Opportunities

Fifteen: Eyes of a Tragedy

Of course, I did have to make another long, foul-smelling, moist trip through the sewers, but that was a minor detail. I climbed up into dusk, which was a surprise, and headed toward O’s house. I was about halfway there when I started to feel how exhausted I was.

O met me right at the door and grabbed me to him. I hugged him, tired but cheerful, and looked over his shoulder at where the Gray Fox was standing.

“I won’t be doing likewise,” he said dryly. “The smell.”

“Oh, I think you’re going to change your mind.” With a dramatic flourish I produced the Elder Scroll.

His eyes lit up, and I thought he did reconsider for just a second before he reached out and took the document from my hand, reverently. “You really did it,” he breathed.

“Of course.”

He stared at it in his hands, motionless. “Now,” he said at last. “Now I must have a little time.” He finally looked back up at me again. “You should bathe and get some sleep. By the time you wake up I should know for sure.”

I was too tired to press for more information. By the time I had sponged myself clean in the little washroom I was barely conscious. Othrelos led me to his old room and laid me down in his bed, and I fell asleep in his arms.

As soon as I was half-awake again, I thought of my favorite childhood story and started giggling. When Othrelos stirred to roll toward me, his eyes opening, I mumbled, “I really did it. I purloined a shadow.”

“What?”

“Nothing.” It was morning; light was coming in through the window. Now that I was neither filthy nor exhausted, I realized that I was famished. “I don’t suppose you have any idea what Mom’s got around by way of food.”

He smiled. “I did get here before you did, you know. There’s enough.”

I was no sooner down the stairs than the Gray Fox did embrace me, hard. “It’s there. With the Stone I could read it. It’s there.”

“Good,” I said. “What’s there?”

He snickered. “Patience. You’re going to have to learn patience if you’re going to run the Guild.” He stepped back a pace from me to give me a serious look. “But first I have one more small errand for you. Minor for you, compared to what you’ve done, but rather important for me.”

He reached into a pouch on his belt and pulled out a ring, then placed it gently in my hand. As I raised my eyebrows he said softly, “You must take this to her and see… see what her reaction is. It may be anger, or tears. I have to know.”

Millona. Of course. I nodded, full of nerves and sadness on his behalf. “What do I say to her?”

“Only that it is from a stranger. Only that, at first. See what she says.” He saw the way I was looking at him, and cleared his throat. “Well, go, then. Move it along.”

With that, he shooed us out of Othrelos’s house, and we went along without a question. And without breakfast, which we had to get in Weye on our way out of town.

We didn’t discuss the ring as we traveled down to Anvil. Othrelos didn’t seem to think it was any of his business. He’d always had what I considered an amazing lack of curiosity for a thief – but then again, as someone who’d lived so long with his own little secrets, maybe he’d decided that some things were better left alone. He did, however, pursue the hint the Gray Fox had dropped about if I was going to run the Guild.

“He’s going to retire,” he said. “He’s going to make you the Gray Fox.”

“Do you think so?” I asked, but I already knew it was true. I knew, as Othrelos didn’t yet, that the Gray Fox had lived under a curse for ten years, that he’d come to regard the title as a burden rather than an honor. I supposed it was only kindness that had made him wait this long to retire, to wait until there was a way to lift the curse – well, that, or the desire to lift it off of himself, so that he could build a life in retirement that promised him something better than total anonymity.

A life with Millona, if he could. And to that purpose I was to take her the ring. How exactly was this supposed to work out? It wasn’t a proposal, surely. Not this way, not “from a stranger.” Some reminder of who he had been?

The day we reached Anvil was sunny, and there was a breeze off of the sea that I had barely remembered how much I loved until I smelled it. The scent did not reach into the closed-off castle, where the elements had been conquered by masonry and lace.

Countess Umbranox’s steward was less than pleased to see me again, but the Countess herself rose with the pleasant, polite blandness of a woman who hated no one because her heart was elsewhere anyway.

I dropped to my knees. It seemed proper at the time. “Countess, I have another message for you. A delivery, really.” I brought out the ring and held it up for her.

