Page 19 of Never the Roses

Foolish ruminations, anyway.

Giving herself plenty of time to fulfill her long list of gardening needs, Oneira stepped into the Dream well before midnight. She should be able to find her supplies relatively nearby. What she hadn’t expected—though likely she should have—was that she’d find everything she needed all in one place and not far away at all. It made sense: other gardeners in her general region would need the same soil supplements, and would want them all in one errand, also.

She loaded up the various bags and boxes, sent them all back to her house to await her return, and left coin to pay for them. The vendor also managed a small greenhouse, rich with the scents of moist soil, green, growing things, and the higher, sweeter notes of night-blooming flowers. The place reminded her of that other nighttime garden and how she’d longed to explore it. So, she strolled the aisles, the waxing moonlight filtering through the glass above, and examined the plants, reading the informational signs that accompanied them.

In the end, she found several she wanted to take home and plant in her own garden, so she left more coin—probably far too much, as she had no idea of their prices, but better that than far too little—and took her prizes back with her. Laden with her new guests, she stepped out of the Dream and into her own garden, setting the plants next to the Veredian roses, so they could all become acquainted.

Now what? She wasn’t tired, having slept and rested so much. She could read, she supposed, but she still had read every book she owned, now including the Veredian rose cultivation guide. A visit to the library might be just the thing. She wouldn’t be yielding to the impulse to see if Stearanos had left a reply, because hewouldn’t have. She simply needed to borrow a book to read. One she’d return as soon as she finished, with no teasing or other shenanigans. Really, she could do this without tipping him off that she’d been there, as she should have done to begin with.

Her impulse duly rationalized, she stepped into the Dream and followed the path that led to Stearanos.

12

His thief had not returned.

Though Stearanos made it back home early enough the following day, easily in time to sniff out any lingering trace of the nocturnal intruder, no hint of their magic remained. None of the castle denizens had been aware of having been enchanted asleep on the two previous occasions, so they wouldn’t realize if they had been tampered with again. A few had remarked on sleeping in unusually late that one morning, especially the kitchen staff who rose early to prepare breakfast. They’d worried about their lapse until Stearanos told them not to fret about it, a command given in no uncertain terms, but which reassured them regardless.

But Stearanos knew they hadn’t been enchanted asleep again. The moment he stepped across the threshold, sorcerous senses eagerly threading ahead of him to suss out any new evidence, he knew that the thief had not returned. They’d said they wouldn’t, and they hadn’t.

Still, he went directly to the library anyway, going to the book he’d left in place ofThe Adventures of the Beastly Bunny, finding it undisturbed, the note he’d left inside in its original creases. Wrestling an odd disappointment where he should be feeling relief, he put the book back and went to sit in his chair. Triggering the wards on the window frame with a thought, he sent the window flying open, needing the fresh ocean air to cleanse his mind.

Ridiculous that he’d had some sense of—what?—looking forward to the next round of taunting and nose-thumbing fromthe impudent intruder. The invasive interlude had been a break in the sameness, the dreary, infinite round of over and over his life had become. No, that it had always been. That was the only reason this excursion from the ordinary had captured his attention and anticipation. He resisted the insidious notion that he’d somehow ruined it by leaving, by missing a night. His thief might have come and left again, disappointed by his absence.

Heaving a sigh at the fanciful notion, something completely out of character for him, Stearanos pushed himself up again. He should be delighted and relieved that the criminal hadn’t returned. No one expected a sneak thief in the night to have the integrity to keep their promises, but apparently he’d been mistaken. Never mind that it hadn’t been phrased as an actual promise, more as a reassurance, albeit a provoking one.

He should be happy that nothing more had been tampered with, even if he was still missing his book. While in the imperial city, he’d taken the time to visit a few of his favorite rare book dealers. No surprise—none of them possessed a copy of the manual on growing the excessively rare and fragile Veredian roses, nor did they know of anyone who did. It had taken years to locate the copy he’d only recently acquired. He’d set them all on the quest to locate another for him, paying in advance. The bookseller who’d found the original copy for him had spoken promisingly of her ability to locate another, thinking perhaps her source might be able to access the same connection, but he wasn’t hopeful.

In the meanwhile, Stearanos had an assignment to execute and delaying would yield him nothing, except perhaps the displeasure of His Majesty. Stearanos would be paid according to his success in this ill-advised conquest, so the more he researched the Southern Lands, the better he’d be prepared. Besides which, it simply wasn’t in him to do less than his best. Much as he hatedUhtric and his wars of acquisition, Stearanos still strove to outdo himself in winning them. More than once, he considered the propensity might be a curse. Although, if he had any chance of freeing himself from debt, it lay in those victories, not in losing.

Counting the books in his mind, he moved from shelf to shelf, theme to theme, pulling every one that had anything to do with the Southern Lands. This part of the process, at least, would be interesting. He could bury himself in the research, making notes and formulating an idea of that realm. In the exercise, he could forget for a while the ultimate purpose in collating this knowledge.

