The Treasure Keeper

Chapter Twenty-Five

Kimber,

I'm alive. Hayden James was killed by the Others. All three emissaries are dead. Zoe Lane Langford is with me. I'll explain all when I get back. I hope.

—R.S.V.L.

Paris was one ravenous city built upon the back of another. Above the earth it bedazzled: marble facades, slate roofs, breathtaking palaces and cathedrals and ancient walled cemeteries brimming with statues and bodies. Hospitals and monasteries, faubourgs that housed the deprived and the prosperous and everyone in between. People flocked to its opulence, lamented the state of its water and its roads, were overwhelmed by the abundance of theatre and science and public restaurants. There seemed little to rival it in all the civilized world. And tourist or native-born, most people who traveled its streets gave no thought to that other place. That world that still existed, crouched and hunched, beneath them.

The other city had no official name. It was a running sore below the paving stones and filthy wide river, miles and miles of underground tunnels and rooms carved first by Roman hands, then Frankish, Carolingian, French: the bedrock chipped and sliced and hauled away to the surface to supply all those generations of buildings and bridges.

Les carrieres. The quarries.

They had been abandoned for centuries. Water pooled in milky puddles, made lakes and grottoes of entire portions of the hidden city. Where it didn't pool it merely leaked, or dribbled, seeping and plopping from above to below. Always seeking below.

Some of the tunnels had collapsed beneath the weight of the behemoth above them; great sections of Paris were progressively sinking, and all the timber joists to be found would not prevent it.

Most of the entrances to the quarries had been forgotten over time. There existed still a few more obvious apertures, usually by way of Gothic crypts, especially in Montparnasse, but by and large the populace of the upper city had overlooked its origins, and the warren of tunnels lay dead and dark.

But for those that formed the easternmost edge.

The passageways there spoked from a hub in eerie resemblance to the pattern of the streets above. The hub itself had once been a massive field of tightly grained limestone, but that was before Charlemagne. Its excavation had left a chamber the size of a granary and roughly the shape of a rectangle, with side tunnels leading away, both up and down, all across the city, toward walls of yet-untouched stone.

It was cold in the tunnels, but on this particular night it was colder above the ground. Fat gray clouds had enclosed the city, and the first snow of the season had started to fall.

The flakes drifted nearly directly through the twist of smoke that slithered above the sidewalks of la Vallee. They continued their path downward to catch along the shoulders and hair of the woman who walked just below the smoke. A servant out very late, or a tavern girl, with a woolen coat but no hat or muff, no hint of cosmetics or jewelry, not even a simple ribbon about her neck. She was scurrying along the lanes with her chin tucked to her chest, clearly in a hurry.

It was nearing midnight. The stalls of the poultry market she passed were empty. Feathers of all sizes and colors littered the ground, cupped the snow to create walkways of bumpy white. The flakes helped mute the stench as well; they muffled all the worst aspects of the city, hid the piles of garbage and stained roofs, dropped in quiet, drifting beauty along the wealthy and the poor in equal measure.

The woman slowed, then stopped. She hesitated, looking around her, then retraced her steps back to the poultry stalls, began to forge a new path through the virgin white.

The odd twist of smoke followed her, a smudge of gray above her head.

Zoe moved guardedly through the wooden stalls of the market, switching her gaze from the indigo cloak that writhed in its funnel ahead to the sticky mess at her feet, damp feathers clinging in lumps to her shoes and hem. She shook her skirts every few feet, glanced back behind her, and was pleased to see the snow falling quickly enough to muddle her tracks.

The cloak beckoned her forward. It had chosen a point upon the ground, the tapered end of it skipping and hopping, whipping back and forth in a random small circle without disturbing a single chicken feather.

She walked up to it, crouched, and touched a hand to the earth. The smoke that had been a twist rushed down beside her and took a new shape: a man, a dragon-man, with a curved back and bent legs, and talons that scratched the dirt.

"Here?" he asked, frowning at the scratches.

Zoe nodded. She knew they both heard it, the subdued song of limestone made hollow by the open space behind it, about as big as a trapdoor. Everything else around was solid stone beneath packed mud.

