After almost half an hour of this, he realized he’d better get going. He had a bounty to earn, and he couldn’t do that in the middle of nowhere. Brushing the leaves off his white clothes, Eli reached out to tap the veil and make a door to somewhere useful.
He caught himself a second before the cut opened. Oh no, it wasn’t going to be that easy. No using the Shepherdess’s gifts, that was the deal, and Eli would stick to it if it killed him. They were enemies in the game now, and if she got even an ounce of leverage on him, she would push on it with everything she had, just as Eli would. Now that he was still, he could almost feel her waiting on the other side of the veil, watching him, urging him to make a mistake, to give her something she could use.
With a sly smile, Eli drew his hand back and slid it into his pocket. He picked a direction almost at random and began to walk through the forest, whistling as the evening rain began to fall.
Giuseppe Monpress, the greatest thief in the world, had retired to his northern retreat for a little well-earned rest and to plan his next heist. He was just sitting down to his first dinner in solitude, a splendid roast duck with shallots and an excellent bottle of wine he’d lifted from the Whitefall family’s private cellar, when he heard a knock on his door.
Monpress froze. This was one of his most secure hideouts. He was high in the Sleeping Mountains, deep in bandit country. But he had an understanding with the local gang, and anyways, bandits didn’t knock. He swirled the wine in his glass, considering his options as the knock came again, louder this time.
With a long sigh and a sip from his glass, Monpress decided he’d better answer it.
He pushed his chair back and walked to the door, grabbing his dagger from the mantel, just in case. The knock was sounding a third time when Monpress opened the door and glared down at his most unwelcome visitor.
It was a boy. Monpress pegged him at a young fifteen. He was scrawny and short for his age with untrimmed black hair and a face that was too likable to mean any good. He was dressed in rags, his feet shoved into ill-fitting shoes that were far too thin for the half foot of snow on the ground, and he looked as if he hadn’t had a good meal in weeks. But, hungry as he must have been, the boy didn’t even glance at the succulent duck sitting on the table. Instead, he looked Monpress straight in the eye and flashed him what the boy probably considered a deeply charming smile.
“Are you Giuseppe Monpress?”
Monpress leaned on the door, framing the duck behind him with his crooked arm, just to be cruel. “That depends on you,” he said slowly. “Unless you can give me a very compelling reason why you know that name, you can think of me as your death.”
To his credit, the boy’s smile didn’t falter. “I heard from a reliable source that Giuseppe Monpress was the greatest thief in the world, so I set off to find him. Took me the better part of a month to pin him down to this part of the mountains, but I couldn’t get an exact location, so I’ve been checking each likely valley.”
“Impressive,” Monpress said. “And what were you going to do when you found him?”
The boy straightened up. “I’m going to ask him to take me as an apprentice.”
“I’m sorry you’ve wasted your time, then,” Monpress said. “Giuseppe Monpress doesn’t take apprentices.”
“Since only Giuseppe Monpress would know that, I think you’ve answered my question,” the boy said. “And I can assure you, Mr. Monpress, that you’ll take me.”
Despite himself, Monpress began to chuckle. “And why is that?”
“Because I’m going to be the greatest thief in the world,” the boy said proudly. “And because, if you don’t take me, I’m going to sit on your doorstep until you change your mind.”
Monpress smiled. “Assuming, for the moment, that you’re right, you can hardly expect the greatest thief in the world to be trapped by a boy at his door. What will you do when I give you the slip?”
“Find you again,” the boy said with a shrug. “As many times as I need to.”
“I see,” Monpress said. “Why are you so determined, if I may ask?”
The boy looked insulted. “I told you,” he said. “I’m going to be the greatest thief in the world. You don’t get to the top by apprenticing yourself to amateurs.”
“So you’re serious about just sitting there?” Monpress said.
“Absolutely,” the boy said, and then, to prove his point, he sat down on the icy step, propping his legs up in Monpress’s door. The position only helped to highlight how pathetically thin he was, and Monpress felt a tiny twinge of pity. Fortunately, it was easily quashed.