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“Hungry?” Kalistratos asks.
“Starving,” I reply.
“Me too. This way.”
He pulls me in the opposite direction of the vendors.
“Uh, Kalistratos,” I say. “Food is that direction?”
“We can’t get food without coin,” he says. “Firstthings first.”
Up ahead is a tall marble building fronted by two large columns that stand like an imposing barrier, and though I have no clue what the building is, I immediately get a bad feeling that we’re about to do something stupid.
4
KALISTRATOS
Tyler is clutching at my arm. It’s rather cute.
“What did you say?” he hisses, throwing back the hood. “Thetreasury?”
I pull the fabric back over his head. “Those Erpetosi emptied my purse when they captured me. I’ve got to refill it before we go to meet Alyx.”
“So you’re just going to steal?”
“That’s right, and you’re going to help me,” I say.
Tyler stiffens nervously as we pass two armed guards, members of the Hulaiosi wolf clan who are posted at the front of the treasury storehouse. They glare at us. One of them bares his fangs and snarls. I keep my head down so that the hood shades my eyes. There’s a dirt path that goes up a hill next to the storehouse and I turn to follow it.
“I’m not going to help you steal,” Tyler says under his breath.
“You want to eat? Then you’d better help pay your way. Anyway, it’s better to take from the treasury than snagging food off a vendor’s table. Trust me, they won’t miss it.”
“I was a security guard where I came from,” he says. “It was my job to arrest people like you.”
I grin and spread my arms. “Then arrest me!”
Tyler frowns at me, and I duck off the path behind a large rock.
“H-hey, where are you going?” he says, coming after me.
We’re on a hill above the storehouse covered in low brush, oak trees and large pillar-like rocks. I stay low, moving close to the rocks, then check to make sure we’re out of sight from the guards and anyone up on the path.
“Up this tree,” I say, quickly ascending the trunk of an old oak. Tyler stands at the bottom, staring up at me.
“I’m not doing this,” he says.
“Hurry up, before someone sees you.”
“I’mnotdoing this,” he mutters, as he attempts to scale the tree. It’s slightly alarming how bad he is at doing it. I grab his hands and pull him up.
“By the gods, even snakes climb better than you. Do you not have trees in your world?”
“Give me a break. I’m a city boy.”
“This explains nothing,” I say as I shuffle along the tree branch until I’m directly over the storehouse’s perimeter wall. I grip the branch and hang, then drop past the wall and roll when I hit the ground.
“I’m going to break my fucking neck,” Tyler says. “Jesus, I can’t believe this.”