She stood, kicked her heel against the earth. The song wavered, then resumed.

"Allow me," said Rhys.

She stepped back, and he curled his hands into fists and pounded them both against the ground.

The song broke. Rhys hit the earth again, and again, and when the stones crumbled apart they both heard that as well, and then they saw it: a hole opening up, snowflakes and feathers tumbling down into the sudden darkness, disappearing.

"You know what I miss?" sighed Rhys, peering down into the opening. "What?"

"The smell of peaches. Ripe peaches. There's nothing that evokes warm days and starry nights, leisure and happy times more than the aroma of freshly picked summer peaches. And plums. Plums are good too."

She glanced up at him.

"This"—he aimed a talon at the gaping hole—"is about as far from that smell as I can imagine."

"Agreed," she said. She stood to dust the snow off her lap. "Shall we go?"

"In a moment. One last thing." He faced her, flakes gathering on his bare skin, speckling his hair, white fluff across his eyelashes. It was coming down harder now, much harder, and she had to blink a few times to clear her own vision. "I know I've told you how much I don't want you to do this."

"Rhys—"

"And I know you're dead set on it anyway," he continued, speaking over her. "It's one of the things I love about you, Zee. Normally. That you think for yourself. That you don't adhere to any sort of conventional behavior for a female, even a female dragon. So now I'm going to tell you for what may be the last time the one thing I hope you'll remember of me: I would give up all the summers of eternity for you. I love you. Forever and my summer days, I'll love you."

She cupped her cold fingers to his cheek. "This won't be the last time."

"Well." His lashes lowered and his mouth curved; he turned his face to kiss her fingertips. "Just the same."

Her hand dropped. "I didn't love him."

His eyes flashed back to hers, and she swallowed.

"You said that I did. But I ... I want you to know that's not true. I wanted to love him. I tried and tried. He was a good man. He was kind."

"Yes," Rhys said, and nothing more.

"But no matter how hard I tried, it just ... didn't happen. Maybe, had we been given more time ..." She wiped the snow from her eyes. "So no, I didn't love him. But he was still mine. That's why I'm here. That's what this"—she pointed at the hole—"means to me. He was good, and valiant, and he was mine."

Snow fell in dots between them, a curtain of endless dots. "Then that makes him mine as well," said Lord Rhys, and shook the flakes from his hair. "Let's go."

Had any of the sanf inimicus inhabiting the quarry tunnels come upon them, no doubt they would have been startled to see a single candle in a lantern bobbing along by itself in the air, an excess of smoke drifting behind it to crease along the bumps and knots of the ceiling.

But they encountered no one. Not the first mile. Nor the next.

She followed the cloak, swishing and flicking ahead of her, a living thing now, deep blue and yellow stars, voices murmuring in chorus, whispering to her,hurry; no, don't; yes, hurry, it's time.

The limestone had been chiseled in great sheets from its base, but the floors of the tunnels were littered with splinters and flakes, and she was afraid she was beginning to leave a trail of blood behind her, for all her invisibility. She looked back and saw nothing but water puddles and sharp changing shadows. If she rinsed her feet, she'd leave prints for certain. So she tried to step lightly and went on.

Her strategy had evolved from simple vengeance into more complicated duplicity. She had instructed the cloak to take her to the leader of the sanf inimicus. Zoe would identify him, wait for him to be alone—and he would be alone at some small moment, she was certain of it—and then she and Rhys would abduct him. Smuggle him out together, out of the quarries, out of Paris, all the way back to Darkfrith.

Let the council have him. Let the Alpha work his tender mercies upon the human who had caused them all so much grief. She wouldn't shed a tear.

And if perchance the man proved to be . disagreeable, or impossible to transport, Zoe would kill him. She would picture in her mind the face of the dragon who had pledged twice to wed her. She would remember Cerise, and the shire, and she would snap his neck.

That seemed an excellent plan too.

Up ahead, the cloak loosened its arrow shape, widened and thinned until it blocked the entire passage as a diaphanous veil. Through the spirits she caught a glimpse of a different sort of light, less mobile. It was a rush light, fixed to the wall.

