My lungs contract at the thought.
She’ll make you a killer, Maisie,Father’s voice echoes through my mind.If Queen Nimue knows you have death magic, she’ll hunt you down. She won’t stop until she makes you one of her assassins. I can’t live with that. You’re not a killer, my child. I can’t see you made a murderer…
Clenching my jaw, I force the ruminations away and reach inside my coat pocket. A smile spreads over my lips as I draw out the shell-shaped comb. I run my fingers over the smooth mother-of-pearl, watching the starlight glint off the silver teeth of the comb.
Podaxis taps a claw on the grassy ground, eachthudbrimming with reproach. “I see you didn’t sell that to Mr. Tuttle.”
“Nope.” Ignoring his beady, condemning eyes, I brush one side of my hair behind my ears and pin the comb in place. In an instant, my hair ceases whipping into my eyes. “Cutting my hair was the best choice I ever made.”
“You say that often.”
“It’s always true.” I reach into my pocket again, and this time I come away with my newest treasure.
Podaxis gasps at the sight of the stolen fork. “I didn’t see you take that! Where did you get it?”
“A restaurant.” I run my fingers along each of the four tines, then over the scalloped shell-like design on the handle. Now that I have time to properly study it, I can confirm that it is, indeed, pure silver. My nose twitches as I watch it glimmer even brighter than the hair comb.
“You know, your agreement with Mr. Tuttle states that you’re supposed to hand over everything you steal.”
“I know our agreement, Podaxis. Technically, we never made a binding promise. I’d like to think of it more as a general suggestion. Besides, I can’t wait to add this to my collection.” By collection, I mean the hatbox full of silverware I have tucked under my bed at the theater. If only I hadn’t had to leave my former collections behind when I went on the run. I had so many pretty things, curated over many years.
“What, pray tell, are you planning on doing with yourcollection? Hmm? I know you aren’t going to sell it, although I can only guess it would be worth enough to either fund a few weeks of performances at the Vulture’s Prose or rent us a new place to live.”
“I like where we live. I also like to collect shiny objects. That isn’t a crime.”
“But stealing them is. Keeping them under your bed is just leaving evidence lying around.”
I scratch an itch on my scalp with the tines of the fork. “I don’t keep everything I find.”
“You still steal them.”
“No, I sell them,” I say. “That’s less stealing and more taking one thing from one place, moving it to another, and making a profit. I’m basically a merchant.”
Podaxis scoffs. “I honestly can’t fathom how you do it.”
“How I do what?”
He taps his hind claws on the ground again. “How you lie.”
“It’s not a lie if I can successfully utter it aloud.”
“No, I suppose not. But somehow you are able to convince yourself something is true when it is perhaps only partially so, and in turn, weave untruths into truth. It’s maddening.”
I wink. “Only because you haven’t mastered the art of doing it yourself. It’s called talent.”
“I’d call it something else,” he mutters under his breath.
Silence falls between us, and I think that might be the last of his arguments. Although, knowing Podaxis…
“Why didn’t you go out with Martin tonight?” His tone has shifted from condemning to hesitantly curious.
My muscles tense all the same. “Why would I?”
“I thought you liked him.”
I roll my eyes. “Hardly.”
He shifts awkwardly from claw to claw. “You seemed to like him enough to…you know.”
