Godmother Fortune is trying to get my attention. She’ll roundly deny it, insisting that I would have found the candle on my own with or without the glimmers of golden good luck in my sight. But one of the few benefits of being the goddaughter of Death and Fortune is that I can see their hands at work.
Fortune’s fingerprints have been all over this party. I’ve seen smudges of good-luck gold when I debated snatching a ring, clouds of coal-dust misfortune warning me not to empty myglohweininto an urn right before a knight turned to look my way. She and Death are supposed to leave me to my own business these days, but when Fortune’s in a mood, she can’t help but meddle.
I have yet to see Death’s hand at work here, and that’s probably for the best. It’s Fortune’s nature to poke at my boundaries, but when Death has business with you, she never needs an invitation.
AndIdon’t need my godmothers’ help. Even if I did, I can’t ask. They saw to that themselves.
Nine minutes left now.
I scowl at the luck-shine around the candle, but there’s no time to find another out of spite. I carry it over to the parlor’s balconette door and tip the lit end over each hinge. Drops of tallow run down the brass. I need to remember to check the hinges when I return so I can clean up the hardened fat. When I lift the door’s latch, it swings open glass-smooth and dead quiet.
I slip out into the night. This is my second-least favorite time of year, all damp and drizzle, with bright autumn leaves now sodden clumps of muck, and soil that can’t decide if it wants to freeze or not.
It’s still only second-worst. For me, the worst time of the year, despite all its Winterfast festivals and cheer, is midwinter.
But that’s something for Vanja to deal with; it’s not thePfennigeist’s concern.
A blanket of fog has spread over the muddy fields, and the new moon sheds no light. My breath clouds in the chill, but I can only tell when it catches the glow of torchlight two stories below. A murmur of low voices wafts up from the ground level.
The handful of guards outside will keep their backs to the walls and their eyes on the mist, perhaps looking to the fingerbone boughs of Eiswald Forest beyond.
They will not be looking up at the manor itself.
I size up the distance between the parlor’s balconette and the full balcony of the count and countess’s bedchamber. They told me themselves of their precautions against the Penny Phantom, posting not one buttwoguards outside their solar and swearing it was the only way in.
They’d even had a priest of Eiswald’s patron goddess bless their chambers to ward off ghosts.
I could have told them there were no ghosts, just me and a few creative rumors. I could have told them there were several ways into their bedchamber, they’d only ever just walked in through the solar. I could have told them not to squeal about their security measures toanyone, even if they believed Princess Gisele was too well known, too well off, to bother stealing so much as a copper bit from them.
But Ididn’t. Because here’s the thing about stealing from people like the Count and Countess von Eisendorf: Odds are they deserve it. And instead of sitting around gathering dust, their riches can go to someone who deserves to be rich.
(Me. That’s usually me.)
There’s a saying in the Blessed Empire: Little thieves steal gold, and great ones steal kingdoms, but only one goes to the gallows. I’m not sure I agree. I’ve little interest in kingdoms, but even less in dancing with the hangman. And I’ve gotten very good—great, you might even say—at stealing gold.
There’s still more distance between my balconette and their master balcony than I’d like, but it’s manageable. Besides, I did not send the von Eisendorfs so many anniversary gifts just to leave empty-handed.
I climb onto the balconette’s railing, then inch over to the timber ledge along the wall at my right. It’s not wide enough to shimmy across, but it does offer a small foothold. I steel myself, then half leap into the open air, planting my right foot on the timber and pushing off the final few feet to the master balcony. I collide with the balcony’s sturdier balustrade with a softoofand wrap my arms around the cold stone, then roll over it as quick as I can and hold my breath, listening through the pounding of my heart.
There’s not so much as a fracture in the guards’ quiet conversation below.
I push myself back up to my feet and carefully try the handles on the balcony doors. They’re locked. I figured they would be, this close to Winterfast.
Hence the gift I knew Ezbeta would keep for herself: the spiced mead.
It’s no secret that Ezbeta overindulges, and that she loves nothing so much as a good spiced mead on a midwinter night. She’s also in her forties, and likely prone to night sweats. If she’s anything like Dame von Falbirg, they’re worse when she drinks.
I check the window closest to Ezbeta and Gustav’s bed. Sure enough, it’s been left unlocked.
No dust on the sill, so she must use it as often as I suspect, and as I gently push the panes open, the silent hinges confirm it. They’ve been well greased so as not to wake Gustav when his wife needs a breath of fresh air.
It’s child’s play to climb in. There’s an entire solar between the bedchamber and the guards, so I don’t have to shed my leather boots, just step quietly. I did that for years in Castle Falbirg anyway.
Typically, the bedchamber would be left dark to conserve candles and oil. If I were a servant in this manor, though, I would leave the lamps burning on a night when my mistress was sure to stagger into her bedchamber half pickled inglohwein.
The Eisendorfs’ servants have done just that, giving me plenty of light to see by. I cross the room to the vanity, barely making a sound.
I find a story spilling from Ezbeta’s jewelry cases on the vanity, as I often do. An open box of rings to the side, with seven sitting outside it in a heap, all of them extravagant gold to match her gown’s trim this evening. All seven rings removed at once, likely at Gustav’s insistence that she not cover up her wedding band on their twentieth anniversary. Her earrings, bracelets, and necklaces lie in a similar state of disorder, but only a few have been removed from the case, like she’d chosen in a hurry in order to make up for the lack of wealth on her hands. A few precious stones, but the most valuable piece is around her neck.