She paused and glanced at the smoke beside her. Rhys Turned to man, winked at her, and went back to smoke.

She blew out the flame of her lantern and set it against a wall. She crept onward, up to the veil, straight through it, and for the slightest second—as the world plunged deep blue and she tripped forward into infinity—she heard the voices again, clearer than ever before:yes/go/ Then she was through it, back upon solid stone. She stopped to lift her hands to the rush light to get warm, then wrung them down her hair to ensure no stray droplets of water would betray her.

A line of torches ahead, each one a bright cherry of light, until the tunnel ended, and she walked into a vast cavern of stone, minute, refractive glimmers from veins of quartz sparkling through the shadows. The ceiling was domed and uneven, and reached so high along the far side she could not see the top.

It was a living chamber. It had been furnished with fixtures and rugs, an agate-topped card table with matching chairs, a teak dining table with carved phoenixes winging up along the legs. Three satin settees. A painted golden screen in the Chinese style, brushwork depicting birds upon branches, a river rushing below them. A gilded candelabra burning with a dozen white candles. There was even a harpsichord, amber-colored wood and ivory keys, flowers painted in a pretty plait upon the sides.

A bed loomed by the Chinese screen, a big one, with four mahogany posts and ocean-blue covers, furs strewn haphazardly along its base.

But for a single, elderly woman seated upon a bench at the foot of that bed—and all the gossamer songs of the quartz bespangling the limestone—the cavern appeared to be deserted. There was no scent of Others anywhere nearby.

Zoe was invisible. Rhys was close to it, hugging the area around the final torch. Yet the woman turned her face toward them anyway, a sheen of gray-white hair bound into a coronet, shoulders straight, her hands frail and elegant. She lifted a small golden watch fixed to a chain about her neck, checked the time, and let it drop. In her other hand was a teacup; she raised that and drank from it, and Zoe realized right then, from all the way across the cavern, that this woman was a dragon.

Not faint-blooded. A full drakon.

"Will you take tea?" she called, her voice wavering across the silence. Zoe froze.

"Yes, I can feel you," the woman said, nodding. "Don't make me get up. These old bones, you know."

Before Zoe could move again, before she could think, a spiral of smoke bloomed around her, brief warning, then shot past, transformed into naked Rhys before the elderly female. He walked casually to the bed, picked up one of the furs, and wrapped it around his waist.

"Tea would be delightful," she heard him say. "How kind."

The woman made a motion toward the stand by the bed, where a service was arranged. Rhys took a cup, poured from the pot, glanced around him as if to discover a place to sit, then remained standing. He lifted the tea to his nose, appeared to inhale.

"It's not poisoned," said the woman, sounding amused. "If I'd sought to poison you, Lord Rhys, I would have done it long before now."

"You're English," he said.

"I am."

Zoe began to steal forward into the cave. Rhys was sipping at his tea, pattering on in his damaged, cordial voice.

"But I don't know you. I know everyone from the shire, but not you.

"Are you certain about that?" She smiled up at him, and her eyes crinkled. They were blue, Zoe saw. Not the faded, chalky blue one might expect of a human her age—but she's not human, whispered her mind,she's not human, is she?—but an intensely rich blue, like the heart of a midnoon sky.

Zoe weaved around the candelabra, stepping quietly upon the rug beneath it. She cast the cloak at the woman and had it bounce back to her at once, untouched.

Astonished, she tried again. And again, it rebounded, as if it'd struck a rubber wall.

"Mmm, no," Rhys was saying, a brow lifted, shaking his head. He rested his weight upon one leg and held the teacup with his fingers splayed, a gentleman at his leisure with talons poking in every direction. "Don't recall you. Sorry."

The woman rocked back upon her bench, still smiling. Her gown was blue as well, an old-fashioned powder blue, with a stomacher and embroidery. "Now, that is a disappointment. A girl never forgets her first kiss, but I suppose you males are more fickle than that. And you were always such a flirt."

Zoe went motionless once again.

Rhys slowly lowered his cup. "I beg your pardon?"

