Fallen Thief

  Fallen

  Thief

  Merrows ◆ Book Two

  A. M. Robin

  Text & illustration copyright © 2021 by A. M. Robin

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in whole or in part, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher or author. For information regarding permissions, write to amrobinauthor@gmail.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-7331112-2-5

  For my mother,

  who opened my eyes

  to the magic of storytelling

  Contents

  One ◆ The Eyes of the Empress

  Two ◆ The Fire

  Three ◆ The Wishing Well

  Four ◆ The Sorcerer’s Transformation

  Five ◆ The Tower

  Six ◆ The Long-Forgotten Voice

  Seven ◆ The Crimson Vial

  Eight ◆ The Deadly Dare

  Nine ◆ The Day of Dreams

  Ten ◆ The Cursed Children of Crispin

  Eleven ◆ The Open Window

  Twelve ◆ The Empress’s Warning

  Thirteen ◆ The Trials of Terror

  Fourteen ◆ The Light in the Darkness

  Fifteen ◆ The Golden Gift

  Fallen

  Thief

  Chapter One

  The Eyes of the Empress

  T

  he rocks glistened beneath the rush of water that flowed over them. Mira kneeled at the edge of the river and turned her gaze upstream, where the water was deep enough that she could no longer see what it held in its depths. She wondered how strong the current felt under the surface.

  Closing her eyes, she dipped her fingers into the water, and the current pushed against her hand. When she opened her eyes, she realized she had summoned her own current against the flow of the river, creating a small wave that broke in an arc over the rushing water until she let it drop.

  I suppose a baby could have washed up on this riverbank, Mira thought, trying to imagine it.

  She stood up and fiddled with her hair, which had grown to hang right below her shoulders in the past month that she had been back at home. When she could no longer bear the silence, she turned to her adopted mother.

  Appoline Byron smiled, her face glowing under the rays of afternoon sunlight. “It was here,” she said with a nod.

  It was a strange feeling, standing at the spot where she had been found as a baby, more than eleven years ago. Mira wished she remembered how it happened—how she had come to be separated from her twin brother in the ocean and ended up alone in the Espyn River.

  A clatter coming from her other side made her look around to see her twin kick a small pile of pebbles into the water while her best friend crouched down to peer into its depths.

  “And the ones who found her said she washed up after a storm?” Kay asked, frowning as he scattered the pebbles with his foot. It had been a month since Mira, Kay, and Peter had returned to Crispin from their adventures in the kingdom’s capital, and Kay had only just given in to Appoline’s pleas for him to let her cut his hair. He still tossed his head to the side as if to get his hair out of the way even though it laid nowhere near his deep-blue eyes.

  “I doubt anyone really saw it happen. Right, Miss Byron?” Mira’s best friend, Peter Waylor, said as he traced a circle in the water with his finger. He was the son and apprentice of the town’s beloved puppet maker and often sported smears of paint on his hands and apron from painting in the workshop. Today, he had traded his apron for a smart-looking vest for his first trip outside of Crispin with Mira and her family.

  Appoline nodded again.

  “I only came over because I was headed for the bridge to Aindel when I noticed the group of villagers gathered here,” she said, tracing a finger back the way they’d come to the rickety stone bridge over the Espyn River. “The storm had been so bad the night before that I’d almost given up on my trip to meet with one of my astronomy professors at the time. The river had flooded beyond even where we’re standing right now, so I guessed that someone had fallen into the water and needed help.”

  “But it was only me,” Mira said quietly. She watched her mother’s every move carefully, for this was the most Appoline had ever talked about the day Mira was found. She couldn’t help smiling under Appoline’s warm gaze, feeling truly lucky that her mother had decided to go on her trip on that fateful muggy morning.

  “It was only you,” Appoline repeated and playfully raised her eyebrows. “Only the most important person in my life. I knew from the moment I laid eyes on you that I was meant to be there at that precise moment so that I could take you in as my own. You were so small and fragile, only a few weeks old out in the cold winter air and bundled up in a blanket a villager had wrapped around you. Even so, none of it seemed to bother you. Your eyes were sharp and curious, and your gaze was steady and strong. The villagers were discussing the orphanage when I reached them, but I made it clear that there was no need for that.”

  She turned to Kay and brushed his hair back from his forehead with her long, delicate fingers.

  “And I expect at that very moment you were in a similar situation on some riverbank in Rook.”

  Kay shrugged and kicked yet another pebble out of his way.

  “Don’t know. I was found on the seashore down in Rook,” he muttered. “Some fishermen found me while Mr. and Mrs. Winters were shopping at the market. But I don’t think they would ever say I was the most important person in their lives. Can’t really say why they took me in to begin with.”

  Mira pressed her lips together. She thought back to the innkeepers’ response to Appoline’s letter when she had asked whether Kay could stay with them in Crispin as her adopted son. Mr. and Mrs. Winters had only asked for a sum of money to help pay for their inn without a single question about the boy they had once raised.

  “Then they are fools,” Appoline said. This made Kay look up at her. His lips tugged back into a smile.

