The Treasure Keeper

Chapter Twenty-Three

The hive of the sanf inimicus reeled only very briefly from the discovery of their losses: the house they'd secured breached; the Romanian half-blood they'd persuaded into servitude stolen; the Frenchmen they'd recruited so carefully murdered.

The body of the beast in the cellar missing. The precious shards of diamonds that guarded him taken too.

It took them almost no time at all to abandon the house. They'd scrubbed out the blood from the floorboards, wiped down the walls until there was no trace of flour or dust. They'd removed all the boards and shelving of the false pantry to restore, more or less, the original entrance to the cellar. They'd rehung the door.

They would leave no element of themselves behind. Their enemy was cunning, and they would not be caught so short again.

The woman named Rez shuffled slowly through each chamber, her nose lifted to the air, her withered fingers tracing nooks and crannies, the hard corners of the wainscoting. When it was done, she pulled the hood of her cloak low about her face and stepped outside.

Her carriage awaited at the curb. She trundled closer, sighed at reaching the bottom of the towered steps—and the horses in their restraints rolled eyes white with fear.

When I asked her later what she'd felt as she'd entered the ruined house, tasted the Leftover emanations of the drakon who had ransacked it, the shock of grief that lingered like a preternatural slap over the one who had perished there, her answer was: naught. She'd felt naught.

Our Gifts are tremendous burdens. You will discover that among us, for all our grandeur, there are those who cannot survive beneath their weight.