Excerpt: The Amber Thief

"Did you hear me, Jean? I wish to hire you to steal something for me.”

“Why, after seeing me so easily captured…” Jean paused with his cup at his lips. She was smiling broadly. He lowered his cup. “You hired me to rob my father’s party.” She smiled and tilted her head, and in the movement her eyes glimmered like the emeralds on her bracelets. “…so you knew I would be on the road. You didn’t want the diamond at all. You just wanted to arrest me.”

“Bravo. There is some slyness left in you, yet. Well, what do you think?”

The fact that she wanted to hire him bothered him less than the way she had gone about it. “Why the charade? Why not just summon me here?”

She trailed her fingers over the floral patterned velvet on the arm of the sofa. “Because I want everyone thinking you’re locked up. I’m quite sure you’re the only man who could do it. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m involved, and…it’s more fun this way, don’t you think? You still are my prisoner, technically. I could make you do it.”

“You could not,” Jean said, though his curiosity bubbled and his vanity flared when he heard her compliment, which he sensed was real. I’m quite sure you’re the only man who could do it... “What is it, then?”

She smiled slowly. “Are you agreeing?”

“Tell me the job first.”

“Oh, I just can’t do that, my lord.” She sat up, watching him, and stood to walk to the fire. The balance in the room shifted when she stood, but Jean let her keep the power, and didn’t stand. He liked having put her off balance. “It’s a delicate matter, and I want to know you’re in my employ, and I can trust you, before I tell you anything.”

“I don’t like that arrangement much.” They watched each other, at a brief stalemate, until Jean smiled with an idea. “Tell me what you’ll pay me for the job.”

She laughed, and lifted her eyebrows. At last, Jean sensed, the Contessa felt a glimmer of actual respect for him. Telling him the fee she was considering would let him know the approximate difficulty of the job without giving real information, and he could decide if it was worth it.

“One hundred thousand gold coins.”

Jean nearly died in that room, choking on his tea. He stood up coughing, gasping like an old man on his last breath. The Contessa swept in, surprised, to rub his back. Jean shrugged her off crudely, ducking his head, and repeating the sum through his panting.

“One hundred thousand…?”

“There,” she murmured, tsk’ing. She sounded like his mother. She patted his back and Jean stepped away to regain his composure. Half choking, half laughing – surely this was a joke?

“Fine,” he declared recklessly, wiping away tears that streamed down his cheeks from the coughing. “I accept. What is it?”

Isabela pursed her lips, then settled back on the sofa again, watching him. “I want you to bring me the butterfly amber.”

Jean paused, then shook his head, and ran a hand through his hair. “The butterfly amber. My lady, I have endured your mocking and your games. This is too much.”

“You agreed, Jean.” Her voice was low. Jean shifted his weight. The balance of power in the room landed squarely in the hands of the Contessa Lavini. “You already agreed.”

“The butterfly amber is a myth. You didn’t believe the tales your nursemaid told you, did you?”

“It’s in Valehaven. At the house of Ettore. My cousin will accompany you there and assist you if he can.” She motioned vaguely toward the door and Jean wondered if the guardsman who had befriended him might be the cousin in question.

Jean laughed, gesturing wide. “Shall I ride a unicorn there and fetch it for you? Become a knight and battle a fierce dragon to win it?”

“Do not mock me.” She didn’t move. “The amber is real. I know, of all men, that you can get it. You already agreed.”

“That was before I found out you’re mad.” His third thought of fairytales this day, Jean realized. It was becoming a very poetic day. His mother would enjoy it. “May I go now, my lady?”

“You may not. You’re still under arrest.” She sounded petulant, like a little girl.

“Fine. Perhaps the amber is real.” He stepped forward, grasping to hold some of the power that shifted in the room. “One hundred thousand gold coins isn’t enough to go chasing it. In fact,” he swore, haughty and firm, looking every inch the son of Silas Nuceri, “There is not a price in the world you could name that would compel me to go after it for you.”

The Contessa Lavini smiled. After a moment of watching him, she casually offered a different price – and made a liar of Jean Silas Rodin.

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