The sliver of light vanished. Kildare braced a hand against the wall and stood, wincing at the way his legs ached after a half hour of crouching. Carefully, he moved the tapestry aside. The lights in the banquet hall had been extinguished, save for a couple of lanterns hanging directly over the middle of the space. A few seconds later, a loud voice announced Lord and Lady Thorne.

From his corner, wedged between the suit of armor and the support pillar, Snitch motioned to him.

Kildare glanced at the guards in front of the display room. One of them had stepped up to the gallery edge, peering with interest down into the banquet hall. The other leaned against the wall, arms crossed over his chest, looking bored.

Staying hunched, Kildare and Snitch worked their way along the gallery wall until they were at the corner to the right of the display room. Kildare’s heart hammered, and his fingers twitched as Snitch carefully leaned around the corner.

Below, Mock and Fir’s voices rose, pattering away as they tossed knives in the air, made flowers disappear and reappear behind people’s ears, and mysteriously spirited away items from peoples’ pockets, all to lilting, giddy music and the pleased gasps and applause of their audience. Kildare had watched them practice—they were good. He’d joked that if they ever stopped stealing stuff, they’d at least have the Lord and Lady Thorne act to fall back on.

“Rot it all,” Snitch muttered under his breath. “Move, you fool.” He glanced back at Kildare.

Kildare cocked his head to the side. So the guard at the door hadn’t moved. Kildare bit the inside of his lip. The Lord and Lady Thorne act would only last twenty minutes—they’d counted on both of the guards being distracted by the act. Illusory acts were so rare among countries where ley—real magic—was possible. He had figured that would give them more than enough time to get into the display room, grab the statue, and sneak out again. How many minutes had passed by? Five? Kildare cursed himself for not buying any of those newfangled wristcogs that could track the time. 

Snitch stared at him, eyes wide, waiting for Kildare to make a decision. Kildare hesitated. What to do? How could they—

A muffled gasp sounded behind them. Kildare spun and was moving before he’d even really taken in the details. He glimpsed a servant girl, young, probably a few years younger than him, and then he clamped his hand over her mouth, pushing her back against the wall. She shrieked and lashed out at him with both fists. Kildare ducked his head, letting the blows glance off one arm, then used his other hand to grab her wrists. 

She stared at him, blue eyes wide, tears gathering at the corners. She was cowering away from him. A knot of guilt twisted his gut. He leaned forward and whispered harshly to her, “Get out of here, you understand me? Don’t get involved, or I swear—” He let the threat dangle unsaid, hoping he didn’t have to finish it. Hoping it scared her enough.

She nodded, tears tracking down her cheeks.

Kildare released her and stepped back. The girl dashed the tears from her face, spun, and ran from the gallery without a sound. 

Kildare shot a glance at Snitch.

The thief was sliding his knife from the chest of the guard in front of the display room doorway. The other guard was turning, eyes wide in panic.

“Intruders!” he yelled, just as a particularly loud rush of music swelled from below.

Kildare could barely hear him, so he guessed no one in the banquet hall had. 

Snitch lunged forward, elbow cracking into the guard’s sternum. Even through the chain mail, it had to hurt. The guard stumbled back into the gallery railing. Snitch followed, knife raised.

“Snitch, no!” Kildare yelled.

The railing gave way with a loud snap.

The man screamed as he fell. There was a loud thump. Shrieks and shouts of alarm drowned out the music. . 

Kildare’s heart was in his throat as he glanced over the railing. The guard had landed on two other men, and they all lay in a groaning heap in the middle of the floor. Still alive, then. At least there was that.

“The lights! Turn on the lights!” someone shouted.

“What’s going on?”

Kildare scanned the floor for Mock and Fir and found them both at the far side of the room, standing beside someone he could only assume was Lord Datheil. Fir’s eyes were wide as he glanced around. Mock looked up, saw Kildare, and rolled her eyes.

Snitch grabbed his arm. “If you want that statue, we gotta move now, Kil!”

Kildare backed away from the railing, ran after Snitch. The other guard still lay crumpled in the doorway, moaning and rocking back and forth over the wound in his chest. Snitch knelt beside him.

“Wait.” Kildare tried to grab Snitch’s arm.

Snitch shrugged him off and, in one quick motion, drew his knife through the guard’s throat. Kildare sucked in a sharp breath as he watched the man clutch at his throat, gurgling, blood seeping between his fingers and quickly pooling on the floor. Kildare turned away.

“Had to be done, Kil. He saw our faces.” Snitch wiped his knife on the man’s tunic with a casual callousness.

Kildare swallowed back his reply, feeling his throat burn with bile, and followed Snitch into the display room.

Gas lanterns flickered along the walls of the display room, illuminating Lord Datheil’s treasures in soft orange light. At the end of the room were two large, arched stained glass windows, the windows Kildare had sat above on the roof just thirty minutes before. And between them was the statue.

“Rot,” Kildare swore quietly.

Snitch, standing watch at the doorway, turned. “What?”

“It’s bigger than our buyer mentioned.”

The rose-marble horse, carved with amazing attention to detail, was two feet tall, resting on a wooden pedestal that brought its inlaid ruby eyes to nearly his eye level. Kildare stepped up to it, trying to find somewhere where he could even get a hold of the carving. 

He glanced around the rest of the room, at the paintings hung on the wall and the other, smaller statues scattered around the room. Why couldn’t their buyer have picked anything other than this stupid horse? He’d really been hoping to snatch a few extra things to fence on the side, but this… This might take both him and Snitch, and they wouldn’t be able to move quickly.

