Aine Crabtree - The Thief

The man’s mouth pressed into a hard line.

“Perhaps not, you’re right,” Gabriel said with an exaggerated sigh. “The world has changed, hunter. It’s not the place it was when I left you here, if you haven’t already gathered that from your imp book club,” he said, glancing at the stacks of reading material. “The humans have forgotten us completely. They don’t believe in anything but their own ingenuity anymore. Except for a few. Your own students, in fact. The Uminos have gone far, far beyond their original purpose in your absence. I might have egged them on.” Gabriel shrugged. “Meanwhile...in the Afterlands, the Ryans are in Angwar preparing for a final war. They’ve almost closed their grip on the other kingdoms. The ferals of Farpeak are all that stand between them and total dominance. You know how those Ryans are, they just can’t ever be satisfied with what they have. But with no more traveling mirrors, we’ll be safe until another Mirrormaker gets their act together.”

My heart thumped. Rhys’s powers were problematic, but Dad had made blades of the school windows as if it were nothing. I had no idea what he was capable of, not anymore.

“So. Why am I telling you all this?” Gabriel asked the man, his voice turning cold. “What is the point of giving your enemy any information at all?” He gave a little smirk. “Because you care too damn much. Oh, wait ‘til you see what Meredith and I have been up to. You’re going to love it.”

The green-haired man’s lip curled into a snarl.

Gabriel and Meredith? Working together? What was he saying? And his tone had become so cruel, so devoid of empathy. My head swirled with information. Had I made a horrible mistake?

“She’s still around, of course. Back to murdering people left and right when the mood hits her. No one really knows how to stop her, after all.” Gabriel faked a realization. “Oh wait, you do. Well I should let you out, shouldn’t I, so you can stop her from terrorizing the villagers? Just like old times.” He lifted a long cord from around his neck - from it hung an ancient skeleton key.

The man backed up slowly, unsteadily. He eyed Gabriel with deep distrust as the key went into the cage’s padlock.

“I’m letting you out, hunter, aren’t you grateful?” Gabriel taunted.

“What’s the benefit to you?” the other man spoke at last, his voice creaky with disuse as the lock clicked open.

“You say that like I think only of myself,” Gabriel said, opening the cage door. “Can’t I just offer you a helping hand?”

He reached out and grasped the other man’s hand tightly, a rune on his palm suddenly flaring to brightness.

Swirls of energy arced between the two men - bright, stabbing bursts of acid green flowing from Gabriel to the green-haired man, and pinwheeling, icy blue whorls moving the opposite direction, almost like the energies were combating each other even as they barreled past to a new destination.

Or, if what Gabriel had said was true, an old destination.

As the energies balanced, both men collapsed. Gabriel was the first to snap awake, reaching up for the padlock, key in hand. Was he going to lock the other man back inside after all?

Then I remembered - that wasn’t Gabriel. Not anymore.

Gabriel - in his pale, starved, green-haired body, leapt at the other man, tackling him to the floor. He curled a hand around the other man’s throat. “Who am I kidding?” he said, grinning wickedly. “You know me too well.” A sickly green light pulsed under his fingers.

“No!” the man shouted, but then made choking noises even though Gabriel took his hand away. A spiky, acid green design covered the man’s entire throat like a tattoo, except it seemed to glow slightly.

Gabriel sat back, panting, pine-green hair sticking to his unfamiliar face, narrow with high cheekbones and a wide, cruel mouth. His hand held aloft a ball of whorling frost, that seemed to do war with the green arcs twining from his fingers. His other hand reached into a pocket of his rotting, dated clothing and lifted up a bell, no larger than an acorn. The frost seeped into the little item, disappearing, and with a burst of green light it was gone. Then the bell was still, looking not the least bit out of the ordinary. “How fortunate that was still there,” Gabriel laughed, and it sounded strange with this unfamiliar form. “Thanks for hanging onto my stuff for me, pal-o’-mine. Though I can’t say I appreciate what you’ve done to my hair.” He plucked at the tangled mess that cascaded over his shoulders.

The man’s hand was over the seal at his throat. Hatred burned in his narrow, dark eyes, eyes that I had thought were Gabriel’s.

“Oh, fume all you want,” Gabriel grinned, pushing his unruly hair out of his face. “We both know you’re nearly useless unless you can speak. So welcome back to the world, Katsura. You still can’t lay a finger on me.” That twisted half-smile. Those glittering green eyes. It was the same face, the exact same expression I’d seen on the painting in the lab.

The Thief. Hemlock, the one who’d been missing for a century. The immortal who was counted among the greatest villains of history. Gabriel was Hemlock. What had I done?

He tucked the bell into an interior pocket. “I’m sure your voice will come in handy some time. It can be marvelously persuasive.”

Expression furious, the man dove at him; Hemlock caught his wrists and snapped, “Haurio.” The man immediately began to weaken, even as the hollows in Hemlock’s cheeks filled out, his posture becoming steadier. Finally Hemlock let go, and the man hit the floor with a metallic smack. It looked like that had hurt, but he couldn’t even groan - not with his voice missing.

“That should be familiar to you.” Hemlock said conversationally, nudging him in the side with his foot. The man was breathing, but he seemed too exhausted to move. Hemlock knelt and retrieved the hand mirror from the interior of the other man’s jacket, where he’d stowed it when he’d taken it from Dad. “I was worried I’d have trouble getting back into the swing of things, it having been so long.” He tucked the mirror into his belt, flexed his fingers, and cracked his knuckles. “Where we’re going, I’d rather you not follow. Come on, Juliet, love, we’ve wasted enough time here as it is.”

He reached out to me; I shrank back. “I don’t bite, sweetheart,” he said. “I’m here to help you, remember?”

“You’re the Thief!” I shouted, backing up toward the door. “You were the Thief the whole time!”

He sighed. “Not ‘til just now, love. I can’t very well be the Thief without my powers, can I? I needed to get my body back.” He smirked. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

My heart hammered in my chest. This was all my fault. I had done it. I had opened the door, given him everything he needed. If I’d only done what Bea had asked -

“We’re short on time, but I suppose I owe you a small explanation. My name is Hemlock, but you can go on calling me Gabriel if you like. This fellow here is Gohei Katsura. Gohei and I have had a bit of an ongoing misunderstanding for the last...how long, would you say, pal?” he asked the mute man, who was still struggling to sit up. “Let’s just say we’re into centuries now. It’s all very complicated and tedious.”

“You lied!” I insisted.

“I may have lied about my identity,” he said, “but I wasn’t lying about helping you. There are no limits to what you and I can do together. Simon is on his way, girl, and while I may not be the most upstanding citizen on either side of the mirror, you will fare far better with me than with him. He’ll use your powers to take over the world.”

“And what will you use them for?” I demanded.