  “Yeah!” Peter stood up and pushed back the red cap he wore over his blond hair so that he could look at Kay. “They sound like cranky old moneygrubbers if you ask me.”

  Kay laughed at that.

  “Can’t argue with that,” he said.

  “I just can’t believe no one suspected that either of you could be merrows when you were found right next to the water,” Peter said, crossing his arms.

  “No one suspected it,” Appoline agreed as she slowly led them away from the riverbank towards the stone bridge. “Not even me, not even after Mira’s feet started breaking out with those horrible rashes. Merrows were…extinct.” Appoline shook her head. “It was a fact that we were all so confident about, and no one ever thought to question it. We can all be blind to the truth if the lie that covers it up is carried with just the right amount of confidence.”

  She turned to Kay and placed a hand on his shoulder.

  “But I saw the truth the moment I saw you at the inn in Rook a year ago. I recognized that you must be Mira’s twin because you had the same look of determination and curiosity that I always loved seeing in Mira’s face.”

  “There were also the freckles, hair, blue eyes,” Peter listed, counting his fingers. Mira nudged him in the ribs and rolled her eyes.

  “Those played a part, too,” Appoline replied with a wink. She turned back to Kay and tapped him gently under his chin, the way she often did with Mira. “I wish I could have reunited you two sooner, but I needed the blessing of your guardians. They wouldn’t answer any of my letters until this last one.”

  “Turns out we didn’t need their blessing.” Mira skipped forward happily. “We met e
ach other all on our own.”

  “Very true,” Appoline agreed. “Now, let’s get on with our trip and find the shop where you two met, shall we? I have some questions for the owner before my meeting with the council tomorrow.”

  Mira bit her lip. The meeting would be about King Avon’s recent kingdom-wide request for any new information on the merrows to be reported to the royal court immediately. Up until Mira and Kay revealed to the world that they were merrows, the entire kingdom had believed that the creatures were extinct—that they had all died more than a century ago from a deadly disease that had spread through them like wildfire.

  The buzz that went around Crispin after the arrival of the twin merrows had started up again as soon as the palace messenger delivered the king’s order. Appoline was called in to meet with the Town Council, and she immediately made plans to travel to the place where Mira had once found an enchanted music box that could only be opened by her people.

  They reached the stone bridge that led to Aindel.

  “You weren’t wrong about the state of this thing,” Peter said. Mira thought she heard him gulp. She remembered how nervous she was at the sight of the water rushing underfoot the first time she had crossed the bridge with Appoline. Now, she watched the water flowing with a sense of longing in her heart; it had been quite some time since she had gone for a swim. She missed the training sessions she and her brother used to have at the bottom of the lakes surrounding the kingdom’s capital earlier in the summer.

  “People cross it all the time,” Mira said, leading the way over the bridge with ease.

  See? she threw her thoughts silently to Peter, a particularly useful power that only merrows possessed, which her brother had taught her to use. No need to be scared.

  “I’m not scared!” Peter complained aloud from behind her. “Show-off,” he added under his breath.

  Mira laughed as she walked on with a lightness to her step. The road was as busy as ever, with villagers and travelers crossing the bridge with their horses, carriages, or other livestock.

  When Mira heard the others follow her, she clapped her hands and turned to walk backward, beaming at them. “I can’t wait for you all to see the antique shop!”

  “I’ve already seen it,” Kay said. “It’s not very impressive.”

  Mira frowned and spun around to face forward.

  “Right. It’s the place I met you, and where I found the music box that proved that I was a merrow. Not important at all.”

  “Yeah, but Alexandra told us the shopkeeper didn’t even know what the music box really was,” Kay pressed.

  Mira felt a familiar pang of sadness at the mention of their friend’s name. Alexandra was still in the Ripple, along with her mysterious mentor, Aristide, both helpless in their never-ending sleep. Mira often dreamt of her stunned face, of how she had pushed the children she was guarding to safety before the wretched Shadowveils shot her with a poisoned arrow on their last night in the capital.

  Mira began to speak, felt her voice crack, and cleared her throat. “Well, we might as well see what else he has in his shop. Mother said there might be other merrow-made things in there.”

  “That’s right,” Appoline said from behind her. “There is no harm in asking him what he knows, just one more time. He might be helpful.”

  “Yeah, what if he has something that can wake Alexandra and Aristide up?” Oh, how Mira hoped this was the case.

  “Or a magical weapon to help us fight the Shadowveils,” Peter added.

  “You three did rather well without any magical weapons when you faced them in the Ripple,” Appoline said, her voice practically dripping with pride.

  Mira smiled, looking down at the paved road that led them through the small village right outside of Aindel. She supposed Appoline was right. She, Peter, and Kay had escaped the Shadowveils using their own skills. They had resisted their treacherous dreams that were designed to make the children reveal their whereabouts for as long as they could. They had even fought against the Shadowveils in the flesh and lived to spread the word about the heartless merrows that would hurt anyone who threatened to reveal them to the world. Mira and Kay had learned the hard way that, even though they were merrows, the Shadowveils and their ruthless leader still saw them as a threat as long as they refused to give up their lives on land to live in a hidden underwater empire.

