She dreamed she was on a message errand, but could not find her way. Too many trails cut through the woods, and she could not remember which way to go. Sometimes she rode Condor, sometimes it was Raven, and once it was a great black stallion with rippling muscles and the universe shining in his eyes.
She awoke with a gasp, only to find the lamp at a very low glow, and Cade staring out a window into the night. She rose on her elbow, wiped perspiration from her forehead.
“You’re still up.”
He stiffened at the sound of her voice and turned around. “Can’t sleep.”
The window was open and she heard the chirps of crickets. Sultry air rolled in, and she was racked by chills despite the warmth of the night.
“Are you thinking about Mill City?”
The floor creaked as Cade crossed it to sit on the bed next to hers. “Mill City, and other things. But those are for me to worry about. You should get back to sleep so you can get better.”
“What is the hour?”
He shrugged. “I’ve lost track.”
She leaned back into her pillow and closed her eyes. She did not think it would be so easy to fall back asleep. “Were you really a thief when you were young?”
“It’s true.”
“How did you become a student then?”
Cade laughed quietly. “I tried stealing from the professor.”
Karigan rolled over onto her side to face him, quite awake now. “You did?”
He nodded.
“I take it he caught you.”
Cade laughed again. “He did, indeed.”
“Well?” she said.
“Well what?”
“How did it happen? You can’t expect me to fall asleep now with just that little morsel of information.”
He stared at her, looked poised to say something, then shook his head as if he changed his mind.
“Please?” she said in a wheedling tone. “I won’t sleep till you tell me.” She could not guess what he was thinking, but his gaze became particularly intense. Then he relaxed.
“All right,” he said. “You must promise me you’ll try to sleep after.”
“I will.”
“All right.” He cleared his throat, then, “Yes, I tried to steal from the professor. He was doing an excavation in the Old City, and I thought he must have been digging up great treasure. As a boy living off trash in the street, I loved to imagine the idea of buried treasure. I saw enough Dregs earn some coins on the black market for pieces of junk they scrounged in the Old City, so I imagined I could be rich. I didn’t understand back then that you couldn’t be rich unless the empire allowed it.”
Karigan wondered what her father would make of that. In this Sacoridia, he’d never be allowed to become the successful merchant he was and would have been relegated to a life of fishing until the end of his days.
“So, I saw the professor set up his excavation, letting others do the digging, and I thought, why do all the work myself? I’d let them dig up the treasure, and then I’d just steal it.”
“Clever,” Karigan said.
“Lazy,” he replied.
“So what happened? How’d he catch you?”
“I thought I was being real careful and hid out among the ruins in a place where I could watch the excavation. When they all seemed focused on what was in the hole and were paying their tent of artifacts no heed at all, I snuck into it to find treasure.”
“Did you?”
“The professor considered it treasure—ceramic shards, pieces of rusted metal, broken glass—heaps of stuff that looked like the rubbish I saw on the streets every day, yet these were carefully arranged and labeled. I did see some shiny objects that looked like gold coins to me, and I scooped them up. I was about to put them in my pocket when the professor walked in. ‘Dear boy,’ he said, ‘what do you want with those old buttons?’”
“Old buttons? Is this when you got your nickname?”
Cade nodded. “Yes. I’d tried to steal old buttons. Old brass buttons not worth much of anything to anyone but the professor, not even on the black market.”
“What happened then?”
“He offered me some of his midday meal. I remember it well—cold fried chicken, an apple, and fresh bread that was not moldy or hard. It was ordinary fare to the professor, but to me, it was a feast of dreams. After that, he said that if I was interested in old buttons, he would pay me if I helped with the digging, and he’d also bring food. I went every day, of course, and our relationship developed from there, I becoming his student, and he my mentor.”
Cade stretched out on his bed, lying on his back with his hands beneath his head. “The professor became the father I’d never had.”
Karigan watched him, waiting for more, but soon his chest rose and fell in a slow and steady rhythm, the tension in his body relaxing. He’d fallen asleep, finally, an expression of peace on his face. She hoped his good memories of the professor lingered into his dreams.
As her own eyes started to close, it occurred to her she’d been born around two hundred years ahead of Cade. She smiled to herself thinking she didn’t feel that old. Did Cade, she wondered, like “older” women?
THE MEMORY OF HOOFBEATS
When she drifted to sleep once more, she dreamed she gazed down at Cade from atop a stone horse. He wore Weapon black, sword and pistol girded at his side. She tried to speak to him, to reach for him, but she, too, was made of stone.