble Sanf Inimicus has created a Practical Guide for the Detection and Observation of Drakon.

I've seen it myself. It's a little bound book, scarcely more than a brochure, stitched at the spine and stamped in black letters over lurid red leather. The print is very tiny, because it is compiled and divided into no fewer than seven different languages.

Seven. There are so many of them, I must suppose. Or perhaps that's only what they want us to believe.

French, Hungarian, German, Italian, Spanish, Romanian, and the King's good English.

(Honestly, are there even any dragons in Spain? We are creatures of the alps and the ice-crystaled sky, not the salty, sultry earth.)

So that you should know their primary list, the manner in which they have dissected us and rendered us small enough for their minds to comprehend, I shall reproduce it here for you. Memorize their words, their canny ideas. You know they already have.

1. A Bodily Aspect of either Great Charisma or Marvelous Beauty.

2. Skin without Blemish, and Pale as Whey.

3. Speed of Movement, such as the Eye hardly may Follow.

4. A Voice that may Command you; you know not why.

5. Sleekness of Frame: Upon the Males, a hardness of Cheekbones. Upon the Females, an impression of Fragility.

6. An Unnatural Brightness of the Eyes, betimes a Glow.

7. Straight Teeth, strong ivory, none missing.

8. An Unnatural Physical Vigor, such as may Bend a Rod of thick Steel without Effort.

9. The Ability to Frighten all other Animals in any Form, no matter how Stout.

10. An Immense Fondness of Metals and Stones. They will nearly always wear Jewels.

11. The Ability to Transform into Smoke.

12. The Ability to Transform into a Dragon.

13. A Terrible fear of Blindness. The Monsters are near helpless without Sight.

Have you noticed yet the singular peculiarity in this catalog of our attributes? Certainly there are a few traits missing, but it may take you a brief moment to realize that every single item that is listed . is true.

That doesn't seem very likely, does it? Legends of earlier times slap us with all manner of gross exaggerations: green blood, poisoned claws, hellfire shooting from our throats. Yet this little list from our most deadly enemies contains no exaggerations whatsoever. Only facts.

One might wonder how that came about. One might indeed be excused for suspecting the unthinkable. That perhaps the Sanf Inimicus had assistance in creating it.

From a drakon.

Chapter Eleven

She did not return to her apartment at the palace. She had no desire even to glimpse the mirror waiting for her there; if there were human souls caught in the blue along with the drakon, she didn't know. She did not want to know.

But Tuileries was home now, as close to home as Zoe was going to get, and she was familiar with it enough to anticipate which of the corridors was most deserted. Which chambers had not had human visitors in years. Which places were more redolent of cobwebs and memories than anything alive.

She sat on the floor of an empty ballroom. There were at least five ballrooms she had discovered so far, but this was the first one she'd come to, and so it was here that she sat.

Her back was pressed against an extravagant silk-papered wall. She faced the same paper across the empty chamber, burnished gold and turquoise peacocks prancing in columns, feathers outlined with mint green and purple trim. A tiled floor of black-and-amber marble, and enormous glassed windows all along two walls that framed the unquiet night beyond. Barring the ballroom of Chasen Manor, it was the biggest chamber she'd ever seen. It might have been made for the dancing of dragons instead of the humans who walked among them.

She was a small dim blotch amid all this glory. She sat with her knees to her chest and let herself feel small. It was better than thinking about... anything else.

Rhys was there too. An even dimmer blotch, seated cross-legged at her side.

How humiliating to realize that he had been right about her. That she wasn't the fine, shining weapon of vengeance she had imagined she'd be.

She was someone who had gotten an innocent man—nearly innocent—killed. Who had clutched at the siltstone wall of an anonymous building and vomited from the stench of blood clinging to her fingers, and from the ricochet reaction of her own fears.

'Is it safe here?' shadow Rhys asked.

She lifted a shoulder in a shrug, disinclined to reply. She'd made it through the city and the gardens to the palace with him gliding ever beside her, had scrubbed herself as clean as she could in one of the fountains and found the ballroom and now she wished he'd just go away. She'd asked him twice, and both times he'd refused.

'It's too open,' he noted, looking around. 'There's only one way in or out. And I can hear people snoring below.'

Zoe clutched at her knees. 'It's safe enough.'

He subsided. The moon had set already and so the ballroom was bathed in a murky, faded grandeur. The wires and chains that had once managed the chandeliers still hung from their bolts in the ceiling, clipped carelessly, uneven inky lines dangling straight down from the frescoes to halfway above the floor.

'You're doing me no favors by staying here,' she said to her knees. 'I'd like some time alone.'

'What makes you suppose I'm here to please you?' She angled him a glance from beneath her lashes.

'You are not the sum of my existence,' he said casually.

'Good gracious. You never used to be so vain.'

'It's hardly vanity if—'

'Perhaps I've developed an interest in your stated objective of before.' He met her blank stare with a hint of smile. 'Revenge,' he said.

'Revenge, yes.' She gave a hollow laugh and leaned her head against the wall. One of the pins in her hair dug into her scalp. 'Isn't it lovely?'

'No. It seldom is.'

'I never wanted . I never desired his death. That man, Fortin. I wanted justice. Information. I didn't want him dead.'

Rhys said nothing.

She heard herself whisper, 'Do you believe me?'

'It doesn't matter what I believe, love. What's done is done. All that matters is what we do next.'

She closed her eyes and shook her head, and Rhys's voice took on a brisker note.

'What I do believe is that our goals are essentially identical. Death or justice, however you like it, we both want to see the end of the sanf inimicus, although I imagine we might disagree a bit on how that comes about. And that reminds me. How, precisely, did you discover the identity of the coachman in the dance hall?'

She did not answer.

'Because there were five of them. I was able to count that many. And since I was there when you followed them from the yard to the hall, and I never once heard anyone say anything like, 'Oy, you, the bloke who drove the rig of the dragon-man, care to go dancing tonight,' I admit my curiosity is quite aflame.'

Zoe shrugged again, and the shadow leaned forward with his hands loosely clasped, his elbows to his knees. 'You didn't use Persuasion to get him to tell you, or to follow you outside, for that matter. So what was