The Spirit Thief(51)

“Welcome,” Eli said, slipping between the branches with practiced ease and opening the rickety wooden door. Josef followed him, clutching his injured chest and grumbling under his breath the whole way. Nico went into the hut last, pulling her coat tight around her and her hat down over her eyes as she squeezed between the branches. Only when they were all inside and she saw the first sparks of a fire being struck did Miranda begin to untie her own bag from Gin’s back.

King Henrith had just made it to the ground. He looked at the hut with no small amount of panic in his eyes. “What should I do?”

“For now, go in,” Miranda said, struggling with the leather straps. “We have a deal, and I don’t think he’ll go back on it. After all, you’re no profit to him now.”

The king grimaced. “That’s supposed to be comforting?”

“With a thief like him, it’s the most comforting thing you’ll hear. Go in, I’ll follow in a moment.”

The king hovered a moment longer and then timidly made his way into the hut.

“Can’t really blame him,” Miranda said as the king’s shadow joined the others’ around the infant fire. “It’s not exactly a place of pleasant memories, considering what he’s been through.”

Gin snorted, sending a wave of dead leaves scurrying across the grass. “What kind of wizard starts a fire with rocks?”

“The same kind who flirts with trees, apparently.” Miranda worked the pack free at last and set it on the ground beside her. “No wonder he was so hard to track. Half the spirits in this clearing are in love with him. It’s like that stupid door all over again.”

Gin rolled his eyes, but stayed oddly silent. Miranda walked over to his head and began to scratch his ears. “How does he do it?” she murmured. “How does he get them to just, I don’t know”—she shrugged—“do what he says?”

“There’s something about him,” the ghosthound said quietly. “He’s got a sort of brightness.”

Miranda kept scratching, listening carefully. Spirits, even talkative ones like Gin, almost never talked about the spirit world. She’d tried to cajole information out of him on uncountable occasions, but every time he refused, saying it would be too difficult, like trying to describe the color red to a blind child. Some things, he would growl, you just had to see for yourself.

When he didn’t continue on his own, she tried a delicate prompt. “Brightness? Like sunlight?”

“No,” Gin said, “not like light through the eyes. Bright, like something beautiful.” He shook himself and stood up. “Leave off, I’m no good at this. He’s just got a light around him, all right? And spirits are attracted to light. Interpret as you will. I’m going to get some food. Be back in a few hours.”

Then he was gone. It happened so quickly, she barely felt his fur slip between her fingers before he vanished into the night. Miranda stood for a long while where he had left her, looking up at the full moon with her eyes closed tightly, trying to imagine what light not like light through the eyes looked like. Only when Eli yelled something about dinner did she finally go into the cabin.


“All right,” Eli said, rubbing his hands together. “What’s the plan?”

They were seated in two factions on either side of the fire, Miranda and the king against one wall, Eli against the other. Josef was lying flat on his back in the far corner, gripping the hilt of his iron sword while Nico hovered over him, treating the nasty gash in his chest. She had finished cleaning the glass sand out of it by the time Miranda entered and was now stitching the skin back together. From Josef’s bored expression, she might as well have been doing needlepoint next to him rather than in him, and Miranda was impressed in spite of herself.

Eli’s question seemed aimed at no one in particular, but when no one answered, Miranda took it upon herself. “A frontal assault is out of the question,” she said. “Renaud will be on high alert. He also has a master swordsman, as we saw, so there’s that to think about.” She nodded slightly at Josef, who either didn’t notice or didn’t care. “I just wish we knew what other enslaved spirits he had.”

Eli shrugged. “Well, he can’t have too many enormous, mad spirits just lying around.”

“We can’t count on that,” Josef said. “I’m not a wizard, but even I can tell the man’s obviously powerful. I mean, no offense, Miss Spiritualist, but he had you squirming in the sand the minute he got serious.”

Miranda blushed scarlet. “Do not postulate where you do not understand, swordsman,” she snapped.