Calrin crouched in front of the Noble’s weapons’ cabinet. His dark blue jeans tightened to accent his leg muscles, his bare chest showing off his toned upper body. Dark blue tribal tattoos on his arms licked toward his chest and shoulder blades, stopping just short of each on either respective side.
The cabinet before him was crowded with various weapons, from swords and spears to a couple historical guns tucked securely in the corner.
Emphasis on
securely. Though disabled now, even Calrin could sense the residue of its protective enchantments. Though that alone should have been enough to deter most thieves, it had at least five different locks keeping the door of the main cabinet secured, with the same number on the small drawer in front of him. The ones on the drawer even required enchanted keys to unlock.
And yet, somehow, the Stardust Phantom had broken through all of it, disabling the ones on the drawer, while leaving no trace of himself behind.
Five identical daggers rested side-by-side on the velvet lining of the drawer. In one space where a sixth dagger should have been, there was nothing but pebbly sand.
Nothing but
‘stardust,’ as it had been labeled.
The glittery substance glowed with a faint silvery light in the shadows of the drawer. Each 'star' winked and flickered, as if mocking Calrin and the avorian Noble the dagger had belonged to.
Calrin scooped up the handful of the Stardust Phantom’s calling card. As he looked at it, a few of the pebbles winked out, leaving only what looked like glittery black goldstone.
He tipped his hand, eyeing the stardust as it shifted. He jerked his head, clearing his vision of his blond bangs, and shifted his dusk-blue gaze to the cabinet.
All those weapons, and the thief had only taken a single dagger. He’d known exactly what he was after.
He always did.
Calrin took a breath and closed his eyes. He had to be certain. Though copycats were few and far between as of yet, they were still out there.
He reached into the metaphysical realm where dreams and magic cross. His body shimmered, losing some of its definition into a coppery haze. The tattoos on his arms almost seemed to glow, their lines blurring with the rest of him.
Though general magic wasn’t his expertise, he’d spent enough time around its users to be capable of sensing its presence if he tried hard enough, even pick out familiar signatures. To his dismay, the other bits of magic saturating the house were overwhelming, turning into an indistinguishable mass.
He grunted frustratedly. His brows furled as he focused harder on the stardust. Though the other magic auras were nearly all the same to him, he’d since familiarized himself with the true Stardust Phantom’s calling card.
Finally, he managed it. Though it was fading, and fast, the flitty, mischievous aura of fae magic was unmistakable. It mingled with the twang of human meddling, chemicals the faery magic corroded beyond scientific recognition. In turn, the human chemicals burned away the defining characteristics of the fae magic, making it impossible to tell which Fae Court the magic-user belonged to, even if Calrin had been apt enough in standard magic to sense that himself.
Calrin released the partial link to the more abstract realm, and his form solidified. A grin spread over his lips; this was, without a doubt, the work of the Stardust Phantom.
“So?” Evara, the victimized Noble, asked from behind him, her voice twittering and musical. “Was it really
him?” She finished in a heated whisper.
Calrin nodded. “You said you found it missing a day ago?” he confirmed, pouring the stardust from one palm to the other. That seemed right, compared to the strength of the fading aura and glow.
“About that, yes.”
His grin widened. This was the quickest he’d managed to hear about one of the Phantom’s thefts. Which meant that the thief might not be too far out of town yet. Or, if Calrin was lucky, perhaps the thief was still here.
“Did he take anything else?” Calrin asked without looking from the stardust.
“Some money I’d left out. Nothing else of such value. Nothing that can be traced.”
“The Enforcers already tried to scry for the dagger?”
“Twice! But something’s concealing it!” She huffed her frustrations. “Is it true what they say? That he’s nothing but a
human?” She spat the word as if it was the foulest of insults.
“As far as anyone can tell, yes.” He straightened and faced the avorian.
Evara Airlar scowled at the stardust as he trickled it again from one hand back to the other. Feathers in the browns and whites of a falcon sprouted from her head, flowing down like a bobbed haircut. Though she had the face of a human, her features were sharp, her eyes deep brown with pupils disconcertingly larger than a human’s.
A pair of feathered wings tucked into her sides, protruding from the open back of a designer halter top. She crossed her feather-speckled arms over her chest, her fingers tipped with avian claws.
