The Treasure Keeper

'What's amiss?' asked the shadow, ever alert.

She swallowed and looked around the little street, taking in the rows of tall scarlet-leafed trees with their roots growing over the curbs and the sky flashing patches of blue between the clouds. The air, not so thick now with the aroma of metal that it felt like a coating down her throat.

'Nothing. My head pains me a little. That's all.'

'Are you ill?'

'No.' She began walking. 'It was that place. Didn't you hear it? All that noise?'

'What, from the boy in the corner there? He was quiet as a mouse.'

'From the metal, Rhys.' She shot him a quick look. 'All the songs from the metals.'

He was silent, matching her steps. A woman in a plum-colored shawl and striped skirts marching from the other direction barreled straight through him without hesitation, carrying a basket of eggs over one arm. She didn't even blink as her face broke through his chest.

The shadow puffed and dissolved and re-formed. It didn't seem like he missed a step. Zoe looked again: yes, dark and still perfect, smoke and haze.

'You didn't hear it?' she asked softly.

'Not really. I suppose I did, somewhat. But mostly what I hear ...'

'Yes?'

'I hear another song. Something constant. Compelling.' Rhys stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and so she did too, facing him, then backing up to stand against the building behind her as more people bustled by.

She pretended to adjust the ribbon of her hat, using her hand to shield her lips as she spoke. 'Is it from a stone?'

'No. I don't know. It's not like anything I've ever heard before. It changes. It's—look, I can't talk about it. I can't think about it too much. If I think on it, it grows stronger.'

Zoe hesitated. 'Is it . celestial?'

The shadow paused, then threw back his head and laughed. 'Do you mean, are the heavens calling? No. I doubt that very much.'

The street had cleared for the moment; there was only a caped rider on a cob coming slowly down the way, and he was still a block off. She turned to face Rhys squarely, abandoning her pretense with the hat. She remembered him speaking of music the other night, with the yellow moon and the cloud. How completely he had vanished after, as if he'd never been.

He gazed back at her from that lean and darkened face.

'You know, you should consider the possibility—'

'No.'

'Rhys—'

'No,' he said again, louder. The halo of smoke around him seemed to contort, grow more dense. 'It's not like that. It's not heavenly music. It's ... something more aggressive than that. I don't feel happy when I hear it. I feel absorbed. As if it wants to devour me. And it is succeeding.'

The breeze took the loosened ribbons from her hat and tugged at them by her chin, strips of dancing satin. Rhys tipped his head and raised a hand as if to catch one, and the ends fluttered through his closed fingers.

'What is it now?' she asked. 'The song?'

'It's a ballad. Slow. Tender. You can't hear it?' He was watching the ribbons with half-lidded eyes, sounding strangely distant.

She shook her head.

His lashes lifted, and his hand fell away. 'Good. It's sentimental rubbish.'

The rider and cob were nearly upon them; she captured the ribbons and tied them in a firm bow beneath her chin, beginning to walk on.

The cloak swooped over her. That quickly, she lost the street and Rhys and the trees and sky; she was suspended in the blue, weightless, voiceless, caught with all the sudden bright faces and spirits rushing toward her, eager hands reaching for her—

Hayden. She saw him. But he wasn't like the rest, not pale or glowing. He was vivid and alive and smiling at her, saying something she couldn't hear. His hair was mussed and he hadn't shaved, and she could see the sun glinting off his whiskers as he ran a hand down his cravat—

She was released back to the Paris sidewalk. She stumbled at once across a pebble and felt it as Rhys automatically reached for her, his hand pushing against, then sliding through her arm, the cold biting into her so fiercely that she yanked back, gasping.

'What is it? What's wrong?' He nearly reached for her again and only just caught himself in time, his hands clenching into fists. 'Zee, what happened?'

But she had whirled about to see the rider on the horse. And the rider on the horse had twisted in his saddle to see her.

It was a boy. A young man, rather. He was ivory-skinned and black-haired and had eyes of absolute crystalline gray, nearly without color.

The boy was drakon.

And she had plucked the image of Hayden from his memory, she was sure of it.

She lifted her skirts and stepped straight out into the street, forgetting Rhys, forgetting the horse, which rolled its eyes at her and reared, backing away across the cobblestones in a great clatter of iron-shod hooves. The young drakon struggled with the reins; his hat tumbled to the ground and was trampled and still the cob wouldn't calm. Zoe stopped walking. She stood still in the street as faces began to appear in shop windows, and the horse let out a squealing protest when the boy tried to wheel it about.

He gave up, apparently. With the grace of an acrobat, he flipped his right leg over the saddle and dismounted, still holding the reins, moving swiftly to stand in front of the beast, both hands lifted to its face, his voice a soft cadence of sound.

She watched him, waiting. Shadow Rhys had appeared at her side, also watching. The Others at the windows, and on the sidewalks, moving like ants up and down the street.

'He's one of us,' Rhys said. She felt his tension, the quiver of agitation ripping through him.

'I know.'

The horse was settling, and the young man was running a hand down its neck. He dared a glance over his shoulder at Zoe again, and Rhys began, very quickly, to speak. 'Do you remember hearing back in the shire about the sanf inimicus, about how they would sometimes use drakon of diluted blood to help in their hunt, dragons they'd either kidnapped or coerced? This can't be a coincidence. I don't know who the hell this is, but you've got to get out of here. Now.'

'His blood is not diluted,' she muttered. She felt the animal in this boy as strongly as any of the strongest of the shire. As strong as Rhys himself, back in life: waves of power, tightly leashed.

'Fine! It's not! But he could still be one of them!'

A carriage rattled around a curb, hurling right toward her. She began a clipped walk toward the gray-eyed drakon, who had shifted with his mount to the side of the road. 'I saw Hayden through him. I saw a memory of Hayden in his mind.'

'Zoe—don't be stupid, I know you're not this stupid—'

'I'm not stupid at all,' she said out loud, and went up to the boy.

The cob jerked its head but the drakon didn't loosen the reins, and it stopped after that. She stood with her arms folded to her chest to better contain her scent, and regarded the dragon-boy.

He was, of course, quite handsome, rawboned and thin in that way that the youngsters of the tribe sometimes were before finishing their final spurt of growth. He was dressed simply but well, in black buckskin and garnet velvet, a bandanna of crisp bleached linen tied about his neck. His hair had been pulled back with a leather tie, but perhaps the ride had loosened it; strands of ebony brightened and faded beneath the shifting autumn clouds.

She saw him reach for his hat, realize it was back in the street, and then grant her a formal bow anyway, one leg outstretched.

'Who are you?' she demanded in French.

'Sandu, Noble One, your servant,' he replied, courteous, rising from his bow. 'You must be English. Are you