“Rot, rot, rot,” Snitch muttered. “Kil, we got company.”

Kildare focused and, above the murmurs of noise coming from the banquet hall, he could hear the stomping of feet on the wooden gallery floor. His stomach knotted tighter as he glanced around the room. If they didn’t get the statue, the reputation he and his team had worked so hard to cultivate would plummet. Contrary to what most thought, criminals were a talkative bunch, especially if it gave them an opportunity to bad-mouth their competition.

His eyes fell on the two tall, stained-glass arched windows. Stars and stones. “Snitch!”

“Little busy here. Looks like we’re gonna have a fight on our hands.”

For the love of… He didn’t have time to argue. Kildare crossed the room at a run, grabbed Snitch’s arm, and hauled him back to the statue.

“Kil!” The thief flailed at him. “They’re gonna—”

“No. More. Killing.” Kildare shoved him at the statue. “Hang tight.”

Snitch grabbed at the horse’s ears, puzzlement crossing his face. “What’re you—”

Kil shifted.

Scales took the place of skin, first along the dark stripes on his cheekbones and neck, then the backs of his arms and hands. Kildare felt his fingernails lengthen to claws as his wings unfurled from his arms and shoulders. His panic thrummed along his scales in an almost physical touch, his heightened senses immediately picking up the smells of fear and anger and bloodlust in the men gathering outside the door. 

Snitch let go of the statue with one hand and grabbed at the throwing knives sheathed along his other arm. His eyes widened as he looked past Kildare’s shoulder.

Kildare snarled, wrapped his claws around the statue’s middle, and lunged at the window. Inwardly, the non-feral part of his brain cringed as he burst through the beautiful stained glass. But at the moment, his feral side was in full control, screaming at him to get away at all costs. Glass burst across his back, skittering across his scales.

Snitch screeched in shock and dropped his throwing knife. The thief clung to the statue’s ears with both hands and wrapped his legs around the horse’s neck. 

As soon as he cleared the window, the weight of Snitch and the statue yanked on Kildare’s legs. Rain whipped into him, instantly chilling his scales. He flapped his wings desperately. Glanced down. 

The gilt wooden roof of a carriage plummeted up to meet them. Kildare flapped again, felt something along the back of his wing give a sharp, shooting pain. Heaving with all his might, he shook Snitch loose of the statue. The thief hit the carriage roof, rolling across it and to the ground.

Kildare and the statue crashed into the carriage. The wood collapsed like wet paper under their combined weight. Splintering sounds split the air, along with the panicked shouts of the driver and the squeals of the startled horses. Kildare hit the statue’s head, bounced off it, and landed flat on his back in the rubble of the carriage’s interior.

He lay still for a moment, blinking into the rain. Without focus, his wyvern shape slowly shifted back to human. 

“Kil?” Snitch’s voice sounded like it echoed to him through a tunnel.

At least the rain felt warmer to his human skin than his wyvern scales. He tried to sit up. Throbbing pain radiated through his shoulder and down to his elbow, and he collapsed back with a yelp. He’d torn something—the joint, maybe the muscle. 

Snitch’s face appeared above his own. “Bloody idiot!” He gripped Kildare under the arms and dragged him out of the wreckage.

Kildare squirmed free and stood, wincing. Rain trickled into tiny cuts along his back and arms, courtesy of the carriage splinters. He swept his dripping hair out of his face, glancing around the courtyard. Covered lanterns blazed, creating bright pools over light that provided them very little cover. The two horses were still hitched to the carriage, stomping their feet and attempting to drag the wreckage away. The driver was nowhere to be seen. There were also no guards, although Kildare had a feeling that would change shortly.

“Blight it all, Kil. That was an overly dramatic exit.” Fir appeared around the corner of the carriage, grinning as he grabbed the nearest horse’s halter. 

“Where’s Mock?” Kil asked. He could still feel the feralness of his wyvern form itching at his skin. His ears twitched at the sound of shouts from inside the keep, and he rubbed at them. 

Fir pointed, and Kildare heard the rattle of wheels behind him. He spun.

Mock sat in the driver’s seat of a carriage—not the one she and Fir had arrived in—and tugged the horses to a stop beside them. “Stars, Kil, why did you—” She caught sight of the statue and groaned. “He didn’t say it was that big!”

“Hence the dramatic exit,” Kildare said. “Help me get it in here.”

“Kil, we don’t have time!” Snitch said, pointing.

Panic spiked through Kildare’s chest. He looked over his shoulder. A few figures staggered through the gray smoke billowing from the keep’s front door. Soldiers, from their bulky shapes. One man stumbled to his knees on the top of the steps and started coughing, hand to his throat.

It wouldn’t be long until they shook off the effects of the smoke bomb and came charging after them.

No, no, no—rot it all, we can’t — Kildare looked at Mock. “We can’t just run away from a job.” I need this money.

Fir slapped Snitch’s arm. “C’mon. With all of us working together, we can get this. Kil’s right.”

Mock rolled her eyes, hitched up her skirt, and jumped down from the carriage.

They all grabbed a section of the statue and shoved it through the door of the carriage, then climbed in. Mock resumed her place in the seat, and Snitch crawled out the back window to stand on the footmen’s rest, watching as they rattled away from the keep.

Kildare sunk back against the cushions, groaning as his arm twinged again.

“That,” Fir muttered, collapsing beside him, “was a first rate screw up, as far as I’m concerned.”

Kildare nodded and patted the horse statue’s flank. “But we got it.”

Fir threw his head back and laughed. “That’s true. We did get it.”