“Filthy vermin, the lot of them!” she spat, her wings twitching with her irritation. “I’ve put the Enforcers on it, but they’re incompetent buffoons!” She threw a hand and wing up exasperatedly. “Can’t even find a single thief, let alone that nuisance cluster of local rebels that—!”
She cut herself off, eyes widening as she remembered who, exactly, she was speaking to. She swiftly bowed her head, hands folding in front of her as if in prayer. “Forgive me, m’lord. I shouldn’t be burdening you with such troubles. This isn’t your territory to worry about.”
Calrin waved the apology away. “The burdens of one are lighter when carried by the shoulders of all!”
The woman smiled at him. “Eloquently put.”
He winked his thanks, though he couldn't take credit for it. It was something his late sister had been fond of saying. The people seemed to love it, so he'd adopted it.
“The thief got the real one?” He nodded to the open drawer. “The rest are just decoys?”
“Yes, Lord Ba’alrin.”
“Please, call me Rin.” He smiled warmly at her. “This is hardly a formal visit! The Enforcers are skilled, but I’m as vexed as you about why they haven’t caught this pest.” He exaggerated a frown at the dust as it trickled through the bottom of his fist. “Might I keep this?” He nodded to the stardust.
“Yes, yes. It’s worthless, but yes.”
He gave her another charming smile. “Many thanks, Lady Airlar!” He opened a small bag at his belt, careful to make sure the Noble didn’t see the contents. He trickled the pebbly sand inside it, letting the glowing bits join the collection of now dark stones he’d collected from other crime scenes.
He straightened, then offered the Noble a deep bow. “I thank you for allowing me into your home under such short notice, good Lady!”
Evara twittered at his show of formality despite his own request. That he was shirtless and shoeless paired with his physique to paint a perfect picture of the Nomadic Prince.
“The pleasure has been mine, Lor—Rin.” She curtseyed as well as her pencil skirt allowed. Her wings flared slightly beside her.
He started through the manor house to the front door.
“Won’t you stay for lunch?” Evara asked, following him. “Or perhaps some tea, at the least? It wouldn’t take our cook long to prepare some refreshments for your trouble! It’s the least I could do to thank you for coming all this way.”
“That’s generous of you, but no.” He stopped at the grand front door. Sunlight filtered in through a stained-glass window near it’s top. It glinted on the copper-inscribed black torc around his throat. “Sadly, I have business to conduct elsewhere.”
“Of course.”
He collected his pair of leather riding boots from beside the door, and slipped them on.
“Should you need anything,” Evara went on as he opened the door, letting in the afternoon sunlight, “don’t hesitate to call on us!”
“You’ll be the first I come to, dear Lady!” He smiled dashingly, gave her another flourishing bow, then left.
The mild warmth and blossoming scents of late spring filled the air. The Noble’s manor took up most of one side of the street. Other grand houses found space further down the road. Lawn mowers rumbled as human servants and slaves tended to the gardens of their supernatural betters.
Calrin upheld his trained posture and regal stride until, at last, he was out of the line of sight of the Noble's house.
He breathed a sigh of relief, relaxing his posture. Though Evara wasn't so bad as far as the Nobles went, he was happy to leave her presence.
He reached into the pouch at his belt and removed a small bit of the stardust. He couldn’t tell in the light if he’d gotten any of the pebbles that still retained their glow, but it didn’t matter.
He wasn’t entirely sure
why he was still keeping it. It really was worthless. It wasn’t enough to trace the origin of the thief, the fae magic scrubbing the traces of its owner away, and it had no monetary value. Yet, Calrin found it intriguing. Its existence felt like a challenge. A challenge he was quite eager to accept.
He shook it around in his palm as he walked, thinking.
Though he refused to admit it, he'd been obsessed with finding the Phantom since he first heard the rumors. Though the Houses had done their best to prevent the knowledge of this thief from spreading, especially among the human population, spread it had. There had even been speculation that the Phantom was working with a popular rebel group, the Diamond Templar, though the validity of that was yet unproven.
Despite the Phantom’s crimes, Calrin couldn’t help but admire the thief. It took no small amount of both skill and talent to do the things this thief had accomplished. Yes, the thief had to have at least one supernatural accomplice to create the stardust and to have evaded capture for so long, but still, even with aid, he'd accomplished things that should have been impossible for a human, help or no.
