The Treasure Keeper

eternal peace.

It was the least he could hope for them.

Because one way or another, Rhys's future with Zoe was just about to begin.

He gazed down in unwilling fascination at his malformed hands, opening and closing the gold metal claws.

He was alive.

* * *

The prince and his small-blooded female were asleep when she returned. She'd checked on them, slipped into his room to be certain that what she sensed was truth: The boy was in the bed, still fully clothed atop the covers. The cook was wrapped in blankets upon the floor, her hands lifted to her face as if to hide her shame, even in slumber. A weak fire glowed orange from behind the grate.

Neither drakon woke. Zoe allowed the bedroom door to finish its well-oiled click behind her.

Rhys had remained in the front parlor. He might not have stirred since the last moment she'd seen him, hours past. His scent was nowhere but there. There was nothing in the air that suggested food to her, or drink, or movement. He was still angled awkwardly upon the chaise longue with his feet up; the blanket was a heap beside one slanting wooden leg, but other than that, nothing had changed. Ragged clothing. Jutting bones. Bright eyes and talons that rested across his stomach in ribbons of curling sharp gold.

The fire in here had been fed, so the light and shadows were better defined. He watched her in silence as she came to stand by the ash-colored chest placed near the parlor entrance. Finally he spoke.

'Did you find him?'

She closed her eyes and raised her face to the ceiling. 'No.'

'I'm sorry. I am,' he added, when she opened her eyes and looked square at him. 'I'd hoped ... for your sake, Zee. I'd hoped he'd reach you.'

'Well. He did not.'

The monster seemed to retreat into the shadows of his longue. In this shifting dark he seemed closer to what he'd once been. But for the taloned glint of metal where his hands should be—but for the dim streaks of dragon silk in his hair—he might have been Lord Rhys again. Thinner, yes, more watchful, but still he.

'Perhaps he will later.'

'Why? Do you suppose time is measured differently in death?' He didn't rise to her baited tone. 'I don't know. Perhaps.'

'Perhaps.' She smiled and lifted her arms to tug her sleeves straight. She'd taken the trouble in the back room to drag on the cook's gown again, and the material clung heavy and damp. 'Everything perhaps,' she said to the sleeves. 'Perhaps he'll come to me. Perhaps he'll speak. Perhaps he'll haunt me as you once did. Would you ever even know? Perhaps, perhaps.' She skimmed her nails along the surface of the chest. 'Perhaps he'll even forgive me.'

'Forgive you? For what?'

She let out a laugh. 'I don't know. Any of it. All of it. The entire bloody fiasco.'

'Zoe. None of this was your fault.'

'Aren't you the gentleman still.'

'No,' he said. 'I'm really not. And none of this falls to you.'

She tipped her head to rest against the mahogany frame of the entrance. 'I like you better when you don't lie.'

'I'm not lying.

'Then you're in worse condition than I'd thought. Have they robbed you of your wits along with your fine looks?'

'Supposing I ever had any, then no.'

Her lips began to quiver; she pressed them tight, and when they were back in her control, spoke again. 'The very last thing he saw of me was our kiss. Do you realize that? The last time he looked at me, and I was kissing you.'

'Ah,' Rhys said quietly. 'Yes. I admit those first few moments of rejoining the living are a bit fuzzy to me now, but I do recall that. I was kissing you, Zee. Not the other way around.'

'And it's so easy to perceive the difference from a distance. In the dark.'

'Of course it is. James wasn't stupid. You'd never have betrayed him, no matter whom you loved. He knew that.'

Despite her best efforts, a tear leaked from the corner of her eye. She ducked her face and swiped it away.

The monster's ruined voice turned acerbic. 'Does this amuse you? This self-imposed flagellation?'

'Oh, certainly.'

'It does not me. Pathos does not become you.'

Zoe slid a menacing step into the firelight. 'Say that once more.'

'Pathos. Does not. Become you.'

Her words thinned to a breath. 'Why you self-besotted, small-minded little boy. How dare you judge me? How dare you imply all this—all my feelings—his death—is an act?'

There it was—that smile, that damnable arrogant smile, and it sharpened his face just as it always had. It made her fingers itch to slap him.

'Yes,' he whispered. 'I'm to blame. Come over here, Zoe. Come over here and show me what you'd like to do to me.'

She trembled at the edge of her intentions. She stood there and trembled, her hands balled into fists. He only smiled at her.

She took a step back into the safety of the night. She loosened her hands, expanded her lungs, and slipped into the striped chair closest to her. The one she'd sat in before, only days past, when she'd been reciting to Hayden the story of how she'd tossed her life upside down and come to France.

'Listen,' she said, crossing her ankles. 'Do you hear it?'

The monster tensed. 'What?'

'The music, of course.' She fished into the pocket of the apron, withdrew the bundle she'd taken from Sandu's room.

He'd stuffed it beneath his pillow. It might have made a difference had he not slept so deeply; it might not have. Either way, she was getting what she wanted. Removing the manacles from him had been as easy as slipping her hand beneath his cheek. He'd sighed and lifted an arm to his head but by then she was finished. Prince Sandu had returned to his dreams before she'd even tiptoed back to his door.

Foolish child. Had the cook the slightest degree more valor, she might have stolen the manacles instead.

But they were still tied snug in their sheet, firmly in her possession. She worked at the knot, let the corners fall across her lap in great folds of wrinkled cotton.

'Here they are. The secret to your internment.' She lifted her eyes. 'Tell me. What do they sing for you now?'

Rhys gazed back at her, unblinking. 'Opera. German. Dreadfully overwrought.' 'How nice.'

'Clearly you haven't been to many operas.'

She regarded the torn iron cuffs in her hands. 'No, you're right. Like most of our kind, I've lived my life according to rules imposed by others. Rules to keep me where I am, rules I must abide without question. Opera never figured very prominently in any of it.'

He never moved; the parlor seemed clinched in an absolute stillness. Even the fire dimmed. 'I can take you there, Zee. London. Edinburgh. Even Vienna. Opera and theatre, street festivals, games, whatever you like. I can show you all you've missed.'

'Hmmm. I suppose you could. Or ... I could simply ignore all those rules and take myself.'

She lifted up both manacles. The rolling sparkle of blue diamonds seemed blinding against the rest of the tame darkened room.

'Listen,' she said again.