As he went to a shelf in a more distant, shadowed corner, his boot ground against something gritty. Odd. Stepping back, he scanned the polished stone floor at the verge of the colorful rug, then knelt to run his fingers over the brown stuff there. Dirt. Most unusual, as his housekeeper commanded her army of cleaners with military precision. They cleaned every room in the castle on a rotation reliable as clockwork. The library had been last cleaned three days before, so this dirt incursion was new since then, which meant only one person could have introduced it: his thief.

Excited about this newest clue, Stearanos retrieved a glass vial and a small brush from his desk. He would analyze this sample for its origin and perhaps learn at least what region of the world his intruder hailed from. From there, he could follow a path of logic and reasoning to uncover their identity, and then… Victory would be his, eventually. He didn’t mind his vengeance being served cold. Back on hands and knees, he scoured the area for every grain, his nose nearly to the floor as he scavenged all available clues. “Made a mistake, didn’t you?” he murmured, feeling almost a sense of affection for the unknown magic-worker, as he placed every grain of dirt into the vial before securely corking it. “Happens to everyone, thief. The gods are in the details.”

Evidence duly gathered, Stearanos stowed his prize for alchemical analysis later and returned to his task, humming a tune now as he gathered the remaining books he needed. He took those to his desk to stack with his new acquisitions.

While visiting the booksellers in King’s City in the vain search for another copy of the book on Veredian roses, he’d also acquired a few additional relevant tomes on the Southern Lands, placing orders for still more. Good to have an excuse to buy new books, especially on His Majesty’s account. Keeping the new and uncatalogued books separate, he sorted the others into piles, categorizing by relevance and potential usefulness, the most salient to his research on top.

He’d begin there, with the books he’d already read and which he knew contained important material, refamiliarizing himself with that information. That would allow him to outline what he already knew about the Southern Lands and thus identify gaps in his understanding.

At that point, he’d delve into the new books he’d acquired, flesh out a summary of those, and then identify any further information needs. After that, he’d have to find more books or even resort to using His Majesty’s spy network. He had little trust in spies, as it meant relying on the observations of people who were sneaky by nature, with none of the scholarly discipline one could depend upon in authors of books. His own sorcery, however, didn’t adapt itself well to spying. Still, other sorcerers in the king’s stable had various tools at their command and wouldn’t necessarily be useful on the actual battlefield, so Stearanos might as well take advantage of them. Probably a number of them had been spying already, which was no doubt how His Majesty had discovered Oneira’s retirement.

Now there was an interesting riddle. The sorceress so powerfulthat her name was used to frighten children into good behavior—not to mention rapacious monarchs—abruptly washing her hands of it all. It seemed dramatic and out of character, but then Stearanos knew little about her beyond her fearsome reputation, which had leaked across the sea in dribs and drabs, tantalizing clues that washed up on their shores. Most of it had come from either those untrustworthy spies or those most ridiculously unreliable of creatures: poets. Those tellers of tales thought nothing of fictionalizing to please an audience, so Stearanos dismissed most of the ballads about Oneira as utter nonsense.

At one point, he had been given a file detailing what had been verified about her abilities, should he need to face her in combat. They called her Dreamthief and she could manipulate the world of dreaming like no other, calling anything forth from it. The poetic sagas focused heavily on the monsters and night terrors she could unleash, devastating magical and mundane opponents alike. Because Stearanos had insisted on verifiable facts only, the documents had contained little about her as a person. Red hair, no spouse, no children. A fiery temper to match the hair. That was about it.

He snorted to himself. Even if he had asked to know more, no doubt no one in her realm cared about her as a person any more than Uhtric cared about Stearanos. They were both tools—born with terrifying power and meticulously trained to harness it to be of service to the power base rather than upend it. He was more than a little shocked that they’d let her escape the leash.

Most likely she’d grown old and feeble, not wanting to spend her dotage fighting wars. Perhaps her powers had weakened with age and she’d reckoned it the better part of valor to retire from the field of battle rather than risk an ignominious defeat. That’s what he would do.

Regardless, she had somehow paid off the debt of her earlytraining, or the Queen of the Southern Lands would never have released Oneira from her blood contract. Stearanos could live his lifetime thus far over again and then some, and still not be free of his debt, so he could only imagine how ancient this Oneira must be. But even doddering sorcerers have their uses, so they’d have kept her in harness if they could have.

In the end, and despite his rather desperate envy, he wished the ancient lady well. He could allow that indulgence, as they’d never face each other in battle now. He hoped she lived long enough to enjoy some of her retirement. One less enemy in the world for him to worry about. Perhaps someday he’d be able to follow in her footsteps.

The matter settled in his mind, he set himself to taking those initial notes to create the outline he’d have James transcribe into a more legible and orderly document, the scholarly focus giving him a bit of reprieve from thinking about the no doubt horrific war to come. The project also occupied his attention enough that he barely gave thought to his nocturnal intruder—now there was an effective spy for you—and whether they’d ever return.

Though, how had they come to leave dirt behind when they were otherwise so scrupulous about leaving no trace? Muddy boots, perhaps, but that seemed unlikely. Any thief who neglected to clean their shoes couldn’t have come and gone with so little impact. There would have been other evidence.

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