Calrin could only hope that
he found the culprit first. A human like that could be of more use alive than dead if in the right hands. And not just for interrogation purposes.
Now, he just had to figure out where the Stardust Phantom would strike next, and get there first. Though the Phantom’s thefts had seemed random at first, recently, Calrin had started to notice a subtle pattern. If he was correct, he had a vague idea of what the Phantom would go after next.
Now, if only he could figure out
where the next target was, along with the possible ‘what.’
He ground the stardust against his palm with his fingers. He needed information. Obscure information that, regrettably, even Evara couldn’t provide. The Noble hadn’t even really known what
she had, only that it was an ancient family heirloom.
Calrin had been content to let her think that that was all it was. After all, he only
suspected it was more than just an old magical trinket. He couldn’t be sure without seeing the real thing. As far as he knew, it could be nothing more than a wild goose chase.
As it was, there were two places you were guaranteed to find even the most elusive of information: a library, and a pub.
Of the two, Calrin much preferred doing his research at pubs. And he had just the place in mind.
He dripped the stardust back into the pouch. With his next step, his body evaporated into a puff of copper smoke, vanishing as he left the physical realm behind. The houses around him turned into ghosts of their physical forms, the emotions of the people inside tickling at his senses as tangible things, not just ideas.
In his gaseous state, he shot through the warped streets of the Dreamscape. For now, it was fairly quiet. This city had very few nocturnal creatures taking up residence, their and their staff's dreams distant wisps twanging at the web of this realm.
With the twisted time of the Dreamscape, it took only moments before he found himself outside a pub he’d heard good things about.
With another swirl of smoke, Calrin reformed in the physical plane across the street from the pub. The noise of people always hit the hardest when he came back from the relative quiet of the Dreamscape.
People swarmed about on lunchtime breaks between the brick buildings around him. A passing dwarf in a stained business suit cursed and startled away at Calrin’s sudden appearance. Recognition flashed in the gruff man’s eyes. He belted out a curt apology, then hobbled on his way.
Designed to retain an old-world feel, even the magic-fed street lanterns of this business district looked like they came from another era, each one meticulously forged with the likeness of dragons and other spindly creatures wrapping them.
A lazy smile played across his face. Now
this was where he'd rather be, not some stuffy Noble's estate. Nobles might have the funds for finery and extravagant galas, but the citizens were the ones who really knew how to have a good time.
Calrin crossed the cobblestone street to the pub. A sign hung outside the door in the shape of a skull, displaying the pub's name: The Drunken Skull. Keeping to the theme, the door’s handle was a brass skull. A few large crystalline skulls peered out from the door itself, giving glimpses of light and movement from the inside.
Pulling the door open by the handle's mouth, he entered the familiar fray of a pub in the raucous throws of lunch-hour.
Nyx crouched in a glade a couple miles deep into a forest. Using a stick, she scratched at the dirt she’d cleared of growth, painstakingly drawing out a series of symbols in a rough circle.
“Your
ceangal rune is too far to the left.”
Nyx startled at the voice. In a blink, she’d drawn a dagger from a sheath in her boot, spun toward the direction of the voice, and threw the dagger. The fizzy floof of her high pony tail swished behind her.
A familiar, wispy chuckle rose form the tree near where her dagger had landed.
A boy sat on a thick tree branch, an impish grin on his bark-toned face. A pauldron of spring-green leaves draped over his arm and dripped down to his wrist. Its equally leafy sash stretched over his chest, meeting with a patch of ivy wrapping his opposite leg. A brown shirt and trousers hugged his lithe, childlike frame beneath the foilage.
He blended in with the tree so well that if Nyx hadn’t known what she was looking for, she would have completely overlooked him. Her dagger stuck out of the branch a few inches from him.
“You missed,” Arowin sniggered, singing his legs.
“You’re late,” Nyx growled.
The fae placed his hands to his heart, an exaggeratedly wounded expression on his sharp features. His eyes—green and gold to match the current season—glittered with his eternal amusement.
“A fae is
never late,
mo réalta gadaí!*”
“And I never miss,
núis crann,” she rebutted, mangling the Irish pronunciation. “The
ceangal’s that one, right?” She pointed to a rune just to her left with her stick.
“Ooh, look at you!” Arowin bent a leg, foot on the side of the branch to place an elbow to his knee and chin in his palm. “Learning stuff! Though, the Gaelic’s two steps backwards, there.”
