“Nothing that obvious,” Quimby said. “He owns the Ice House. It’s a pub. You could try and get hired there and poke around. But I’m almost positive Thusk will be at whatever banquet is thrown to honor Lord Livna’s return. If I let you into Lytton Hall that night, one of you could swipe his keys. Then you’d be able to search his offices and warehouse at your leisure.”
“Won’t he tighten security if he thinks he lost his keys?” Cole asked.
“I’ll have the keys copied while I send word to Thusk and other members of the council that keys were found,” Quimby said. “If he gets them back from a member of Lord Livna’s guard the same night he lost them, he won’t suspect anything.”
Kurtz fixed his gaze on Cole. “You’re on key duty.”
Goosebumps broke out over Cole’s arms. “Why me?”
“Because you’re not the type to cause a distraction.” Kurtz punched his fist into his other hand.
“You really think that’s necessary?” Cole asked.
“Definitely,” Quimby said. “He’ll need to draw the attention of every eye in the great hall. If you can’t steal the keys, don’t worry about it. I just don’t know when you’d ever get another chance to be that close to Thusk in a crowd.”
“We’ll make the most of it, we will,” Kurtz said. “Don’t you worry about that, eh?”
Cole swallowed hard, glancing between Kurtz and Quimby. Steal a crooked councilman’s keys in a room full of nobles and guards? Sure. No pressure there. And if he got caught, maybe they’d throw him in the Ice Island prison in a cell right beside his uncle.
One could only hope.
Chapter 8
Mistel
A sea of faces, yet not a soul to know.
Warm inside the new tent Cole had found for Mistel, she’d slept in the next morning and missed joining the procession near the boys. A long and lonely day’s travel through the snowy foothills of the Chowmah Mountains left her fingers numb and her cloak stiff with ice. Bart, at least, was looking better now that he had access to the food the army horses were fed.
When the Tsaftown army finally made camp that night, Mistel wasted no time warming herself by the nearest campfire and gulping down a bowl of stew. Once her stomach was full and she was thawed enough to move, she set off in search of Cole.
She finally found him and Kurtz outside their tent, circling each other with no weapons in hand. She stopped just beyond the edge of their camp, where she could see but not be seen.
What were they doing?
“It depends how they’re hooked to his belt,” Kurtz was saying, holding up a metal ring adorned with trinkets. “If there’s a clip, you either have to unlatch it or cut the fabric loop it’s attached to.”
Mistel cocked her head. A lesson in…stealing keys?
Kurtz pinched the top of the ring, demonstrating how the metal flexed open. He clipped it to his belt and waved Cole forward. “Come and get them, eh?”
Cole stepped closer and swiped for the keys. His fingers made them jangle.
Kurtz spun away, shaking his head. “Wrong end, featherbrain. Try again.”
Biting back a grin, Mistel watched as Cole tried again. This time he gripped the right part of the clip, but when he attempted to slide it free, he yanked so hard he nearly pulled Kurtz on top of him.
“If you wanted to dance, you could’ve just asked, eh?” Kurtz shoved Cole off. “Gentle, lad. You’ve got to be light about it. You’re not pulling the reins of a runaway horse.”
Cole tried again, and this time he managed to remove the keys, though his hand hit Kurtz’s side.
“I felt that, I did,” Kurtz said.
Again and again, Cole tried. And every time, something went wrong. He stumbled or touched Kurtz, the clip snagged, or the keys slipped from his grasp at the last second. Mistel smothered a laugh behind her glove.
Then, at last, Cole managed a clean swipe. He spun away, thrust his hands above his head, victorious, and the trinket slipped from his fingers and clinked into the snow.
Kurtz sighed deeply. “So close!”