"I'd fallen. I'd scraped my chin. It hurt like the devil, and then you were there. Right there on the street in front of the silversmith's, the dark and dangerous second son of the Alpha. Oh, how my heart skipped! Even then you were quite the handsome rogue. You smiled at me and told me not to cry. But it hurt, you see. So you bent down, and you kissed it better. You wiped my tears away with your thumb. That's all." She tasted her tea. "That's why I kept you in the basement. That's why I haven't killed you, the way I'm going to kill the rest.

For a moment, he only stared at her. "What are you talking about?"

"Oh." The woman gave a cackle. "I forgot to mention that I was only eight years old at the time. Old enough to know better than to cry, actually, but you were so tender. It was the first time you'd ever truly looked at me.^een me. Such eyes, and that smile! I was swept away. I'll tell you this, I adored you for years after."

Rhys limped back to the stand by the bed, replaced his cup amid the little pots of sugar and cream. The woman watched his every move.

"My name was Honor then," she said evenly. "Honor Carlisle. And that was my first kiss, trifle though it was."

He had turned to see her. He was scowling down at her, his black brows drawn into a slash, his jaw grim. Candlelight flickered over him, highlighted muscle and sinew and the gloss of his hair.

"I'm Rez now," said the woman. "I have reached ninety-one years of age, and my name is Rez."

"I beg your pardon," said Rhys again, still polite. "One does hate to contradict a lady." He gave a short bow without taking his gaze from hers. "But I don't think that's possible."

"What, to be this aged and still this fine-looking?" She laughed at her own wit, and it was a surprisingly youthful sound. "Dear me! And I thought you were the brother with the sense of humor. I'm a time weaver, Lord Rhys. I discovered that right before my fifteenth birthday. Right after I was stolen from the tribe."

"A time ."

"Weaver. Yes. Well, that's what I call it. As far as I know, I'm the only drakon with such a Gift, so that means I get to invent the name. Time weaver. Sounds impressive, doesn't it?"

"Extremely. You know, I believe I do recall the incident before the silversmith's. You were pushed, weren't you? Another girl pushed you."

The woman's smile faded. Her gaze was vivid blue.

"And your hair was . not blond. Not red. In between, sort of coppery. The color of..."

"Sunset," whispered Rez. "My mother said it was sunset."

"Little Honor Carlisle. I say, how you've changed. Why don't you dispel the last of my doubts right now? Go ahead ... weave me some time. Prove to me what you're saying, because frankly—and I'm sorry to be rude—frankly your story reeks like a load of ripe horseshit."

Zoe had been circling about the cavern, making her way closer and closer to the woman. Her scent might indeed be subtle, but the animal in Rez was going to sense her sooner or later, and realize that there was not one drakon before her but two. Zoe needed to be close enough to strike when that moment came.

Rez seemed unoffended by Rhys's bluntness. "I'd really rather not," she murmured, sipping more tea. "It happens that there are some unpleasant consequences when I do it. Little bits and pieces of me gone missing. I try to save the weaves until I absolutely need them."

"Now isn't one of those times?" he asked, again with that lifted brow.

"Not yet." She set the tea upon the bench beside her, put her hand into the pocket of her gown. Rhys Turned at once to smoke, and the woman glanced up at him, took her hand from her pocket with her fingers curled around something dark and glittery.

"Did you think I was going to shoot you?" she asked mildly. "Please. Turn back to your human shape, my lord."

That was when Zoe realized that Rez held one of the manacles. The manacles embedded with Draumr.

It was impossible. They'd separated them, given one to the prince and kept the other, and theirs was still back in the palace, Zoe was sure of it. She'd made sure, right before they'd left. And Sandu had to be halfway home by now—unless the cook had turned on him—had managed to hurt him, force him back to the city—

"Return here, Lord Rhys," commanded the old woman, and after a barely discernible hesitation, he clouded back to the ground, resumed the shape of a man.

No. No! He was supposed to be immune. Was it a trick? Was he only pretending? He was gazing at Rez and she was gazing at him; he didn't glance in Zoe's direction at all.

"Thank you. Now I'd like to address your consort. The female. Come forward, my dear. I need to see you as well."