She sighed, staring at the circle of runes. If that one was off, then they were
all off. “What’s wrong with where it’s at?”
“It’s a couple degrees off from facing Polaris.”
“Will that make the spell unusable?”
He raised his brows at her. Two small horns jutted out from its top from between his short, messy brown-gold hair. “Would I have pointed it out otherwise?”
She glared at him. “Yes or no?”
He sighed animatedly. “No, it isn’t enough to negate it. But perfection always makes it stronger. You need it strong. I’ve already felt the ward on the bag go off at least once since you’ve been here. You’re
sidium rune’s missing a couple lines, too.”
She stuck the stick in the ground, turned fully to him, and crossed her arms. She irately blew a stray curl out of her silver-lined brown eyes.
Dirt dusted the hem of her too-long jeans, a few time-worn rips worn into the stretched fabric. A printed design of roses had long since begun to fade from her gray-black tank top.
“
You fix it, then! You’re the one who wants to see the stupid dagger, anyway!”
Arowin only cocked his head at her. Though not quite a threat, the warning was still there.
Nyx scowled. “
Fine.” She stepped to the rune in question. She scrubbed at the dirt with her shoe, erasing the rune and the ones beside it, hoping she could get by with just redoing those couple. She squatted and set to making the other runes smaller, trying to give herself space to shift the offending one a bit to the right. She’d ask him which was the
sidium rune when she finsihed.
Arowin sighed from just beside her, startling her. “Oh,
move.”
Lips tight from holding back a smug grin, she obliged.
She watched as he erased most of her circle, then redid it in a fraction of the time it had taken her.
She inspected the runes, making sure he hadn’t changed anything else with them. As sure as she’d bethat it looked how it was supposed to, she went to the tattered backpack she’d discarded against a nearby tree. She unzipped it, and pulled out a long belt pouch. Runes similar to the ones creating the circle were burned into the leather.
She stepped back into the circle, and sat cross-legged on one half of it.
Arowin joined her, facing her. Even sitting, he was a couple inches shorter than her.
It was a tight fit, their crossed knees nearly touching, but they made it work. They couldn’t afford to make it much larger; the bigger the circle, the more power it needed to work. The more power it needed, the more unstable it became.
“I’d like my key back.” He held a hand out to her.
“Oh, right.” She adjusted so she could pull something out of one of her pockets. She held her hand between them, and opened it, the buzz of magic tickling her palm. A small key sat at its center, its metal shimmering between blue and green as the afternoon light reflected off it.
“Worked like a charm,” she said as he took it.
His gave her a wounded look. “You doubted it would?” He tucked the key away between the leaves of his sash.
She shrugged. “A dose of pessimism saves lives.”
He sighed exasperatedly. “Have a
little faith in me now and again, won’t you?”
She chuckled, and a smile softened her expression. “I’m here, going through the trouble to show you my latest acquirement while it’s still hot, just because you asked me to.”
He raised his chin, considering her. “Okay. You win that one.” He held his hands out to her, palms up. He wiggled his long, spindly fingers at her impatiently until she placed her larger hands in his.
Arowin closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and tilted his head up toward the sky. He began changing in a language she couldn’t begin to comprehend, the syllables more music and emotion than actual words.
She shivered as the warm, prickly sensation of his power flooded through her, calling on her own energy to help feed the excess magic the runes required. Though not painful, per say, it was far from pleasant, making her insides twist, like being dunked into icy water, only without the cold.
The runes around them began to glow with the same green-gold color as Arowin’s eyes.
As quickly as the surge of magic had spiked, it died down. The runes continued to pulse even after Arowin finished his chant, their existence a faint hum at the edges of Nyx’s consciousness.
“That outta do it!” His gaze shifted to the bag in Nyx’s lap. A childlike hunger glinted in his eyes. “Let’s see it, then!”
Nyx eyed him for a moment, uneasy at his sudden eagerness. She’d already gotten his word he wouldn’t steal it from her—and, being fae, he couldn’t outright lie—but still. His interest in her latest retrieval mission had been unexpected.
All the same, she’d promised to show him the dagger if she managed to steal it. So, she opened the pouch and removed the sheathed dagger.
Pale pink opal inlay veined the black sheath. The hilt and its guard were forged to look like forearm bones. Onyx filled the gap between the silvery bones.
