Shana Abé - The Smoke Thief

Rue met her gaze, her deep brown eyes level, her gloved hands now motionless upon her lap. Mim was struck, not for the first time, by her companion's clear and relentless beauty, a deception of porcelain pale skin, black satin brows and lashes, and lips ever the color of roses. She wore powder and paint but Mim had never seen anyone who needed it less; everything about this woman she knew only as Rue spoke of genteel elegance, of exotic femininity.

She would have made a stunning courtesan. But perhaps that was why she was so very good at her job.

“Haven't we been friends long enough by now?” asked Mim.

“Are we friends?”

“Associates.”

“I am from nowhere, Mim. You were absolutely right.”

“Bugger.”

Rue looked away and up, silent, watching the changing clouds past the brim of her hat.

“Very well,” huffed Mim, rustling her paper. And then, testily: “You're doing it again. I always wonder what you're looking for up there.”

“Dragons,” said Rue promptly, and the other woman was startled into a laugh.

“Well . . . that one does somewhat resemble a . . . a rabbit, I think. And over there, above the trees, we have a teapot. Perhaps it's a chocolate pot. That's all I see.”

“Yes. That's all I see as well. Shall we go? I'd fancy a stroll.”

They stood, gathering the paper and parasols and fans, the fine graveled path crunching lightly beneath their feet. They walked in silence for some time, passing a courting couple with a harried little maid trailing behind, and then a pair of leering dandies, who smiled and bowed quite deep.

Rue, Mim noticed, behaved exactly as a gentlewoman should: she ignored them completely.

“By the by, Mistress Rue from Nowhere, ladies do not refer to their legs, either.”

“ Ladies sound frightfully boring to me.”

“Aye. That's rather what all the gents tell me.”

“How glad I am, then,” said Rue serenely, “not to be one.”

The path began a turn, leading them through a knot of nannies and skipping children. Their shadows swept before them, the violet dusk shades of two wide-skirted women, arm in arm.

Mim asked, “Exactly how fine is that bracelet, anyway?”

“Twelve carats of diamonds, nineteen of sapphires. Top notch.”

“I believe I might be able to find a new situation for it.”

“I thought you might.”

“But the set will have to be separated. Especially the larger stones.”

“I know.”

The sun had vanished fully, softening the sky, splashing lustrous gold across the royal blue clouds.

“Poor duchess,” sighed Mim. “But I suppose she has more.”

“She does. And I mean, really,” added Rue, watching the clouds, “who wears a tiara to a soirée?”

Number 17 of Jassamine Lane, in Bloomsbury, was by no means the grandest nor the meanest of the rows of red brick and gabled houses, but one as comfortably middle class as all the rest. It had green shutters and the same four narrow, street-level windows as nearly every other residence on the block. Perhaps its only noticeable distinction was the door, made not of wood but of painted steel, shaped to fit the frame with absolutely no gaps around its edges.

True, the windows were seldom cracked and the curtains remained drawn, but that might be easily excused by the sooty London air, which begrimed whatever it touched.

And true, too, that the mistress of the house was hardly ever seen, but she was rumored to be elderly, or infirm, or perhaps a little mad. In Bloomsbury, infamous retreat of the city's artists and performers, such eccentricity was barely worth mentioning.

That mysterious lady approached Number 17's steps just as the last candle lantern down the street was being lit, responding with a nod to a collier's cheerful, “Evenin', miss.”

The steel door latched gently shut behind her.

Her sanctuary, her haven. Rue purchased it six years ago and had spent a great deal of effort and money since making certain of its security. Every opening had a secondary means of blocking it, from the windows to the keyholes to the chimney. She had memorized the scent of each room, the familiar creaks of the walls and stairs and floors. She had made this place hers, hers alone, and was a part of every corner, every peg hole and crevice.

Because despite its soot, London was a foggy place. Many things could hide in the fog. Rue should know.

She placed her fan and reticule on the entrance table, weighing the dark.

The rooms inside were far more richly furnished than might be expected for the neighborhood; it was her only open concession to the secret life she led. She enjoyed luxury, and her surroundings revealed it—sumptuous woods and imported fabrics, exceptional art and the finest furniture.

All, at the moment, decidedly unlit.

She never kept her home bright by normal standards, but usually her abigail took care to leave an oil lamp burning by the door.

Her heels clicked down the hall as the gloves were removed, and then the hat. She tossed them to a chair in the parlor—also dark—then glanced into the drawing room. But the only illumination to be seen was coming from the dining room, and she paused in the doorway there, taking in the chairs and mahogany table, the giltwood mirror above the mantel reflecting the candelabra in an infinity of slim dancing flames.

On the table were laid out the five evening newspapers, plus two others she hadn't yet seen. Rue leaned over them with her palm against the wood, browsing the headlines.

“Where is the maid?” she asked quietly, without looking up from the papers.

“I gave her the night off,” said a voice, just behind her.

“Again?”

“We don't need her. I can manage without her.”

She turned, finding the boy in the shadows, lean and a trace too small for his twelve years, light brown hair that never looked combed, amber-lit eyes like a night creature from a very dark woods.

Rue crossed her arms. “She is not in your employ, Zane, she is in mine. I'd appreciate it if you stopped sending all the help away.” She frowned, looking him up and down. “And where is your new livery?”

“It itches.”

“Then wash it.”

“I ain't got—”

“ Have not got.”

“—time to wash it. I've been out, you know.”

“I do know. But you need to wear the livery, especially when you are here. Otherwise, you draw attention. The maid and the cook have uniforms; you must as well. We are an exceedingly proper establishment.”

He offered her his most innocuous smile.

A mountain of combs and uniforms would not alter him: Zane was a street urchin, clever, untamed. She had found him one winter night two years ago in an alleyway, bleeding to death from a knife wound to his ribs. She had passed by him, silent as the air, but he had lifted his head anyway, and then his hand to her.

He had seen her. He had found her eyes. And because he had done that—because, somehow, he could—she went back to him.

Skinny, smelly trouble. That was her first thought. She didn't need trouble in her life. She didn't need another risk to plague her, she had too damned many as it was. Rue had been doing very well for some while, and no little part of that was because she knew how to keep to herself.

Yet in that reeking alley she had hesitated, and then crouched down before the child. She had examined his pasty face, the dim pale eyes that pleaded with hers and the lips that tried to speak.

He had seen her.

She touched her fingers to his cheek and decided, on impulse, to take him home to die.

She was not someone accustomed to acting on her impulses. The few times she had, great changes had swallowed her life. Zane, as it turned out, was no exception.