She danced until her heart pounded. Arms flung, legs working, bow and turn, circle with another couple, and there Conrad was to take her hand again and lead her back to the start. His gaze never left her, and she only had to see his face again to smile. Bow, cross, turn, bow again, her skirt swept behind her, the musicians quickened the beat, and she kept pace until she thought she’d trip and fall.
In one movement, a couple would touch hands briefly as they crossed to the other side of the line. It was meant to be tantalizing, a moment of flirtation, of seduction. The music lingered at the step, as though to tempt. Once, after Elsa had lost count of the rounds, she and Conrad came to this step. Instead of the touch, he picked her up. Took her by her waist, lifted her, held her close so their bodies pressed together, then he set her in her new place in the dance with a touch to her cheek. This audacity wasn’t unheard of, it had happened before—when a man had a particular fancy for the girl he danced with.
The musicians stopped for rest and drink, and the dancers paused to catch their breaths. Conrad kept Elsa by his side by holding her hand.
This wasn’t meant to happen to her. She walked in gray spaces.
And he—perhaps he really was a rogue from a legend. Perhaps that was why he’d found her, legend to legend.
“You’re a thief,” she said.
He grinned a sly fox grin. “Why do you say that?”
“You’ve got that air about you. You’re famous for it, I imagine.” By this time she had some experience with legends and thought she was right. In the stories about highwaymen and professional scoundrels, when such men weren’t utterly reprehensible, they were handsome and dashing. They swept girls off their feet. Stories were true sometimes, Elsa knew that very well.
She touched his cheek, ran her hand on the stubble. He felt warm, rough, giving.
He took her hands and pressed a coin into them. “We’re both thirsty. Buy us a flask of wine. I’ll be waiting where we left our packs.” He kissed her cheek and smiled.
The head groom warned her that the Wizard would not like her playing with Falla. But Elsa kept on, because it was so clear the mare longed for such attention. For her part, Elsa didn’t like the Wizard. He wore black leather armor, rings in his ears, and he scowled and cursed. When he had to consult with her father, the librarian and great scholar, the Wizard treated him like a common servant. Even the King was a little afraid of him. He was powerful. He had called rain from blue sky, had changed lead to gold. He rode out on his spotted mare to slay dragons and returned with the horns of the beasts slung on his saddle, the mare prancing with pride.
He was kind enough to Falla in his own way, petting her, speaking to her. But he never fed her carrots or scratched her ears. Nonetheless, Falla kept close by him, whenever he was near. Elsa’s father said Falla was his familiar, and his magic was bound to her, or came through her. But Elsa didn’t think the Wizard loved the mare.
Elsa didn’t go to buy the wine. She went away from Conrad, toward the market stalls and out of his sight. Then she slipped between a bread merchant’s stand and a fruit seller’s and went around back, made her quiet way to the copse at the edge of the market, and found a view of the tree, a strong oak that guarded the market square, where they’d left their packs together.
And there he was, crouched by her pack, searching inside it.
She stepped from her hiding place and went to him. “You are a thief. I knew it,” she said, smiling. She wasn’t angry. She had no valuables except the book, and she could see why a well-stuffed bag like hers would attract attention.
He hardly noticed her. He didn’t flinch with surprise or even glance up at her approach. Stricken, he was staring at something he’d found in her pack. He said, “And you’re the Dreamer. The prophet. Here’s the spotted horse’s coat the tales speak of. You’re her.”
She sat with him. When she moved to touch his shoulder, he cringed. He pushed himself away from her and the pack, propping himself against the tree trunk.
“What of it?” she said, a bit sadly. With him, she had almost felt normal, just a girl at a market dance.
“I never expected—I didn’t think to find—” He stared at her pack with the blank, shocked expression of someone to whom she’d just delivered a prophecy. Good or bad, they never knew what to do with her visions.
“You flirted with me just to distract me and steal from me.”
He huffed at her disbelieving tone. “It is a common enough strategy, milady. All the better when the woman’s pretty.”
The musicians were playing again, but their music sounded distant, and Elsa felt as though she heard the laughter of the townsfolk through the haze of sleep. Sun scattered flecks of light through the tree branches; their place here was shaded and separate. A breeze made the leaves rustle.
“You really think I’m pretty?”
He laughed a little and wouldn’t look at her. “You’re not supposed to be here, part of the world with the rest of us.” He made it sound like she’d done something wrong, being here with him and pretty as well.
“And what of you? You’re a famous highwayman, I know it.” He had to be, a dashing thief, a flirting rogue. “Tell me which one. The Raptor? Oslo of Pinnace? Robin of the Greenwood?” All were stories in her father’s book.
“No, none of that. I’m just a common thief, milady.”
“Don’t call me that. I’m Elsa, a librarian’s daughter. And no one has ever before called me pretty.”
“It’s no doubt hard to tell, with that horse skin pulled over your face.” She barely heard him, he spoke so softly, his face turned away.
Elsa had a daydream that she made up herself and had nothing to do with prophecy. In it, she buried Falla’s coat in a dark wood and never chanted visions again. But the story always got away from her, and instead of living free, she was pursued by Falla’s voice, which cried after her not to abandon her.
“You’re frightened of me,” she said. “Why don’t you run away? Doesn’t the Dreamer’s wrath frighten you?”