A grin spread over Arowin’s face. He all but snatched the dagger from her to hold it close to his face, inspecting the hilt with one eye—then the other—closed. He unsheathed the thin blade halfway with what Nyx could only call reverence.
The center of the blade looked like translucent rose quartz. Silver coated the edges, hammered into a wickedly sharp point and edges.
Normally, she didn’t ask too many questions when the Diamond Templar called on her to procure an item for them. But this time, seeing how Arowin handled the dagger, she was beginning to regret not asking more questions.
“It’s the real thing,” he muttered to himself so softly Nyx almost missed it. He ran a fingertip over the flat crystalline center.
“It was the only one I felt any magic coming off of…” Her voice trailed off, realizing she hadn’t told him there had been decoys.
His gaze shifted to her, and his grin widened.
“Wait. What do you mean, ‘the real thing?’”
He gave her a sly wink as he slid the dagger back into its scabbard. “It’s definitely the one they sent you for.”
“That’s not what you said the first time.”
He shrugged. “The spearhead you got for them. Did you give it to them yet?”
Nyx’s eyes narrowed.
He groaned, his head and shoulders bobbing with the sound. “I’m not asking to steal it from you, if that’s what you’re worried about!”
She sighed. “No. I can’t risk contacting them right now.”
The last word she’d gotten from the Diamond Templar was that some of the Ruling Houses’ personal guard had started poking around too close to the Diamond Templar’s hideout she was in communication with. They’d warned her that
they would contact
her as soon as it was safe, and to focus on finding their latest batch of requests for now.
“Mm.” He handed the dagger back to her almost reluctantly.
Eyeing him with suspicion, she took it. She took a moment for herself to look it over, searching for any clue why Arowin would have any interest in it. She hadn’t gotten the chance to examine it closely when she’d taken it, but she didn’t see anything particularly special about it that she hadn’t noticed before.
“So, what’s this thing supposed to do?” If the Diamonds wanted it, it had to do
something. She replaced the dagger in the enchanted bag. It fit just right, leaving little wiggle room.
“It’s a dagger. You stab things with it.”
“Your wisdom knows no bounds.”
“It’s what I’m here for!” He winked at her, then closed his eyes in wordless concentration.
The glow of the runes guttered out. Nyx released a relieved sigh as a sense of pressure she hadn’t fully noticed released her. Fatigue and hunger crashed into her.
Arowin hoped to his feet, raised his arms, and stretched, arching his back with a pleasurable groan.
She scowled up at him. “Did you use
any of your own energy, or just mine?”
He grinned at her with guilty innocence.
“You’re a jerk. You know that, Aro?”
“Only to the people I care about, Nixie!” He laughed as her scowl deepened at the nickname. “Oh, lighten up! I knew you’d come out fine! If it’s any consolation, it kept them out perfectly. I felt it deflect someone trying to scry for the dagger again.”
He started kicking at the runes, blurring their shape. Everywhere his feet touched, grass sprouted, hiding the patch of earth Nyx had cleared.
Nyx stood, and her stomach rumbled. Ignoring it, she helped clear away the evidence of their magic.
“Right, then!” He put his fists on his hips, striking a rather Peter Pan-like pose. He checked their work, then gave a satisfied nod. “See you when I see you!” He turned on his heel and headed toward the tree she’d first seen him on.
“Oh,” he paused and glanced over his shoulder at her. “A parting word to the wise, Nyxie; it isn’t smart to keep too many valuable objects together. Might want to hide them about until you’re ready to use them!”
With that, he stepped into the tree, the bark seeming to swallow him whole.
She stared at the tree for a long moment, then looked to the sealed pouch in her hand.
Her stomach growled again, more insistently.
She sighed. She’d been planning on using the money she’d taken from that noble for transportation, but, it would seem, her stomach had other plans for it.
She buried the pouch with the dagger toward the false bottom of her bag. She had to agree with Arowin; carrying both of them around was a risk. She’d have to figure out somewhere to hide them, somewhere that would be easy to access on her way back home.
But, first, she needed to go get something for lunch. And, for the first time in a while, she had the money to get something decent.
Guided by her stomach, she slung her backpack over her shoulders and headed toward town.
*Google Tranlsate says it’s Irish Gaelic for ‘my star thief.’
**‘tree nuisance.’
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