Zoe looked wildly about the chamber—the distance yawned before her and she was still too far—if she ran at her, if she ran quickly—

"Right now," barked Rez in a sharp new voice, "or else I make your lover suffer. I'm most creative. You really don't want to test me."

Zoe willed herself visible. She was by the harpsichord, one hand pressed to the wood.

"Ah." Rez raised her white brows. "There you are. I've heard about you. Read about you, rather. Zoe Lane. Invisibility. That's a useful Gift too, I must suppose. Except for right now, of course."

"Why are you doing this?" Zoe asked. "We're your kin. Whoever you are, we're your family."

Rez came to her feet, clutching the manacle with both hands. Two spots of color burned high in her wasted cheeks. "Family. Is that what you think? I had a family, Mistress Lane. I had a husband, and a child. And now they're dead—they will be dead, they will be born and they will be dead—" She cut herself off with a snap of her teeth. "You are not my family."

"Did you kill the prince?" she asked quietly, and took a step closer. Rhys was still unmoving, watching the woman without blinking. "Is that how you got the manacle back?"

"Kill him?" The color began to fade from her face. "How little you know, girl. Kill him, indeed—when all this has been for him. Ever him. No, Prince Alexandru of the Zaharen is quite well at the moment. I'm going to take this fascinating bit of iron from him three days from now in the luxury of his castle. He won't even know it's gone for a week. Time weaver," she spat. "I told you." She cocked her head toward Rhys. "Lord Rhys. I regret to inform you your presence is no longer required. I want you—"

"No," said Zoe, with another step.

"—to Turn to smoke. Do not Turn back."

"No,"screamed Zoe as Rhys went to vapor, a cloud of gray lifting and thinning against the stratums of radiant stone above.

There were men in all the tunnels. He supposed he'd not heard them before, not smelled them, because of all the stone surrounding them. He'd never been so deep within the earth, never been so encased in steady music besides that of Draumr. But the songs of the limestone and the quartz combined created a weirdly deadened effect, and Rhys only realized that he and Zoe were surrounded by men after he became smoke, and the music lessened.

Holy God. The head of the sanf inimicus stood below him, and her minions were everywhere. She'd known they were coming. Somehow, she'd known. And Zoe was alone down there amid them all.

She had gone to her knees, staring up at the last spot she'd seen him, veins of quartz glinting and glinting against the dull dark.

She'd folded her hands over her stomach and stared, just like in the cellar. Just like with Hayden.

Rez clucked her tongue. "Yes. Love is terribly painful, is it not?" She could not speak. She could not move.

"I want you to know," the woman said, "how very tempting it is to let you live and be my messenger. That was my original notion for you. I thought I'd feel a touch of affinity for another female of the shire burdened with a singular Gift. I was going to tell you to tell the English drakon that I'm coming for them. I will come for them. I did not create the sanf inimicus, you see, but I certainly did revive them. Yet it occurs to me now, Zoe Lane, that I may send my message just as effectively by letter. The post these days is fairly reliable. Perhaps I'll include a lock of your hair."

Zoe gasped a breath; it choked in her throat. "Are you mad?"

"Yes," answered Rez serenely. "I think I must be." She smiled. "I told you there were consequences to my Gift. For every glory, a price. Isn't that what the council used to teach us? Stand up, my dear. Do stand up. You don't want to die on your knees."

Zoe climbed to her feet. She faced the old woman. Rhys did not reappear.

"I'm not so ill informed as to think this will work on you," Rez said, lifting the manacle. "I did a little research after you thieved back my creature in the basement. That's yet another fine Gift of yours, young Zoe, immunity to Draumr. So I'm going to have to destroy you the human way. With a bullet. Or an arrow. Whichever gets you first." She tipped her head to the black rounded entrance nearby; the twists of her coronet shifted between gold and gray by the candlelight. "Do you know why I chose this place for my home? Because of the music. You think it's soft at first, but it's deceptive, and distracting. It's nearly solid, you see. Nothing beyond it reaches you easily, not scent or sound. Go ahead and Turn invisible, if you wish. My men will hit you anyway."