The Thief

Time would tell, I supposed.

Simon reached for the iron sword he’d set aside, but it had vanished. He spun, turning on me, but I held up my hands innocently.

“You stole it once already,” he stated.

I hesitated. I remembered stealing it from the Tailor household, but I didn’t remember why. I shook off the confusion. “And I’d do it again,” I said, “but you don’t have to be the Thief to steal.”

“Who said I’m stealing?” said a voice from up in the rafters. “It’s more like borrowing. But permanent.”

We both looked up; an Asian boy was perched on the edge of the hole in the roof, turning the sword over in his hands. He was a student at the school - one of Umino’s minions, if I remembered right. When I thought of the school, my mind felt hazy, like large parts were blanked out.

“We had a deal, Kei!” Simon yelled up at him.

“You got what you wanted out of it,” the boy said, looking with interest at the blood coating the blade. “It doesn’t belong to you, anyway.”

“What could you possibly want with it?” Simon demanded.

“What does a scarecrow need with a brain, or a tin man with a heart?” Kei postulated. “Ciao.” He vanished with a little salute, taking the sword with him.

Simon looked at me across the room. His expression changed as he realized he was alone with me, and without the only weapon in the world that could do me permanent harm. The shards of the broken mirror rose to twirl around him in a protective barrier. “So,” he said. “You want to do this now?”

I smiled at him. “Do you even know who I am?”

“Hemlock,” Simon stated. “I’ve been researching mirrors and the Afterlands for fifteen years. Give me some credit.”

“So you’re aware you’ll lose.”

The shards whirled faster, in time with Simon’s breath speeding up. Hybridize lines as disparate as the Grimms and the Ryans and you were bound to get some awkward results. He had the power and neuroses of a Ryan and the single-mindedness of a Grimm. And the bullheadedness of both. Too complicated to keep in play.

I smirked as he backed away. No one would mourn this one. What would be easiest? Strangle him? Poison?

“She said you’d do it,” he said. “She said you’d kill me just to remove the complication.” Fear oozed from his pores.

Of course that was why Simon had taken my mirror. To find her. It could locate anyone, speak with anyone, and there was only one person he’d ever been that devoted to.

I frowned. How dare she try to anticipate my moves! She thinks she can get in my head? That child?

“And how is Kyra? Oh wait, I’ll ask her myself,” I said, sliding my hand inside my jacket to retrieve the handmirror. “Show me Kyra Harman,” I told it.

The surface wavered, but then reverted to normal reflection. Access denied.

“What did you do to it?” I snapped at him.

“Insurance,” he said, licking his lips nervously. “It only works for me now. If you kill me, that mirror is useless.”

“You really think,” I said, advancing on him, “that I value this object so highly that I would drag your miserable hide around with it?”

He swallowed.

I smiled, and tucked the mirror back into my jacket. “You had better hope that it remains valuable.” I grabbed Simon’s wrist and said, “Proxima.” His glass shards sliced lines across my face and forearm but they were little more than annoyances. My skin knit back together before blood could even ooze out.

Simon jerked as a thorny green design wrapped around his skin. “You chained me?” he exclaimed.

“To me,” I affirmed. “As if I trust you to follow me around otherwise. You have a leeway of a mile. Don’t make me shorten it. Now come on, we’re leaving town before the cavalry arrives.”

An odd feeling of wrongness overtook me for a brief moment, the ragged edges of the hole in my memory rubbing raw. I recalled the primary side effect of returning from a body switch. Something was missing in my head, something I’d left behind when I left Gohei’s form. I’d known this would happen, that I would be giving up part of myself, but I had no idea what that part was.

Camille

The forest swallows me whole, and I welcome it. Had I thought of this place as alien? No. This is home. My vision adjusts to the darkness, and my hearing sharpens. Everything would be perfect, if I could only smell him.

I skid to a halt in a small clearing, frustration getting the better of me.

“Coward!” I yell at the trees. “Show yourself!”

I hear only the wind in the boughs and the blood in my own veins. The silence is too much. I wrench a thick branch off of a nearby tree and hurl it away. Still dissatisfied, I wrap my arms around the tree trunk and twist. With a loud crack, it comes apart, crashing to the forest floor. A distant part of me registers the action as being far off the scale of my abilities, but right now I’m only angry that it wasn’t him I twisted in half.

“You miss me that much?” He materializes out of dark whorls among the fallen branches, grin first like the Cheshire Cat. “I ran a quick errand.” Sakamoto holds up a sword. It seems to fold in on itself, curling into an object that he tosses in the air. I’d know that iron cylinder anywhere. My right hand reflexively scratches at my left forearm. The blood that Gabriel had reforged it to siphon off pumps fast through my veins.

“I changed my mind,” he says, in answer to a question I hadn’t asked. “You’re no fun like this. Your brain is completely gone. This isn’t even going to be hard.”

I won’t let him distract me. “Who?” I roar. “Who killed her?!” I lunge at him, and this time he stays solid, twisting in my grip to bear me down to the ground. The wind goes out of me as I hit the earth. Body pressed along mine, he snaps the bracer over my arm, the internal lock sounding with a loud metal click. Immediately I feel pricks in my skin, and I shriek, feeling my power draining away. Furious, I throw Sakamoto so hard he flies through the air. Just before he ought to splatter against a tree, he disperses, reforming to stand at my feet.

The bracer is hungry, eating me alive. I’m breathing hard, sweat running down my face. The bright red clarity drains away, leaving me hollow. Dizziness overwhelms me as I lay back. I mutter a curse at Sakamoto in Japanese and see him smirk before I pass out on the forest floor.

“Mac, Destin, I found her!” Tailor called, sounding both close and far away.

Camille’s eyes fluttered open. Her limbs felt dull and limp, and her throat was dry. The air was bright around her, but it was the bright yellow blaze of the cafe. Somehow she was back, lying in the grass at the edge of the parking lot.

Tailor knelt at her side, checking her for injuries. “You have the bracer back?” he noticed. “When did you get that?”

Camille groaned, not even having enough energy to form an explanation. Mac and Destin came out from the treeline to stand over her too. So they’d been looking for her. The idiots, she could have killed them. She’d almost attacked Hayley. And Jul was...

Tears leaked out the side of her eyes. Sakamoto had to be lying. He just had to be. He had been trying to get a reaction from her, that’s all he ever did.

“What happened?” Mac exclaimed.

“I just found her here,” Tailor said. “I think she’s okay - ”

“Then why is she crying?” Mac demanded, kneeling on her other side. “Hey, you’re alright, right? Come on, gold ranger, you’re fine, aren’t you?”

“Yeah,” Camille croaked. He really wasn’t so bad for a loudmouth shrimp.