The Treasure Keeper

'To be young,' he said. 'To be alive. Flowers and the cerulean sky. These things don't last forever. Best to...' He seemed to fumble for his words a moment. 'Best to appreciate them while you can.'

She sat up. The man still stared straight ahead, clutching his box. 'You have life,' said the man. 'You still have that.'

She blinked a little, glanced around. No one else paid them any mind. A liveried footman and a rose dealer were bickering over the price of his garlands; the candied perfume from the orange blossoms swirled around her like nectar in the air.

And because the day was clouded and not clear, because Hayden was dead and the sanf were miserably, enragingly real, Zoe cast the blue cloak at the old man.

Nothing.

She tried again, frowning at him, seeing the indigo depths of it feeling it fall about him, envelop him, his unadorned black coat and felt hat and buckled shoes .

But there was nothing there. The man was a field of blue upon blue, a blank spot in the eternity of its depths.

He turned his face and looked at her, empty hazel eyes that sent a chill skittering along her skin.

'Excuse me,' she managed, and stood, clutching the key in her fist.

'Will you take a flower?' asked the man, and raised a tulip to her, the petals streaked pink and red. But he held it too hard; the stem bent in his hand, and the flower fell sideways to tap his vest. 'A small token to your beauty.'

She walked off. She moved stiffly, her heartbeat in her ears, her feet crunching across the pea-stone gravel, and had gotten at least six feet away before she heard the man calling after her.

'Zee. Zee!'

She stopped, swiveled slowly about. He was still sitting on the bench, holding out the tulip.

She scanned the surroundings very quickly, saw no ghost nearby, no shadow or smoke beyond the white drifting spire of a nut roaster down the lane, searing chestnuts over charred wood.

'Here,' said the old man. His arm gradually lowered. 'I'm here, Zoe Lane.'

Sweet heavens. She crossed back to him warily, clutching at her elbows beneath her shawl. The sanf key pressed unbending against her palm.

'I wanted to see if I could do it,' said the elderly man quickly, tonelessly. 'Do it again, I mean.' He switched to English. 'And I can. It's not as difficult as last night. This fellow's not in the best of health, but he's mobile, and he can breathe. I can breathe, Zoe. God, I can breathe and smell flowers. I can see you.'

'Get out of him,' she said, flat.

'Not yet. I still feel strong enough to—'

'Get out of him. Leave him be.'

'But—'

'Have some respect for the living, Rhys Langford.' Her voice was throbbing; a knot of hot fury had lodged beneath her breastbone and she didn't even know why. 'He has friends here. I saw them. You don't know who he is, if he's married, who loves him. You don't know what you're doing to him. Get out.'

The man fell quiet. He released the bent tulip; it flopped to the bench by his leg, then to the dirt. He took a shuddering breath and brought a hand to his face.

Zoe moved before him, sending out the cloak again. 'Sir. Are you well? You seem quite pale.'

... for genevi eve's garden, she'll like them best, these are her favorites, yes, and then the moorish yellows to maurice, he'll be fine with those, good bulbs, good roots, exactly as i'd hoped

'Yes,' said the man, and groped until he located his handkerchief again. He dabbed at his forehead. 'Thank you, mademoiselle, I'm quite well. I fear the sun off the water gave me something of a turn, but I'm better now.' He peered up at her, and his eyes were watery and bright. 'An old man, you know. We move in fits and starts, but we get where we're going. All in good time, yes?'

She smiled and nodded and moved on.

'There.' The shadow was beside her, gliding in his graceful, smoky way. 'No harm done.'

She spoke without moving her lips. 'You didn't know.'

'I did, though. I did, in a way. I could feel his heart. I could control his respiration. I felt everything just as he did. The bench. The sun. He's hungry. He was slightly out of breath. There's a problem with his left leg, I think it's gout. But he wasn't frail.' Rhys took a few longer steps and moved in front of her, his expression serious: straight dark brows, intent green eyes. 'I would not have hurt him on purpose. You should know that. He was innocent, and I would not have hurt him.'

She had to stop in the middle of the path so as not to walk through him. A trio of young boys knotting twine around bundles of dried lavender watched her curiously from their booth, tiny purple buds clinging to their arms and shirts, all three knives paused in midair.

Rhys inclined his head and offered her a bow, edging out of her way. She resumed walking. He kept pace.

'It is a wonder to me,' he said, low. 'Life. Just for those few minutes. Just that short slice of time, to feel alive again, even in pain. I—I would give anything.'

She cut her eyes to him. His head was bowed; his profile was sharp and clean and as handsome as ever, and she could see right through him, past flower stalls and masted boats, all the way across the Seine. When he shook his head, the smoke that defined him bloomed up and away.

'Anything to have my life back.'

'I'm sorry,' she whispered, because she couldn't think of any other response.

'Are you indeed?' He smiled grimly to the ground. 'So am I.'

* _{* *}

'It is the key to a door,' announced the locksmith. He turned the key over and around between his blackened fingers, squinting at the shape.

Zoe set her reticule upon the counter before her. The locksmith shop was small and crammed with bits of jagged metal and machinery, shavings of brass and pewter and lead fallen into little drifts upon the floor. An apprentice with shaggy red hair worked in a corner by a window, meticulously folding crimps into a strip of copper fixed between two vises. He was seventeen or eighteen, and kept darting looks at her through his hair with every few turns of his wrist.

The locksmith, however, was easily in his eighties and had barely managed a civil greeting from over his magnified spectacles. He slapped the key from the sanf upon his counter with an emphaticclin/t.

'What manner of door?' Zoe asked.

The smith's face wrinkled into a grimace. 'One with a lock that will fit this key.'

'Dee-lightful,' said Rhys, lounging with his arms crossed against the store's doorway. He had not ventured more than two steps inside. Zoe wondered if he heard what she did, all the strange and clashing songs of the metals here, groaning and sighing and frenetic singing, a near cacophony in her head.

She tried to smile past her growing headache. 'Your indulgence, sir. Is it possible to be more specific?'

'It is ordinary,' said the man, impatient, jabbing a finger at the key. 'Do you see this shank? This rounded bow for the hand? Ordinary. It's not even a passkey. This might fit a dozen different warded locks, mademoiselle. One to a salon. To a linen closet. A butler's pantry. Do you see? There are likely ten thousand such keys in St. Germain alone.'

She pressed a hand to her temple. 'Yes. Thank you. I see.'

'Six sous,' grunted the smith.

From his place by the door, Rhys gave a snort. 'Thief.'

She was inclined to agree. The smith pocketed the money and turned away without another word, hobbling to a workbench crowded with tools, squatting down to his seat with an audible popping from his knees. When his fingers found and curled about a solitary pick, it shrilled a sound like a flute: a series of high, reedy notes overpowering all the rest.

The apprentice watched her leave. She felt his eyes, at least, on her back as she closed the door carefully behind her.