  Without thinking, Mira ran her fingers over the faint white scars that were barely visible on her arms and fingers. She could still imagine the sharp pain she had felt as the Empress of the Sea, in the form of a white eagle, had jabbed at every inch of skin she could find on Mira, hoping to throw her off a tree to her death. She clenched her fists, hoping that the shopkeeper in Aindel would give them a miracle that would defeat the vile empress once and for all.

  When they finally arrived in Aindel, Mira walked the streets with the strange feeling of being in a dream. It had only been a few months since she was there, but everything felt different. The observatory, which had once looked enormous, was much smaller than the one in the Ripple. Mira had remembered the buildings to be wondrous and colorful and busy, but they were nothing compared to the bustling shops in the capital.

  “So, where’s the antique shop?” Peter asked, catching up to Mira. “I bet this old shopkeeper has more enchanted objects in there, even if he doesn’t have anything merrow-made.”

  “I don’t see it...” Kay said slowly as they stopped in the middle of the town square.

  “I found it right across from the observatory.” Mira pointed along an invisible line from the tall tower across the town square to the shops. “Then I started looking around here.”

  As her eyes swept over the row of buildings, a sense of unease sprouted in the pit of her stomach. At a glance, she didn’t see the old antique shop with the big display window showing the overflowing shelves inside. Her gaze landed on a series of wooden planks that were boarding up the windows of one of the shops. She gasped, hurrying over.

  “It’s…” she began, stopping right in front of the door. She read the sign hanging above it.

  Leo’s Antique Shop

  “Closed,” Peter finished her sentence, frowning at the crossed-out sign.

  “More like deserted,” Kay said.

  Mira took a step forward and knocked on the door. She heard an echo on the other side of the wood. Kay was right: there was nothing in that shop. Not anymore.

  She spun around to face the others.

  “It can’t be a coincidence,” she said in a rush.

  “You mean you think it’s the…” Peter trailed off.

  “Shadowveils, yes,” Mira said urgently, turning to her mother for confirmation.

  Appoline considered the boarded-up shop for another moment before approaching a man passing by.

  “Sir, if you only have a moment—do you know what happened to this shop or the man who owned it?”

  The man who was walking by with a wagon overflowing with fruits barely glanced over as he grunted, “That shop there closed weeks ago. Not a word from the owner. Just packed up and left overnight. Always was a strange fella.” He grunted a few more unintelligible things under his breath as he walked out of earshot.

  Appoline turned back to Mira, her eyebrows knitted together.

  “Alexandra said this man had no clue about the merrows?” she asked quietly. “She was sure of this?”

  Mira nodded. “Do you think he was taken?”

  Appoline pursed her lips and paced in front of the shop, peeking between the boards to look inside.

  “I don’t know, my dear,” she said finally. “What would the Shadowveils want with a man who knows nothing about them, I wonder?”

  “They don’t take chances,” Kay said. He crossed his arms. “Must’ve gone after him as soon as they found out the music box came from his shop.”

  “So now they’ve got the shopkeeper imprisoned,” Mira said with disgust. How many prisoners do they have without an
yone knowing? she wondered. Peter watched her with his hands buried deep in his pants pockets, looking as uncomfortable as she felt.

  “Come,” Appoline said. She placed her hand on Mira’s shoulder and gave it a little squeeze. “There is no use lingering here and making guesses. Let’s head back home. I’ll bring this up to the council, and perhaps it’ll make it to the king.”

  They arrived back in Crispin at dusk. Peter broke off from the group when they reached the street of the puppet shop, and the rest of them made their way to their little townhouse––where a tall man was waiting for them at the door. Mira recognized him at once when he turned and strode over to them. He wore expensive clothes and peered down his nose in precisely the same way as her two least favorite people in all of Crispin: his children, Collin and Cassandra.

  “Mr. Streck,” Appoline said with a note of surprise in her voice. “What brings you here?”

  “Miss Byron,” Mr. Streck said with a stiff bow. “I was hoping I’d find you before it gets late.”

  “Has something happened?”

  “A royal carriage arrived this afternoon,” Mr. Streck said. Mira’s ears perked up, and she exchanged an excited glance with Kay. “We are being joined by a member of the king’s court tomorrow.”

  “The king’s court?” Appoline repeated in surprise. “For what reason?”

  “Is it not obvious? Our town harbors two merrows. The mayor wishes for your children to be present at the meeting for questioning.” Mr. Streck glanced down at Mira and Kay, crinkling his nose in disgust. Mira frowned and moved closer to her brother.

  Appoline pursed her lips. “Mira and Kay are as much a part of this town as you or I, and besides, King Avon questioned them enough in person,” she responded stiffly. “Why should they need to repeat themselves in front of the council, just because a member of the king’s court will be present?”

  “Our visitor is not just any member of the king’s court,” Mr. Streck said with a smirk. “He is the king’s advisor, Dane Tullor.”