She moved idly forward, glanced down at it. Then bent over it more intently, staring, then reached out to touch it – not to take it, yet. She studied it very carefully in my hand before she took it into hers, face stern and growing pale. Now I had her full attention. There was something like horror in her eyes, and her voice quaked a little when she spoke. “This is my husband’s ring. Where did you get it?”

Oh, gods. A test of whether she was still mourning her husband. And me the one who had to watch it play out if she was. My mouth was dry. “A stranger.”

She hoisted me up to my feet, and there was a kind of furious grief in her face, and I thought she might strike me. “Where did you get it?” she cried.

“From me, Countess,” said a voice behind me. “Please allow me to explain.”

She released me, and I turned my head to look back toward the voice. A man who had been sitting in the back of the audience hall was approaching us. A man with piercing gray eyes.

Eyes I’d seen before. I was sure I had.

“Explain then,” she said, her voice cold. “Now, and quickly.”

“I know how important the answer is to you,” he responded softly. “Forgive me, but you will not understand it unless I tell the whole tale.” He paused, cleared his throat uncomfortably.

Was it – oh Shadow take us both, what if it was? Did he really think such a cruel introduction was going to win her over? But it was too late to stop him.

“Centuries ago, a thief stole the sacred cowl of Nocturnal herself. She retaliated by cursing it. Whoever possessed it, from the thief onward into eternity, would have his identity forever erased, and would live only as the Gray Fox. He would be forgotten by every friend and loved one, removed from every record. Every record but one, the one that can never be erased.” He raised his voice and declared the last boldly. “The thief’s name was Emer Dereloth.”

Something ripped open in my head. I knew that name: I had always known it. I had known it since I was seven, since the first time I’d read Purloined Shadows and seen him hailed as the greatest thief who had ever been. His name still belonged to the house where the Guild was headquartered in the Imperial City. Dareloth’s house was the home of all thieves. I knew.

The man started to list other names, and I knew them as he said them, like I’d known the first. I’d memorized them, learned their stories, the things they had done to win their titles: the list had been passed down from each Gray Fox to the next, our lineage, our heritage, our family.

He hesitated, held something forward in his hand as he said the last in the litany of names, and I recognized it as the Gray Fox’s cowl. The last name almost shattered the room.

“Corvus Umbranox.”

That was the last sound for a long moment. He watched her – Corvus, the Gray Fox – with more fear than I would have thought could exist in him. When I could no longer bear how vulnerable he looked, I turned to look at her. If she had been any paler, I would have seen through her. She held herself very still, very tight, but I could see her hands trembling.

“I thought you were dead,” she choked out at last. “Ten years, Corvus. Why did you never – ” She stopped short as she realized why.

“You have no idea how many times I have tried to tell you,” he said. “You could not hear it.”

For just a second relief bloomed across her face, and she was like sunlight: any fool would have loved her. She took two steps toward him, bright and eager. “Corvus! You’re – ” And then she stopped again, and thought, and the light was gone. “You’re the Gray Fox.” When silence was her answer, she went even darker, pained, and the tears he had been fearing finally surfaced. “The Gray Fox cannot be the Count of Anvil. I – I am the Countess, I must – ” She turned her face away from him as she struggled to keep speaking. “I will call the guards. I mean it.”

“I will resign!” he cried. “I will resign right now. I will never be the Gray Fox again.” When she looked at him again, he strode quickly to me, thrusting the cowl forward in offer. “Take it. You are the Gray Fox and the master of the Thieves’ Guild.” He grimaced a little at my hesitation, and added more quietly, “With my thanks. Take it. The curse should be gone.”

Should be. But I took it anyway.

“There,” he said. “I am done with that forever. I will be the Count and husband I should always have been.” He threw himself at her feet. “Whatever you want of me, Millona. But please take me back.”

She was shaking. When she spoke, it was to me. “I suppose my husband is in your debt. All the same, you are a criminal standing in audience with the Countess. I suggest you go. I do not wish to see you again.”

I smiled politely. “You won’t.”

She nodded, looked down at Corvus. Then she fell to her knees to meet him on the floor, and instantly they were wrapped around each other, her sobbing into his shoulder.

It seemed best to leave quietly. I walked away, still looking down with some perplexity at the Cowl in my hands, and listening to the reunion unfolding behind me.

“Corvus.”

“Say it again.”

“Corvus.”